Status of Knowledge
Certainty
The degree to which doubt about a claim has been closed off. Certainty is a state of the knower, not of the claim, which is why a claim can be true without anyone being certain of it and why confidence and reliability can come apart badly.
How secure or true a claim is. These concepts ask what we are entitled to say about a claim once it is supported: whether it is settled, whether it could be wrong, and whether its standing depends on who is asking.
IA prompts this concept is central to
The wording is the guide’s, exactly. Quote it as it stands.
- IA prompt 03What features of knowledge have an impact on its reliability?Reliability and certainty are easily conflated. A reliable method can leave a knower unsure, and a confident knower can be using an unreliable one.
- IA prompt 04On what grounds might we doubt a claim?The prompt asks what legitimately opens a claim back up, which is a question about how doubt is closed off in the first place.
- IA prompt 08To what extent is certainty attainable?The prompt is a direct interrogation of the concept, and its force comes from noticing that certainty is a state of the knower rather than of the claim.
- IA prompt 18Are some things unknowable?Unknowability comes in degrees: not yet known, not knowable by us, and not knowable in principle are three different claims with different consequences.
Prompts where it is a useful second angle
Certainty under the knowledge framework
Only the elements where this concept has something substantive to say. An empty pairing is left dimmed rather than padded.
The certainty available in a field is a feature of the field, not a measure of its rigour. Mathematics can offer proof because of what it is about; the human sciences cannot, and reading that as a deficiency mistakes scope for weakness.
Methods do not only produce results, they produce a warranted level of confidence in them. Confidence intervals, error bars, source triangulation and the standards of proof are all machinery for saying how certain a knower is entitled to be.