can we know certainty?
I don’t think we can know everything with certainty. I think certainty only applies to simple questions, the ones whose answers can easily be arrived at by all people everywhere. If the answer is to a question of value, meaning, or experience, the question probably won’t even be posed the same way every time, and even if it is, it’s possible to come up with equally valid, but different answers.
I think it is merely an assumption that, since we can have certainty with some things, that we should have certainty with everything. Some people need that. Certainty isn’t certainty for them somehow, if it is limited to certain questions. We tend to equate certainty with truth. If we know something for certain, then we assume that what we know is true, but since there are some things which are answers to questions, and so therefore must have some truth, I don’t think certainty is the only criterion for truth.
The best definition for certainty that I can find is that, if one is certain of the answer to a question, the same answer will result every time the question is asked. This is how we can have mathematical certainty, because every time I add two and two, I get four, and the same is true for anyone else. These are the things that can be known with certainty.
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