Today the PRESS DEMOCRAT ran two columns worth comparing. The first was by George Will, reprinted from the Washington Post. Will points out that the problem with Trump is “that he does not know what it is to know something.”
If you say that you know something, you are claiming to have a reasonable argument or a set of facts that prove you are probably right. Trump doesn’t grasp that. His notion of evidence is to claim that many people are saying that the earth is flat or whatever.
Knowledge isn’t certain. That is, knowledge can always be doubted. By definition, what is certain cannot be doubted (and it isn't knowledge).
Wittgenstein clarified the difference between certainty and knowledge. If I say I know my wife has brown eyes, I can produce a photo to prove it. But what if she always secretly wears brown contact lenses? I might be mistaken. That’s knowledge. I know my wife has brown eyes.
The second column is by Bret Stephens, the New York Times’ new babbler. He argues that because many people predicted that Hillary Clinton would win the Presidential election and turned out to be wrong, we can’t believe people who claim to know that climate change is a 100% certainty. They might be in error.
Like Trump, Stephens doesn’t grasp what it is to know something. Scientists (and those who believe in science) know that global warming has begun and that humans contribute to it. Lots of evidence. They also understand that there is some tiny chance that they might be wrong. Knowledge is never certain. Scientific knowledge does not consist of certainties. Newton’s theory of gravity was superseded by Einstein’s theory. Eventually Einstein’s theory will be replaced. Stephens is attacking a 100% straw man he invented to sell copies of the Times.
Certainties (sentences it makes no sense to doubt) exist, of course. I am 100% certain that language exists.
No comments:
Post a Comment