How achievable is certainty for knowledge?

International Baccalaureate Theory of Knowledge

Carter Els

Mr. Fum/Theory of Knowledge P.2

How achievable is certainty for knowledge?

10 October 2011

Word count=545

“How achievable is certainty for knowledge? Does this vary by area of knowledge? What in the procedures by which expert knowers generate, justify, or test claims of knowledge within their area of knowledge determines the degree of certainty that is possible and thus required? Discuss this with reference to at least two areas of knowledge that, between them, represent the range of acceptable degrees of certainty across areas of knowledge.”

Certainty is when something is true beyond reasonable doubt; it is what distinguishes knowledge from mere belief. In each area of knowledge, certainty is essential in establishing that subject, however, the degree of certainty varies depending on the area of knowledge and on how information about this area is justified. For each area of knowledge, the experts are the judges of how achievable certainty is for it and they use different means to justify that assertion. Experts in the areas of ethics and the arts rely on judgment in order to decide things such as whether a piece of art is a masterpiece or whether or not lying is wrong. These areas of knowledge can be compared to others such as mathematics and natural sciences, since in these areas experts can justify their certainty through the use of pure deduction, induction and the scientific method; this is why mathematics and natural sciences are regarded with a much higher degree of certainty than the arts and ethics. Therefore, differences in the achievability of certainty vary depending on each area of knowledge and on how each area of knowledge justifies their knowledge claims.

Mathematics is the only area of knowledge that is abstract and perfect and therefore considered to have an absolute degree of certainty, while natural sciences, although regarded with a very high degree of certainty, will never achieve absolute certainty. The assertions of experts in mathematics are proven deductively and without any doubt through indisputable proofs and by operations that culminate in a result that can never be overturned regardless of any possible future observations. Meanwhile, the knowledge of experts in natural sciences can be justified through inductive reasoning and the scientific method involving the formation of generalizations based on ...

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Mathematics is the only area of knowledge that is abstract and perfect and therefore considered to have an absolute degree of certainty, while natural sciences, although regarded with a very high degree of certainty, will never achieve absolute certainty. The assertions of experts in mathematics are proven deductively and without any doubt through indisputable proofs and by operations that culminate in a result that can never be overturned regardless of any possible future observations. Meanwhile, the knowledge of experts in natural sciences can be justified through inductive reasoning and the scientific method involving the formation of generalizations based on a limited current experience. Since newer and more precise observations or experiments can be conducted, these generalizations can be proven wrong thus giving the area of natural sciences a lesser degree of certainty than mathematics, but a high degree nonetheless.

While mathematics and natural sciences are considered to have high degrees of certainty, the arts and ethics are regarded with a much lesser degree of certainty since these two areas of knowledge are concerned with human actions and the use of judgment rather than deductive or inductive reasoning. The area of ethics relies on consistency in order to justify its knowledge and certainty whereas the justification of the arts relies on the relationship between an artist and his audience in which the audience recognizes and accepts the artist’s work. The use of judgment is crucial when there is uncertainty and no fixed rules apply and since both the arts and ethics involve uncertainty, they require the use of judgment.

The arts and ethics rely on human actions and judgment in order to justify their certainty, and since human behavior is inevitably linked to uncertainty, these two areas of knowledge are held to a low standard of certainty. On the other hand, the areas of mathematics and natural sciences are held to the highest standards of certainty due to their use of deductive and inductive reasoning ( , "Knowledge as Problematic"). This demonstrates that the achievability of certainty varies with each area of knowledge and depends on how the experts of each area justify their knowledge claims.