Abstrakt
Chisholm's writing on the analysis of knowledge has received a great deal of attention in the philosophical literature, and deservedly so, while his writing on the analysis of certainty has received rather less. His contribution to our understanding of certainty is, however, profound and the implications should be noted. To that end, we turn to a discussion of Chisholm's analysis of certainty and to the philosophical implications thereof. We shall first review the definitions of certainty that Chisholm has proposed from time to time, indicate the common elements, and explain why we think it is important. Simply put, the analysis elucidates the nature of sceptical arguments concerning the certainty of empirical matters. We shall then raise an objection we attribute to a sceptic and propose an amendment, one incorporating a modality. Roughly formulated, Chisholm has proposed that something is certain for a person just in case there is nothing that it is more reasonable for the person to accept; and we propose that this should be modified to read that something is certain for a person just in case there could be nothing that it would be more reasonable for the person to accept. Needless to say, the proposal is in the spirit of the original. We end with a question for Chisholm and confess that our objective is to elicit further remarks about certainty with the certainty that illumination will flow therefrom.
