Against Certainty, Pt. 1: Knowledge and Experience | WSB #12

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How old are you? Are you sure? How sure? 100% sure?

I'm here to argue that there's is nothing we can be fully, 100% sure of. Yes, that includes the fact that there is nothing we can be fully, 100% sure of. That doesn't mean we can't know anything - I think we can. But knowledge comes in degrees of certainty, and nothing meets the requirement of full certainty: knowledge that it is logically or metaphysically impossible to be wrong about.

To establish my case, I explain the difference between knowledge and certainty. I then discuss regress issues about certainty of certainty of certainty, followed by the Agrippan trilemma and Quine and Plantinga's naturalized epistemology. Finally, I address claims to certainty of knowledge of immediate experience.

To address these, I argue that Descartes's famous cogito is flawed, that there is no such thing as the present, and that raw perceptual experience must go through a translation process before it can be understood and therefore known.

Mentioned during the episode: the interview w/ Professor Jim Slagle about Plantinga's naturalized epistemology, and the interview with Professor Graham Priest about the sorites paradox.

Next week: Against Certainty, Pt. 2: Logic

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Special thanks for Jackie Blum for the podcast art, and The Tin Box for the theme music.

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