Topics Knowledge

Question Does knowledge require the impossibility of doubt?

Accepted:
November 24, 2005

Comments

In a word, no. In more than a word, it depends, of course, upon how one defines "knowledge." Knowledge is determined or produced through specific sets of procedures and practices such as logical inference, corroborated observation, inspection, controlled experiment, etc.; and even the best of these procedures, at least in their application, admit the possibility of doubt. Now, it's true that some philosophers (e.g. Descartes) have cast knowledge as requiring absollute certainty or the complete absence or elimination of doubt. (I'm assuming here that by impossibility of doubt you mean the absenceor elimination of doubt.) But, as far as I can see, it makes more sense and people are better off acknowledging human finnitude and abandoning this requirement. Interestingly, you didn't ask whether "truth" or "certainty" require the impossibility of doubt. Consider how those questions might lead to different answers.

As philosophers typically analyze it, knowledge requires belief, truth, and some kind of justification or reliability; but not certainy or the impossibility of doubt. Yet when I tell my wife that I know that the play starts at 8pm and she replies, 'Are you certain?', I find it difficult to reply, 'No, I'm not certain; but I know'.

Question Does knowledge require the impossibility of doubt? Accepted:November 24, 2005

Question Does knowledge require the impossibility of doubt?

Accepted:
November 24, 2005