Knowledge in Ignorance

A rich history of philosophy, skepticism, critical theorists, psychology, religion, and the general study of epistemology, have revealed the following: we know much less than we led ourselves to believe.  Much of what we think we know can easily be dispelled by epistemological debate as what many hold as knowledge, truth, belief, and justification (for why things are known, true, and believed), are actually false presumptions about the human mind and the state of what it perceives to be the reality.  Without breaching the realm of semantics too deeply, if that be at all possible here, this paper argues that almost nothing can be known with absolute certainty.

Before such an argument can be put forth however, what is meant by knowledge must first be clarified.  For our purposes, the Oxford definition will be utilized: "facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject".  But as far as knowledge of facts and information are concerned, what is meant by saying, "to know something as fact," or "to know that information is correct"?  The complexity inherent to questions such as these is attempted at by philosophy, but to many, is not satisfactorily answered.  Because of the complexity and polysemantic nature of terms such as knowledge, knowing, certainty, and the like, there have been demarcations of their meanings and split off into specific types of gnosis.  Different types of knowledge that include a priori, posteriori, truth-based, belief-based, and various combinations of the aforesaid have been established to denote more specifically how something is 'known,' to determine if it is actually known, as well as to determine the degree of certainty.  But because "degree of certainty" is nearly a contradiction of terms, perhaps it would be prudent to use a different expression; or, if none adequately apply, establish neologisms that would provide a more succinct and precise expression for, "the estimated level of accuracy one's best guess has achieved".

From the cognitive constructs of reality to existence, nothing can be known with certainty except possibilities.  For instance, it is possible that there is an objective reality and that we experience some version of it, but it is also possible that we live in the Matrix, put here by other life forms who are likewise living a delusion brought on by even higher life forms, and that there is an infinite regress of like circumstances.  Cognito ergo sum is not even epistemologically reliable because it presupposes the "I" which has been demonstrably shown to be an illusion that we are capable of transcending (B. Hood, "The Self Illusion," 2012).  That said, it is possible to deduce that something somewhere exist based on the same Cartesian logic.  Because there are thinking beings, regardless of where these thoughts originate, it can be safely inferred that something somewhere exists.  Of course further, more specific conjecture about the nature of this existence, i.e., whether it is a singular consciousness (in which case we could be likened to a hive mind) or a plurality, arrives us nowhere as there is no way to falsify such claims.  All one can really be sure of is that something exists, but no doubt even that can be subjected to scrutiny.