Philosophical "truths" are inevitably derived through processes of reasoning that traverse the boundaries of induction and deduction. So they are not amenable of proof as in mathematics, or verification, as in science. Rather, they evolve through consensus. However, since cumulative experiences (knowledge) are invariably variable, my understanding of the inherent truth of the allegory of the cave, for example may be different than yours, and Plato's. Some philosophers argue that an author's intentions establish the definitive content of his claims. Some believe that writings only achieve their fullest elaboration through their readership.

For me, the one constant seems to be that everyone now agrees that there is an interface between mind and matter. There is just a lot of disagreement over which side has priority, and where exactly that interface occurs.....

I guess I'm talking more about what Descartes was doing explicitly in "Meditations", or Kant in "Critique of Pure Reason" only slightly less explicitly, or even Hume or Wittgenstein. The search for "first principles". I mean surely we can agree that's a thing, right?

It feels a bit like saying "there's no foundation that is impervious to natural disasters, so you can't build a house" or "all houses are subject to possibly being ruined by natural disaster, so you may as well build anywhere". — Reformed Nihilist

Not quite. All houses are subject to possibly being ruined by natural disaster, but I need somewhere to live, so I'll do the best I can. That seems like a good analogy for philosophy. That's where philosophy ends - I'll do the best I can.

Not quite. All houses are subject to possibly being ruined by natural disaster, but I need somewhere to live, so I'll do the best I can. That seems like a good analogy for philosophy. That's where philosophy ends - I'll do the best I can. — T Clark

Then where does the fascination with certainty come from?

Then where does the fascination with certainty come from? — Reformed Nihilist

Too many philosophers with too much time on their hands. In this world, everyone knows you put your money down and take your chances. That rubs some people the wrong way.

I feel like you are being dismissive about an aspect of philosophy that is deeply rooted in its history, and still exists in a very broad sense in modern philosophy.

A long look at the history of philosophy shows a commonly recurring theme. It shows the attempt to create/discover some fundamental bedrock of certainty upon which we can build a foundation for all knowledge and wisdom — Reformed Nihilist

I wouldnt say that Wittgenstein was looking for first “principles”, but rather that thinking which gives a unity to experience. The same is true of Heidegger, Nietzsche and the phenomenologists The search for certainty you have been talking about is the certainty of a particular structural content, and after Hegel that ideal was abandoned for the most part. Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer and those who came after took a different approach.

There is a way of grounding experience without making recourse to a particular content , a particular truth. The ground can instead be self-reflexive It can have change, transformation, temporality built into its very premises. It can focus on self-similarity , relationality and harmoniousness rather than perfect identity. It can show that integration and differentiation, sameness and otherness go hand in hand.

Then where does the fascination with certainty come from? — Reformed Nihilist

The fascination with certainty comes from the nature of fascination itself. Or more precisely, from
the nature of desire. Our way of being is anticipatory. The meaning we see in things comes in part from what we project forward into them with our expectations. So the desire for certainty arises out of of the fact that we are anticipatory beings. We are sense-making.

I wouldnt say that Wittgenstein was looking for first “principles”, but rather that thinking which gives a unity to experience. The same is true of Heidegger, Nietzsche and the phenomenologists. There is a way for grounding experience without making recourse to a particular content , a particular truth. The ground can instead be self-reflexive It can have change built into its very premises. — Joshs

I guess we differ on Wittgenstein then (or maybe not). At worst, he was analyzing first principles, or maybe in a sense the very notion of first principles. I mean just the title "On Certainty" sort of intimates what I'm talking about. But Descartes and Kant are definitely better examples, which is why I put them first.

I'm much less versed in continental philosophers, and only know Heidegger by reputation (both good and bad), but I definitely got the sense from Nietzsche that his very approach only existed and made sense only in juxtaposition to the "sensible" rules that had been formally derived in the proper way from first principles. I feel like if there were no established tradition of first principles, then there could be no Nietzsche as we know him. Same could be said about Foucault. So it seems like one is either searching for the fundamental certain truths, or disabusing others of the notion of such truths.

Maybe that's what I'm trying to do here, which doesn't make me much different than the continentals that I generally find annoyingly vague. It just seems to me that you can't end up where Wittgenstein, Nietzsche and Foucault did (that's an odd triplet), never mind Descartes or Kant, if the presumption that there is a bedrock of certainty somewhere to be discovered isn't part of where you started. Get me?

The fascination with certainty comes from the nature of fascination itself. Or more precisely, from
the nature of desire. Our way of being is anticipatory. The meaning we see in things comes in part from what we project forward into them with our expectations. So the desire for certainty arises out of of the fact that we are anticipatory beings. We are sense-making. — Joshs

While I think I agree with the statements you made, I don't see how they answer the question. I'm asking why there is such a large amount of thought and text in the history of philosophy devoted to certainty. I feel as though the question of certainty, if and to what degree it can be attained, if it is binary or on a continuum, and if it represents a state of the world or a state of mind, underlies in some pretty substantial ways, most of the debates in philosophy. If we discarded the idea that certainty, as a state of affairs in the world, was either meaningless or indistinguishable, how would that inform our approach to questions like idealism vs realism? Determinism vs. free will?

