'For the person or persons that hold dominion, can no more combine with the keeping up of majesty the running with harlots drunk or naked about the streets, or the performances of a stage player, or the open violation or contempt of laws passed by themselves than they can combine existence with non-existence'.

- Benedict de Spinoza. Political Treatise. 1677.




Tuesday, June 02, 2009

on certainty 15


15. It needs to be shewn that no mistake was possible. Giving the assurance “I know” doesn’t suffice. For it is after all only an assurance that I can’t be making a mistake, and it needs to be objectively established that I am not making a mistake about that. 



‘I am not making a mistake about that’ –

is to claim certainty

any claim to objectivity here –

will be open to question – open to doubt

so – objectivity here –

amounts to uncertainty

in a context of uncertainty –

there are no mistakes


© greg t. charlton. 2009.