the problem of certainty of knowledge

THE PROBLEM OF CERTAINTY OF KNOWLEDGE.

To study the problem of certainty of knowledge, we must point out a distinction between knowledge, according to his purpose.

There is a consciousness in which certainty is something that must be demonstrated as a requirement of truth, such is the knowledge of science and philosophy.

But there is another knowledge that we call everyday knowledge or practical knowledge, in which the requirement of certainty is of other features.

Our problem could be formulated as follows: When can we be certain that our knowledge is true? When will our knowledge really practical? We could say that our practical knowledge is true when it is in line with reality, but when is in line with reality? To address this question we must distinguish two ways of practical knowledge, ideas and beliefs.



IDEAS AND BELIEFS.

All men come up with ideas (in the words of Jose Ortega y Gasset) which may be either yours or others. Every man has what is called "ideas" that governed his thinking.

But the mindset of every man, may manifest in two ways: thinking and acting.

As a man thinks, think about something and that something is an idea that is valid for the common man's idea to the idea of ​​the scientist.

These are the ideas of men. But when the man acts, there are other thoughts that are never formulate thoughts which account (following the formulation of Ortega).

José Ortega y Gasset has a very clear example: when a person decides to go outside, even when you can think about every single detail of his decision to leave the street and on each of the movements required to do so, hardly shall decide on the possibility of street or not, the existence of the street is something that is available.

Just as the street in the example above, there are many other thoughts with which the man has and does not even ask, it is thought that effectively govern their lives, their actions. These are the beliefs of men.



THE PROBLEM OF TRUTH. THE NATURE OF TRUTH. THE PROBLEM OF TRUTH.

In traditional philosophy has seen the truth as a formal problem: how to explain the consistency of thought with reality.

Solutions to this problem have led to very different ideas about knowledge. Veamos.Desde an extreme view it is considered that all that is made by our understanding that there really is something that is as it has been formulated.

The theory of knowledge that is behind this idea about the truth of knowledge is what sustains our mind is merely a reflection of reality: reality is imposed on the mind and knowledge corresponds to reality.

But these thinkers soon realized that among other men might have different ideas on the same issue, there might be differences of opinion about something.

To overcome this difficulty, began to make the distinction between opinion and reason, showing that the latter is the only one that can provide a true knowledge of reality.

When human reason is able to overcome the appearance of things and was able, after the manner of intellection of its own, to distinguish the essence of them, has come to the truth.