This morning I thought it might prove beneficial to readers if I define "absolute certainty" directly and explain what I mean when I use the phrase. As with certain other posts this year, I am partly writing this in response to some very irrational claims I have heard in the last four to five months.
The paradox of reason is that people are capable of doubting logic and accusing it of circularity only because they innately grasp and cannot avoid logic; otherwise they would have no grounds to work out that logic is unreliable or that it even exists as an abstract system. To know with absolute certainty that something is true is to be aware that it is how reality is and that there is no way that you could be wrong about it.
To doubt something is merely to entertain the possibility that it is false, with something false being something that is not true. Accordingly, doubting something which you cannot be wrong about does not affect the fact that you have or can have absolute certainty about select truths. After all, doubting certain things only confirms that they are true. No one can doubt his or her existence unless he or she exists; no one can doubt that truth exists unless it is true that doubt exists, meaning that truth exists; no one can doubt that he or she can know anything at all without knowing that he or she is doubting if knowledge is possible. To doubt things which are self-evident or true by necessity--things you can know with absolute certainty--does not negate the fact that absolute certainty is possible concerning those truths. As I just showed, it actually confirms that some things are true despite the greatest and most sophisticated doubts, which cannot refute, discredit, or evade these foundational truths.
Allow me to summarize my definitions presented here again:
Doubt--to entertain the possibility that something is false; distrust in an idea
False--something that is not the way reality is
Absolute certainty--someone has absolute certainty about a truth if there is no way he or she could be wrong (there is no way the belief can be false)
I hope that this clarifies what I mean when I use the words "absolute certainty". I do not have absolute certainty about a great amount of things, but it is impossible for me to not possess it with regards to certain knowledge [1]. The epistemological and philosophical cruciality of this point cannot be emphasized enough when conversing with those who deny or doubt self-evident truths! May this information be useful and reaffirming.
[1]. http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-error-of-presuppositions.html
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