-'Certainty' stands for what you might call it in German 'Gewizzheit' or 'sharfheit' (preciseness/definiteness).
-You can tell a 'lie' (so 'falsehood'), if you consistently keep 'precise' and 'definite'. (You can try). But is it 'truth'?
-Thanks for your answer(s)! Marc.
Dear Marc,
In one of its senses, truth is about immutable occurrences that are independent of time and space and also of the influence of human cognition (e.g. the fact that the sun rises in the east and oil floats over water). Truth is often contrasted with falsehood or untruth, which may not necessarily be a lie. Certainty, however, is epistemic, i.e. comes in a scale in man's mind as in the language use of modality with different scales of certainty, none of which standing for the truth. Here even an assumption of certainty may sometimes turn out to be untrue (e.g. positing: He must be in his room (100% certainty for the speaker) based on the evidence that it is lit). Therefore, truth is not certainty here even though I am using two unequal things (universal truth and linguistic degree of certainty).
Hope this will help.
This answer is really marvellous, professor Zouheir Maalej. Hazim.
Dear Zouheir,
(i) My lie is only an example (you can try). You are completely right when you say that 'untruth' is not necessarily a lie.
For other examples, see Wright Mills vs. 'grand theorism' and the 'cult of objectivity'. Both are forms of the 'intellectual narcism' (according to him).
(ii) What do you mean precisely by universal truth and linguistic degree of certainty? Please explain it to me. Thanks, Marc.
Dear Marc,
Does the sun keep changing its place of rising and setting? It is a universal truth that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. If you try mixing oil with water, you will note that, independently of where and when you do that, oil will always float over water because it (oil) is lighter.
Most if not all humans are endowed with the capacity to speculate about past and future events. One important tool to do this is modal auxiliaries, which we use at different degrees of certainty. (I will try to assign an approximate percentile value to some of them): will (100%),
may (50%), might (30%). Apart from modality, adverbials of frequency are scaled on the axis of (un)certainty in the same way: always (100%), often (80%), sometimes (40%), hardly ever (10%), never (0%). The percentage are quite loosely used.
Hope things are clearer now.
Dear Zouheir,
No, things are not clearer now: (i) you seems to have a quite another concept/term/word of universal truth; what do you mean by it? (ii) your example of sunraising and sunset is only valid for this factual reality, and might be not valid for the s.c. counter-factual realities! (iii) back to point (i): is your concept/term/word of universal truth singular or plural? (I mean: is there only one truth, or more truths)? Please, your clear answer! Thanks, Marc.
What a wonderful conversation I've just stumbled into here. Thank you for these questions and insightful responses.
Truth equal certainty: if you are on the face of earth that is exposed to sun you are at day time and this never happen when you are at night at the same time. If you sue probability their is no truth at maximum you say I am sure 99.999% but you never say this is the truth: like parenting test even with the most uptodate sequencers.
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