The Quest for Uncertainty:

This article was originally written for my undergraduate Philosophy of Education course with Dr. Sam Rocha. It grew into a publication and presentation for the Society for the Philosophical Study of Eduction.

Abstract

In this modern age, we place much faith in our scientists and their supposed objectivity. On the other hand, we are often seduced by the subjectivity found in cultural and moral relativism. Caught between these two seemingly antithetical conceptions, it is difficult to sort out what this thing called ‘Truth’ is, how closely we can know it, and whether it even exists. In such an intellectual climate, it is easy to develop a view towards knowledge and education that is simplistic. I here present one such simplistic view—the idea that the world is wholly knowable and that education is what Dewey called a “quest for certainty”—and attempt to recover from it a more robust and subtle sense of Truth. I do this by exploring the philosophical differences between mathematics and science as well as each discipline’s stance toward certainty.

Citation

Rohrbach, Zachary and Samuel Rocha. “The Quest for Uncertainty: Recovering An Appreciation For Truth Through Autobiography.” Journal for the Philosophical Study of Education 2, 160 (2014)