Is Certainty Possible

How Is Certainty Possible?

Certainty is defined as being free of doubt. In philosophy is there such a thing that we know without any doubt? Do we know anything with absolute certainty? Although we may believe to have genuine knowledge in some cases, there are other cases in which we do not know, but only think we know. Now therein lies the problem, how do we distinguish what is absolutely certain and what is not? This is why the idea of knowledge and certainty is so important. Both empiricists and rationalists have attempted to determine this.
When you know something you not only have an opinion, but that opinion is true. Now how do we distinguish which opinions are true. We can't just say because we believe something, it is true.
In order to disprove skepticism, Descartes decided to use skepticism. He would out-doubt skeptics by doubting everything he had ever believed until he arrived at something that could not be doubted. While doubting everything he believed he also found a way to doubt the empiricists' view, the view that knowledge comes from the senses. His first reason for doubt is the common experience of being deceived by the senses. People sometimes suffer from delusions, such as the insane and those on drugs. Other instances in which the senses mislead us are mirages, deliriums, and delusions stemming from fever. For these people what reality seems to them is not real at all. Another ground for doubt is that, while sleeping, we dream. While dreaming we believe what is happening is real when in fact its not. It is only upon waking that we can tell the difference between the real world and the dream world. How can we be sure that we are not in fact in a dream world at this moment? Its sort of like the Matrix. In the movie the main character is in a dream world his entire life up until others come to free him. If it weren't for them he would've been in that dream world his entire life and would not have known the difference. In trying to achieve certainty, Descartes tried to establish something that cannot be doubted. It then occurs to him that the act of doubting itself is the
What could be more obvious than the view that the senses are the only dependable source of knowledge? "Seeing is believing," as we would say. Empiricists argue that there is nothing in the mind that was not previously in the senses, the senses are the only means we have of knowing anything. Locke, an empiricist as well, argues that "senses give us a sort of alphabet of knowledge. Just as we take twenty-six simple letters and combine them in units of ever increasing complexity-words, sentences, etc. So in learning, we begin with simple impressions, which are then combined into units of increasing complexity. We can recall to mind past sensations through the power of memory, and we can combine sensations and the ideas resulting from them in fanciful ways through the power of the imagination." The only problem with this is what about things we do not personally experience? If we cannot appeal to our present sense impressions, or summon past impressions from our memory, how do we extend our knowledge of things? This is where Hume comes in. He points out that the principle of cause and effect is the link that ties our present experience of the world to other possible experiences of the world both past and future. We can assume that the sun will rise everyday because we have seen it rise everyday. However the problem with this is that we cannot be certain that the sun will rise everyday. Cause and