Question I am a practical person. I wonder whether a good philosopher is able always to answer the questions on this site with a reasonable certainty about how certain he is of his answers ("Philosopher Meta-Certainty Ability")? The readers of this site would clearly benefit from knowing the degree of certainty of the answers they read. Therefore, if the Philosopher Meta-Certainty Ability exists, then the readers of this site would clearly benefit from the answers to this site being prefaced with "I'm not so sure of this..." or "I'm really sure of this..." But the answers on this site do not have such prefaces. So it appears that either (a) the Philosopher Meta-Certainty Ability doesn't exist, (b) it does exist but the philosophers on this site are consciously not doing something that would clearly benefit the readers, or (c) it does exist but the philosophers on this site are non-consciously not doing something that would clearly benefit the readers. Either (1) there are some additional possibilities beyond (a), (b), and (c) that I am missing or (2) there are not. QUESTION: Is (1) true or is (2) true? Why? If (2) is true, which of (a), (b), and (c) are true? This line of question gets at a less intellectual question, which is "Should I act on the answer to a question that I ask on this site, given that in my life I try to make decisions only for which I have reasonable certainty?"

Accepted:

November 17, 2010