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{{a|psychology|[[File:Sense of doubt.jpg|450px|thumb|center|I am not sure about this]]
{{a|psychology|[[File:Sense of doubt.jpg|450px|thumb|center|I am not sure about this]]
}}In defence of [[doubt]]; a much-maligned force for good in the world.
}}{{quote|
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! <br>
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout <br>
Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks! <br>
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, <br>
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, <br>
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, <br>
Smite flat the thick rotundity o’ the world! <br>
Crack nature’s moulds, an germens spill at once, <br>
That make ingrateful man! <be>
:—''King Lear'', III, ii}}
In defence of [[doubt]]; a much-maligned force for good in the world.
===Certainty===
===Certainty===
From our first law lectures, we imbibed the fundamental interests and objectives of a liberal modern legal system, prominent among them being a profound wish for ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_certainty certainty]''. This is a matter of basic [[jurisprudence]]: we hear it, we think, “oh, yes; well, of course,” and nod along as our professor continues on {{sex|her}} mellifluous way.<ref>Mine was especially mellifluous: Hello, Professor Rowe, if you are reading, 32 years later!</ref>
From our first law lectures, we imbibed the fundamental interests and objectives of a liberal modern legal system, prominent among them being a profound wish for ''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_certainty certainty]''. This is a matter of basic [[jurisprudence]]: we hear it, we think, “oh, yes; well, of course,” and nod along as our professor continues on {{sex|her}} mellifluous way.<ref>Mine was especially mellifluous: Hello, Professor Rowe, if you are reading, 32 years later!</ref>
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===Doubt as a self-enforcing moderator of extreme behaviour===
===Doubt as a self-enforcing moderator of extreme behaviour===
Examples of “[[risk compensation]]” where the introductions of safety measures — which we may characterise as “enhancements to the certainty of safety” — lead to ''increased'' risk-taking are legion.<ref>Anti-lock breaks, seatbelts, speed limits, cycle helmets, ski helmets, skydiving safety equipment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation.</ref> Where town planners have removed all traffic controls, signage and control, a dramatic reduction in speed and accidents has followed.<ref>An [https://web.archive.org/web/20150924012452/http://www.fietsberaad.nl/library/repository/bestanden/Evaluation%20Laweiplein.pdf evaluation] of the ''Laweiplein'' scheme in Drachten, Netherlands, which replaced a set of traffic lights with an open square with a roundabout and pedestrian crossings, found that traffic now flows more freely at a constant rate and with reduced congestion, shorter delays and improved capacity.</ref>
Examples of “[[risk compensation]]” where the introduction of safety measures — which we may characterise as “enhancements to the ''certainty'' of safety” — lead to ''increased'' risk-taking are legion.<ref>Anti-lock breaks, seatbelts, speed limits, cycle helmets, ski helmets, skydiving safety equipment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation.</ref> Where town planners have removed all traffic controls, signage and control, a dramatic ''reduction'' in speed and accidents has followed.<ref>An [https://web.archive.org/web/20150924012452/http://www.fietsberaad.nl/library/repository/bestanden/Evaluation%20Laweiplein.pdf evaluation] of the ''Laweiplein'' scheme in Drachten, Netherlands, which replaced a set of traffic lights with an open square with a roundabout and pedestrian crossings, found that traffic now flows more freely at a constant rate and with reduced congestion, shorter delays and improved capacity.</ref> People have a risk tolerance. If you reduce risk, they drive faster.


Doubt counsels caution. It recommends contingency. It declares knowledge provisional. It is open-minded, non-judgmental, it is the preparedness to admit error. In polarised times, it is doubt, not certainty, that is lacking. It is not the wilful suspicion of truth, but dogmatic conviction in it, that fractures the peace.
Doubt counsels caution. It recommends contingency. It declares knowledge provisional. It is open-minded, non-judgmental, it is the preparedness to admit error. In our polarised times, it is doubt, not certainty, that is lacking. It is not the wilful ''suspicion'' of truth, but a dogmatic conviction in it, that fractures the peace.


To aspire to certainty is wish for finality; completeness; the limits of our commitment to each other, and the arbitrary end of affairs we would be better served by continuing. If a relationship is productive now why end it? If a relationship is not, why prolong it? If it is not satisfactory, why not change it?<ref>For an excellent argument along these lines see {{Author|David Graeber}}, {{br|Debt: The First 5,000 Years}}</ref>
To aspire to certainty is wish for finality; completeness; the limits of our commitment to each other, and the arbitrary end of affairs we would be better served by continuing. If a relationship is productive now why end it? If a relationship is not, why prolong it? If it is not satisfactory, why not change it?<ref>For an excellent argument along these lines see {{Author|David Graeber}}, {{br|Debt: The First 5,000 Years}}</ref>


==={{t|Epistemology}} of [[certainty]]===
==={{t|Epistemology}} of [[certainty]]===
May we take [[Descartes]] as read? The philosophy gets more interesting a little later on.
And so we get down to philosophical nuts and bolts. Truth, free will, knowledge. May we take [[Descartes]] as read? The philosophy gets more interesting a little later on. Let me tell you my dirty little secret folks: ''I’m a relativist''.


If we take it that [[truth]] is a property of a sentence, not of the world<ref>Richard Rorty: {{br|Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity}}.</ref> and a sentence is an artefact of a language, then language would have to be a closed logical system, to which both (or all) parties to that truth were fully conversant. Not only, typically, are they not — languages are quite loose things and hard to draw boundaries — but languages are ''not closed logical systems''. This we owe to [[Goedel]]. We can, with our word games, minimise indeterminacy ([[legal language]] is a good example of where we do this, by convention eliminating [[metaphor]], avoiding slang and informal construction and where, even after that, there is potential ambiguity, minimising it with [[definitions]], but even there, the best we can hope for is that our static document can describe the order, state and function of a simple, or complex system. It cannot describe a complex system (essentially one where individual agents with conflicting interests and language structures interact. But commerce occurs in exactly that type of environment.
If we take it that “[[truth]] is a property of a sentence, not of the world”<ref>Richard Rorty: {{br|Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity}}.</ref> and ''a sentence is an artefact of a language'', then, for there to be no doubt between us, our language would have to be a ''closed logical system'', in which both of us were fully conversant. Not only, typically, are languages ''nothing like'' closed logical systems in practice — natural dialects are are quite loose things, littered with ambiguities, metaphor, slang, malapropism and error,  around which it is hard to draw boundaries:  — but languages cannot be closed logical systems ''even in theory.  
*'''[[certainty]] in the sense of utter truth''': If there is a single truth and it is deductible, then any inconsistent view is at best sub-optimal: wasteful and possibly dangerous. There are ''objective'' grounds for suppressing any views other than the true one.
 
This observation we owe to [[Kurt Gödel]]. The same one snookered Bertrand Russell: not even ''mathematics'' is a closed logical system. It also snookers [[reductionism]] and [[modernism]]. There is no single truth.
 
Now we can, with our word games, do our best minimise indeterminacy. For example, [[legal language]] is ''meant'' to do this, by convention eliminating [[metaphor]], slang and informal constructions; generally sacrificing ''elegance'' for [[certainty]]. Where there remains potential ambiguity, legal language tries to further diminimish it with [[definitions]], but even there, the best we can hope for is that our static document can describe the order, state and function of a simple system. It is beyond the power of any algorithm to describe a complex system.
 
We start, therefore, in a place where “the only [[certainty]] is [[doubt]]”. We can


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