It just seems to me that you can't end up where Wittgenstein, Nietzsche and Foucault did (that's an odd triplet), never mind Descartes or Kant, if the presumption that there is a bedrock of certainty somewhere to be discovered isn't part of where you started. Get me? — Reformed Nihilist

But the critique of bedrock certainty began a long time ago, and philosophers like Heidegger were already onto a critique of what came after( for instance , Derrida’s deconstructions of Heidegger and Foucault).

Put differently, they are interested in more than negative critique, in what we can’t do or shouldn’t believe, but are offering positive ideas in their own right, ways of seeing the world in intimate relationships al terms unavailable to those philosophies of certainty. What philosophers like Nietzsche and Wittgenstein are doing is showing us a more intricate order hidden within the order of ‘certainty’ that older philosophies offered.

Put differently, they are interested in more than negative critique, in what we can’t do or shouldn’t believe, but are offering positive ideas in their own right, ways of seeing the world in intimate relationships al terms unavailable to those philosophies of certainty. What philosophers like Nietzsche and Wittgenstein are doing is showing us a more intricate order hidden within the order of ‘certainty’ that older philosophies offered. — Joshs

Okay, I think we are saying the same thing, but with a different spin. I'm not lamenting the entire lack of philosophy that goes beyond the notion of the bedrock of certainty, I'm noting the existence and deep and pervasive roots of the notion in western philosophy, and perhaps if I am lamenting anything, it's that it is still incredibly pervasive.

While I think I agree with the statements you made, I don't see how they answer the question. — Reformed Nihilist

I dont think the central question is why philosophers have desired certainty, but how , in their quest to make sens out of a chaotic world, the notion of certainty appeared to them as something attainable. So the primary goal was never certainty but predictability, and for a period of philosophical history the concept of certainty made sense. as a way to achieve this goal. The rapid and profound successes of the natural sciences in the 17th and 18th centuries , which were based on a mathematical logic which presupposed the certainty of a cognizing subject, reinforced and encouraged the idea of rational
certainty.

I'm noting the existence and deep and pervasive roots of the notion in western philosophy, and perhaps if I am lamenting anything, it's that it is still incredibly pervasive. — Reformed Nihilist

Maybe. But there are plenty of places , not only in philosophy but in the sciences themselves , where the notion of certainty is no longer taken so seriously , like postmodern quantum theory , and ecological biology.

I dont think the central question is why philosophers have desired certainty, but how , in their quest to make sens out of a chaotic world, the notion of certainty appeared to them as something attainable. So the primary goal was never certainty but predictability, and for a period of philosophical history the concept of certainty made sense. as a way to achieve this goal. The rapid and profound successes of the natural sciences in the 17th and 18th centuries , which were based on a mathematical logic which presupposed the certainty of a cognizing subject, reinforced and encouraged the idea of rational
certainty. — Joshs

I don't think I agree with this analysis entirely. I think that there has been a search for, a belief in, and a feeling of a need for absolutes in philosophy as far back as it is recorded. Aristotle was constantly on the search for first principles, as was Aquinas later. Even in common language, the notion of "proof" and even "knowledge" to the average person implies inerrancy (even though we all know no one is immune to error). I suspect it might be something deeper than what you are suggesting.

I suspect it might be something deeper than what you are suggesting. — Reformed Nihilist

Or maybe it’s something shallower than what I’m
suggesting. That is , if you look at the etymological history of terms like ‘certainty’ ‘absolute’ and ‘truth’ since the Greeks, you’ll find that the way people have understood them has changed continuously over time.

So a claim like “there has been a search for, a belief in, and a feeling of a need for absolutes in philosophy as far back as it is recorded” has to be filtered through these changing senses of meaning of such terms over the course of Western cultural history. For instance, today absolute certainty is connected with absolute
objectivity. But prior to Galileo, the meaning of subject and object were precisely the reverse of what they mean today.

Perhaps. I'm not fluent in Latin, or an expert in linguistic archeology (if that's even a thing).

Is this a fool's errand? — Reformed Nihilist

I am sympathetic to this line of thought, although I think that ground - ground of all being, or ground of all knowledge - would be a more appropriate word here than certainty. (Of course, those who plump for some such ground will disagree, like @Joshs with his phenomenology.)

The project of metaphysics is bullshit... seriously ask yourself why would you believe in something that has no apparent reason, nor any sense evidence at all (which by definition it has not).

There is no reason at all.... to believe in any of it.

I feel like you are being dismissive about an aspect of philosophy that is deeply rooted in its history, and still exists in a very broad sense in modern philosophy. — Reformed Nihilist

I often call myself a pragmatist, so suspecting me of some bias is probably reasonable. Still, every philosopher who denies the possibility of certainty still goes about their life as best they can with whatever limited certainty they can find. Descartes recognized the futility of "I think, therefore I am," as a guide to living.

