The concept of certainty and implications of the view that knowledge does not require certainty

Abstract

This thesis aims at investigating the odd implications of the view that knowledge does not require certainty such as the utterances “I know p, but I am not certain that p”, “I know p, but it is not certain that p”, “I know p, but I may be wrong” and “I know p, but it is possible that not-p”. In order to do that the concept of certainty is analyzed in detail. And it is indicated that certainty is a context sensitive term. A proposition may be certain in one context while it is not certain in the other context since different contexts have different requirements for certainty. In this thesis, it is claimed that the context sensitive understanding of certainty can give an account of the oddity of these utterances together with the view that knowledge indeed requires certainty. Though most epistemologists defend the view that knowledge does not require certainty, they cannot give an account of the implications of this view. In this study, it is stated that these utterances express our intuition concerning the view that knowledge requires certainty in a contextual way.