Epistemic assurance rests on doubt, not certainty

Evidence

Skepticism and knowledge-producing institutions go together, and the conspiracist attack on knowledge is also an attack on skepticism. Knowledge does not demand certainty; it demands doubt. Even when we are persuaded that, all things considered, the available evidence and argument point in a certain direction, even after we have resolved to go in that direction, we should be alive to the possibility that in spite of our best effort to get it right, we got it wrong. Our assurance of being right relies on doubt and an iterative process of questioning. — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 272

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The inversion — that confidence in being right depends on ongoing doubt — is a genuinely paradigm-shifting formulation of epistemic virtue.
• XREF: connects to: Skepticism about certainty does not justify refusing to act on evidence — Cailin O’Connor and James Owen Weatherall, The Misinformation Age: How False…, 101; Truth emerges only after doubt makes information improbable — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 605; Theoretical doubts about objective truth need not override practical reliance on evidence — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 50 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Truth emerges only after doubt makes information improbable #expands (0.85) — Niklas Luhmann, Trust and Power, 605
• Theoretical doubts about objective truth need not override practical reliance on evidence #qualifies (0.80) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 50
• Solipsism cannot be refuted by assurance arguments alone #corroborates (0.75)
• Decisions are made under irreducible uncertainty that evidence alone cannot resolve #expands (0.72) — Christine Daigle, Jacob Golomb (eds.), Beauvoir and Sartre, 490