Are You Certain?

The nature of perspective, epistemology, and why we might not know everything.

Tyler Kleeberger
The Apeiron Blog

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Photo by Dmitry Ratushny on Unsplash

If you are in a room with 100 people, what’s something you know more about than at least 80 of them?

This question is a simple way to get someone to consider what they are good at or, more specifically, above-average at. Often someone will express, usually with reluctance, a particular hobby or category of existence which they feel quite confident about.

But that’s a fair question because that question compares your knowledge to others. An unfair question would be:

“What’s something you know everything about?”

Knowledge, it seems, is a tricky thing. Nicholas Cusa is famous for remarking:

“Observable reality is full of contradictions that show how little we humans know. The more you learn, the more you see how ignorant we are.”

Knowledge appears to be incredibly limited.

Welcome to the fascinating subject of epistemology, where we question how people know things. It also ponders whether people are able to know anything at all, and how we come to know things.

What does it mean for…

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Pursuing what it means to be human so as to build the best world possible. Practical ethics through in-depth exploration. Becoming Human: tylerkleeberger.com.