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Bertrand Russell ( 1872 -1970 ) famed British mathematician and philosopher once remarked to a large lecture audience at Cambridge that “....nobody can be certain of anything!” contrary to his insistence on previous occasions that mathematical knowledge was a certain and a provable science. He  wasn't being funny. He of course was being very serious. How his epistamology changed we can only speculate but his lecture did proclaim to the whole world that no absolutes can exist, the tree you see or the car you drive or the meal you eat is not real, forgetting substanuously and unknowingly that he was uttering an absolute of his own.This type of evasion is like stating that the pursuit of knowledge is not only fruitless but pointless at best:that reality is unknowable, that the syllogism is corruptible and prone to error and that thee brain doesn't work; therefore rendering the mind impotent. If one accepts Russell’s quotation above as true, the logical conclusion would be that, if nobody can be certain of anything then everybody can be certain of everything that he pleases. Since nothing can be refuted anything and everything would be permissible. In politics this is called the “double twist” used to confuse voters into accepting facts that are not only untrue but to fall into the condition where a voter voluntarily gives up his independent judgement and concedes to the politician in question that he/she must know something better/more than I do (regardless of the true facts) This is the biggest reason America is falling into an ever lowering ring of fatalism that she may not be able to recover from and that my fellow Objectivists would truly be a shame.

Edited by Collectivist
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2 hours ago, Collectivist said:

Bertrand Russell ( 1872 -1970 ) famed British mathematician and philosopher once remarked to a large lecture audience at Cambridge that “....nobody can be certain of anything!”

Do you have the original source for this quote? Rand has been accused of improperly paraphrasing Russell. And I couldn't find the lecture online. I did, however, find Russell's article A Liberal Decalogue, in which he presents his list of Commandments. Number one is: "Do not feel absolutely certain of anything." So it's not that I doubt Rand's accuracy. I simply want to track down her source material.

As to your point, I generally agree. The biggest challenge, or one of the top three challenges, we face is an epidemic of radical uncertainty. This, combined with radical fantasy and faith, will devastate civilization. Uncertainty is the fraud that distracts people from the Faith. While you're looking at reality and being uncertain, I'm over here spreading fantasy and being faithful. It's the intellectual's con, and we should not treat them as if they are being honest.

Edited by MisterSwig
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At the end of the day, even Russel had to wake up every morning, put on his shoes, and walk out the door to go to work or wherever he was headed. His actions betray an implicit knowledge... you need shoes to protect your feet, you need to keep the door closed to prevent burglars or heat escaping your house, etc. When he conveys the idea that "knowledge is impossible," he actually uses knowledge to do so... his knowledge of the English language, and his knowledge of the concepts "knowledge" and "impossibility."

Even the deniers of absolute knowledge act as if they have knowledge. That speaks volumes more than their denial that knowledge is possible. Such hypocrisy is what Rand called the "fallacy of the stolen concept." And it's what I call "the most basic of jokes."

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There are several matches for "certain" on 100 Philosophical Quotes from Bertrand Russell. Here are the most relevant ones:

“Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.”

“A religious creed differs from a scientific theory in claiming to embody eternal and absolutely certain truth, whereas science is always tentative, expecting that modification in its present theories will sooner or later be found necessary, and aware that its method is one which is logically incapable of arriving at a complete and final demonstration.”

“Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.”

“To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it.”

“Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom.”

None are footnoted. They do tend to belie the same essence.

Many of the Google results on "nobody can be certain of anything" are Miss Rand's usage. Citing from Ayn Rand is dead, which has a few footnotes I didn't pursue:

"Despite the quotation marks, she is the actual author. It is a false, incorrect paraphrase of Hume’s Problem of Induction plus an anachronistic paraphrase of Bertrand Russell."

Once “There are no absolutes,” they chatter, blanking out the fact that they are uttering an absolute." is grasped, the rest is dotting i's and crossing t's.

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  • 7 months later...
On 11/30/2017 at 8:39 AM, Collectivist said:

He of course was being very serious. How his epistamology changed we can only speculate but his lecture did proclaim to the whole world that no absolutes can exist, the tree you see or the car you drive or the meal you eat is not real, forgetting substanuously and unknowingly that he was uttering an absolute of his own.This type of evasion is like stating that the pursuit of knowledge is not only fruitless but pointless at best:that reality is unknowable, that the syllogism is corruptible and prone to error and that thee brain doesn't work; therefore rendering the mind impotent.

Granted, he is evading the truth. But is this a mistaken conclusion on his part, based on unchecked premises, or is it as if he knows the truth and is obfuscating or hiding it?

People, even without any exposure to Russel will say similar things to that. The expectation or their definition of "knowing" is infallible knowing. "If you know but are fallible, you don't "really" know."

Is the fundamental argument against it "Well, how else (other than fallible knowing) do you expect to know?"

How does one explain "knowing" that includes, limitations and fallibility within several paragraphs?

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8 hours ago, Easy Truth said:

Granted, he is evading the truth. But is this a mistaken conclusion on his part, based on unchecked premises, or is it as if he knows the truth and is obfuscating or hiding it?

People, even without any exposure to Russel will say similar things to that. The expectation or their definition of "knowing" is infallible knowing. "If you know but are fallible, you don't "really" know."

Is the fundamental argument against it "Well, how else (other than fallible knowing) do you expect to know?"

How does one explain "knowing" that includes, limitations and fallibility within several paragraphs?

Not sure what you mean by "several paragraphs"...

The problem is how to bring a Rationalist down to Earth.  The concept knowledge is applicable to and has ben formed with reference to only to one kind of existent of reality, human beings.  "Knowledge" has no   other referent in reality than that aspect and property which humans posses, it is utterly meaningless if one attempts to apply it out of that context (at least until we discover conscious aliens or create truly conscious nonbiological entities).  BUT even when that happens each of those will be finite and fallible.

A valid concept of knowledge already excludes omniscience and infallibility.

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2 minutes ago, Easy Truth said:

I would first have to differentiate the "knowing" that is ascribed to an animal. Or even an insect for that matter. As in doesn't an ant "know" where the nest is? Isn't that a type of grasping of facts?

Also, is Rationalism at the core of skepticism?

I tend to think we mean "conceptual knowledge" when we speak of knowledge in the context of philosophy.  Conceptualization is something which an insect is incapable of... the great apes who use sign language... well even if they were to be held as capable of some modicum of knowledge it would be even more limited and fallible than ours.  As with the example of aliens or nonbiological consciousnesses the system is finite, has only finite connection (via perception) to reality etc.

Not sure about Rationalism being the core of it... I think many rationalists end up skeptics because they set themselves up for failure...

Get a copy of Peikoff's "Understanding Objectivism", he really does a great job illustrating the dangers and errors of rationalism... he said he leant towards rationalism for decades and it was one of the biggest challenges to get over it... and he also claimed that rationalist leanings are the biggest (one of the biggest?) problems with academic philosophy... to paraphrase - a big barrier to understanding and objectivity.

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On 7/7/2018 at 7:07 AM, StrictlyLogical said:

A valid concept of knowledge already excludes omniscience and infallibility.

Yes, and these two distinct concepts when taken as a package deal provide a handle in the minds of those who hear the arguments for “reasonable” compromise and “civility” amongst contradictory opposition. 

 

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