Certitude and Scepticism as Complementary in the Search for Knowledge

Year 2012, Issue: 18 - Kaygı (18) 2012, 81 - 92, 15.04.2012

Idjakpo Onos Godwın

Abstract

This paper proposes that the demand for certainty and the continual raising of the doubts (skepticism) about our epistemic claims be seen and considered as efforts toward the same direction, namely, to attain knowledge. This has become necessary as the debate between certitude and scepticism in traditional western epistemology attends to the concept of certitude and skepticism as if they are exclusive and contradictory. This has left the revolving discussion in an endless debate The search for certitude in our knowledge claims is to ensure that we have justification for our claims to knowledge and the skeptical considerations that over shadow our knowledge claims are equally demands that we have justification for our knowledge claims so that we do not treat mistaken opinions or lucky or educated guess as knowledge. The African theory of knowledge, which is built on African ontology that treats the divide between the object and subject as two aspects of the same reality, encourages this proposal. As such, this paper analyses and evaluates the debate between certitude and skepticism as we have it in traditional western and African epistemology, thus providing the grounds on which the proposal to consider certitude and skepticism as complementary in the search for knowledge.

Keywords

Certitude, Scepticism, African Epistemology, True knowledge, Reality

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