A long look at the history of philosophy shows a commonly recurring theme. It shows the attempt to create/discover some fundamental bedrock of certainty upon which we can build a foundation for all knowledge and wisdom. Some singular truth that is irrefutable and inerrant from which we can derive the other truths of the universe. — Reformed Nihilist

A snippet from a Catholic philosopher: '[There is a] close connection between moral and intellectual virtue. Our minds do not – contrary to many views currently popular – create truth. Rather, they must be conformed to the truth of things given in creation. And such conformity is possible only as the moral virtues become deeply embedded in our character, a slow and halting process. We have lost the awareness of the close bond that links the knowing of truth to the condition of purity. That is, in order to know the truth we must become persons of a certain sort. The full transformation of character that we need will, in fact, finally require the virtues of faith, hope, and love. And this transformation will not necessarily – perhaps not often – be experienced as easy or painless. Hence the transformation of self that we must – by God’s grace – undergo perhaps resembles passing through something akin to dying.'

Science preserves one aspect of that kind of detachment, through the effort to rise above subjectivity and arrive at an understanding which is true for any observer. But overall, science omits the concern with ethics which is evident throughout the Platonic literature. And finding foundational truths within the objective domain is frustratingly difficult.

And finding foundational truths within the objective domain is frustratingly difficult. — Wayfarer

Some might argue that we didn't just kill god, we killed truth, beauty and goodness.

In the empirical world, there are no guarantees in regard to final evidence, much less to "ultimate statements or judgments" about the nature of the world and the relationship we may have with it via our knowledge.

It's been established since Newton, explored by Locke, Hume and Priestley (among others), that our innate ability of understanding does not reach such high ambitions as understanding the world nor of being able to give an account for it that we can intuitively comprehend.

It's not impossible that another intelligent species somewhere else in the universe (of they exist), could have such a capacity of understanding which we lack. But we're stuck with what we have, which is plenty.

Descartes recognized the futility of "I think, therefore I am," as a guide to living. — T Clark

I don't think he did. In fact, he derived a proof of God based on it, and lived a religious life because if it, at least according to him (I suspect it was post-hoc rationalization, but who am I to say). What you are describing is closer to what I think was CS Peirce's critique (it might have been a different philosopher) of Descartes, referring to his radical skepticism as "sham doubt" or "paper doubt", meaning he didn't actually doubt that he existed until it occurred to him that existing was a prerequisite for thinking, he just imagined doubting. That it was just a theoretical proposition.

Some might argue that we didn't just kill god, we killed truth, beauty and goodness. — Tom Storm

Those ideals don't fit with liberal individualism. As soon as you name them, the question comes back, 'whose truth?'

It's not impossible that another intelligent species somewhere else in the universe (of they exist), could have such a capacity of understanding which we lack. But we're stuck with what we have, which is plenty. — Manuel

While that's certainly true, is there any reason to believe that there could exist a species that is so intelligent that it could attain an understanding of some aspect of the universe with perfect certainty? Do you really think it is the limits of our intelligence that is the limiting factor?

I am sympathetic to this line of thought, although I think that ground - ground of all being, or ground of all knowledge - would be a more appropriate word here than certainty. (Of course, those who plump for some such ground will disagree, like Joshs with his phenomenology.) — SophistiCat

Not quite sure I'm understanding the distinction you're trying to make. Can you expand?

I don't know. Maybe.

Then again, it might also be the case that in simply having a perspective, intelligent species cannot, as it were, get out of a perspective to view nature from a "view from nowhere", as Nagel puts it, to see how things are without an interpreting mind of some kind.

I'd guess that I could say that such a species could have more certainty than what we can achieve, but perhaps not perfect certainty. However, this is pure speculation.

Then where does the fascination with certainty come from? — Reformed Nihilist

Philosophers have been enamored with it since the time of Plato at the latest. The certain, the eternal, the unchanging, were felt to be superior to the uncertain and mutable. Nature, the world and our lives in it are subject to change and uncertainty, and so were considered inferior; even less than real. It may be the result of a psychological or religious need people have, I don't know. The result was

What you are describing is closer to what I think was CS Peirce's critique (it might have been a different philosopher) of Descartes, referring to his radical skepticism as "sham doubt" or "paper doubt", meaning he didn't actually doubt that he existed until it occurred to him that existing was a prerequisite for thinking, he just imagined doubting. That it was just a theoretical proposition. — Reformed Nihilist

No, it was Peirce alright.

The certain, the eternal, the unchanging, were felt to be superior to the uncertain and mutable. [...] It may be the result of a psychological or religious need people have, I don't know. — Ciceronianus

Yup. Reminds me of hypotheses such as that of the block universe, of causal determinism, or of everything being physical, all of which are are so popular nowadays: each maintaining an absolutely certain, eternal, and immutable world, else grounding aspect of it. :smile: