You are hereResearch Seminar: Luca Zanetti on 'The Quest for Certainty'
Research Seminar: Luca Zanetti on 'The Quest for Certainty'
Luca Zanetti will present his paper 'The Quest for Certainty'
Cognition aims at possessing absolute certainty, the kind of certainty that Descartes was looking for in his Meditations. The argument relies on the nature of doubt. To doubt whether p is true is possible in so far as one takes p to be uncertain. When we doubt whether p is true we are aiming to be certain that p is the case. I can't judge that p if I am doubting whether p is the case. Thus, a judgment will be hostage to doubt in so far as one doesn't take oneself to possess absolute certainty for the content to be judged. Moreover, doubt has unconditional authority, in that any content can be endorsed through judgment only if it passes the test of doubt. No judgment can downplay the authority of doubt, for any judgment is hostage to a doubt unless the judgment is shown to be certain – that is, unless it is shown to pass the test of doubt. Therefore, the dynamic of cognition displays a constitutive desire for absolute certainty. This discovery has profound consequences for epistemology, and the theory of normativity more generally. Externalist and fallibilist epistemologies can't be the whole story about epistemic appraisals, for they fail to capture the fundamental dimension of epistemic evaluation that corresponds to the constitutive norms that cognition sets upon itself. Moreover, if certainty is the constitutive aim of cognition, then there is no plausible story that could downplay the importance of a quest for certainty.
Venue: via Azzo Gardino 23, Sala Rossa.