Knowledge and Certainty

As human beings, it would seem that we dedicate ourselves to finding the ideals, the perfection and the certainty, which we believe exists somewhere out there in the world. The matter of certainty is one of significant meaning, for questions linger in the human minds which seem to be impossible to answer. We believe that certainty will bring us comfort, and resolve all of our differences concerning beliefs and knowledge. I would like to argue the contrary, that uncertainty is essential to the development of human knowledge, and that it is not essential to be absolutely certain of something in order to know or to believe it. Uncertainty is part of human life, and believing that we can overcome it has the same futility as chasing the horizon.

The epistemological question concerning the certainty and credibility of knowledge in part revolves around the definition of concepts. "Knowing", can be defined and used in many different ways, thus changing the implications of the word. In my opinion, claiming knowledge is making an affirmation concerning a certain topic based on the thought that one is aware of the answer or truth. If someone claims to know something, they will generally have a source on which they are basing their claim, be it experience, another person, reason or illumination.

The rationalist school of though will seek knowledge through the reason and reflection, as with Descartes and his "I am, I exist" statement, which proves through reason that human beings exist. This path to knowledge is in my opinion problematic, for it removes itself from the material world, which is thought to be deceiving, and does not produce knowledge which is useful in the material world, as this realm is misleading and untrustworthy anyway. The rationalists look to reason for knowledge, and arrive at conceptual knowledge through deductive reasoning, and can claim that their knowledge is certain, as reason is pure and cannot deceive them.

This having been said, certain conceptual knowledge is much less useful in everyday life than uncertain inductive knowledge gained from experience. For example, although I