Quote
Nathaniel Givens
March 13, 2019 at 10:51 am
Geoff – AUS
I am not sure that knowing something that can’t be known isnt a dangerous self delusion that leads to over confidence in our judgement v scientific truth.
There’s a solid case to be made (Hume has made it) that we can’t really know anything. So where does that leave us?
It’s reasonable to embrace a set of propositions as true even if we know very well that we can’t actually be certain. If you take Hume seriously (I do), we have no other choice. Especially since beliefs are revealed in actions more than in words. Which is to say that even if you try (sincerely!) to reject any proposition that you can’t prove with certainty, your day-to-day life is going to give away the fact that–implicitly–you do, in fact, operate on a whole suite of assumptions that you can’t hope to prove.
They key isn’t to restrict ourselves to only believing what we can prove. That is impossible. The key is to be aware of the fact that we’re operating on assumptions that we can’t (and haven’t) proven.
(Not sure if this is agreeing with your or disagreeing, to be honest!)Share
Sign In to comment on this quote
