Certainty (Hackett Readings in Philosophy) [Hardcover]

Jonathan Westphal (Author, Editor)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 154 pages
• Publisher: Hackett Pub Co (March 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0872203190
• ISBN-13: 978-0872203198
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,892,091 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Can we be certain what certainty means?, September 24, 2003

By 

Frango Nabrasa (Manatee, FL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Certainty (Hackett Readings in Philosophy) (Paperback)

This short book is a collection of fifteen succinct pieces involving the word `certainty'. Many are already famous passages by influential authors from various ages and of various persuasions including Plato, St. Augustine, St. Thomas, Descartes, Hume, and Wittgenstein.
Certainty is not knowledge. To get clear about this notice the many cases where one person is certain that a given proposition is true and another person is just as certain that it is false. No proposition is known to be true by one person and known to be false by another. You can be certain of that. Some people who were certain that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in early 2003 are now certain that Iraq has not had weapons of mass destruction for years.
O. W. Holmes, Jr. once said that certainty is not the criterion of knowledge. Mark Twain said that some people are certain of things that are not so. Cerveja De Barril said that for impulsive people degree of certainty is often inversely proportional to weight of evidence. Religious people have sometimes held that the measure of merit of a person's faith is the degree of its implausibility; the more implausible a religious proposition the more merit there is in being certain that it is true.
The point that may be uncertain now is why anyone should make a collection of fifteen discourses on certainty. Another point of uncertainty is why philosophers should consider as a deep problem the question: what can we be certain of? Why would anyone care about certainty if it is so subjective and unreliable?
As you have probably gathered form the title of this review, the word `certainty' is ambiguous. In the subjective sense used above certainty is less than knowledge, it is a subjective feeling involving a belief. In the objective sense used in this book it is more than knowledge, it is a state of belief rooted in more than just understanding, experience, marshalling and weighing evidence, and judiciously coming to an unforced decision. This is worth the fifteen pieces, which are well worth the thirteen bucks.