Knowledge or certainty?

Question

what do we know... are we certain of that? Why is there a contrast or exclusion between knowledge and certainty?

Answer 1

Knowledge in the philosophical context is certain truth.
And everywhere else it's hyperbolic or sufficient.

Clearly our science is defeasible -- is open to every law being false -- so absolute truths are quite assertoric in nature, and thus hard to justify.

We don't want to say we have no knowledge of the world. This is a thesis of skepticism. But it also happens to be hard to defend against. One way out was offered by Williamson who said there's an insulation between the philosophical context and the ordinary usage of "knowledge". This allows us to speak meaningfully in one domain without it infecting the other.

Answer 2

Great question! This blows my mind too. Has since college.

We can be objectively certain in particular things when experienced concretely. However, one person's subjective experience can differ from another's.

Certainty is temporal by this definition because once an experience has passed it becomes subjective - how our minds recall the event.

For example, consider that you and I watched an apple fall from a tree. We both saw it happen together. Now consider that we told others about the event. Our subjective experience, or knowledge, will be obvious in the differences in our stories.

Do the differences in our recollection change the fact that we did, in fact, see the apple fall? Not at all. But outside that event in its moment of occurrence certainty is not concrete but reasonable.

Answer 3

They seem like synonymns, but certainty might be used to back up knowledge. It depends more on the outside world. What about knowledge vs belief?

Answer 4

If we believe that external world is a factor which is created to influence us then there cannot be certainty, for we are becoming victims of the world and at the best fight with the world laws in order to succeed. That what we do for centuries. If we know that external world is nothing else but reflection of ones own internal world, then one must make sure that he/she is certainty itself...external world will reflect that certainty back in forms of its manifestations. Manifested certainty is a matter of conscious creation, my friend.

Answer 5

Knowledge is data and certainty is confirmation of what is or will be. Wisdom is borne of knowledge and experience first hand.

Answer 6

Knowledge is the process of gaining intelligence
Certain is an adverb that means FIXED, SETTLED, DEPENDABLE, RELIABLE, INDISPUTABLE
INEVITABLE, DESTINED there is no contrast or exclusion because they arn't even on the same page!

Answer 7

I think certainty is ... the presence of FACTS
and knowledge is your acceptance of facts that are presented to you and then learned...

Answer 8

Knowledge includes experience also....
Certainty is experience predominant in it, and may exclude knowledge .

Answer 9

nothing is certain. that's the philosophy of chaos. interestingly, a philosophy is now a foundation in quantum physics. so it is most certainly true. but, only this time.

Answer 10

knowledge.