Tag
Certainty
Entries tagged certainty.
3 entries
Deduction Versus Induction
Deduction transmits truth from premises to a conclusion that is certain only if those premises are true, while induction reaches beyond what was observed to a claim that can never be more than probable, and mixing up which engine you are running mislabels how sure you are entitled to be.
5 min
ConceptEpistemic humility versus relativism
admitting a belief of yours could be wrong concedes something about you as a knower, while relativism denies that there is a single fact to be wrong about, and running the two together turns a virtue of inquiry into a reason to stop inquiring.
6 min
ConceptSkepticism and its limits
someone can grant, honestly, that they cannot prove they are not dreaming right now, or being deceived by something far more powerful than they are, and then get up and act on the ordinary world anyway; a skeptical argument has to say what that gap costs the person who takes the doubt seriously enough to press it all the way.
5 min