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It is necessary to examine and define the ideas underlying the problem of knowledge.
Knowledge, being a primary fact of experience, like ‘seeing,’ ‘hearing,’ etc., is incapable of an exact definition. ‘Knowing’ is simply a matter of experience and consciousness. Three elements enter into knowledge: subject, object, and the act of knowing.
The subject is the one who knows–man, the Ego, the ‘I myself.’ The object is the thing known. Man knows his self, his conscious mental states, and realities-other-than-self. The act of knowing makes the object ‘present to’ the subject and makes the subject ‘aware’ of this presence of the object. In the act of knowing, an object becomes an ‘object-to-the-mind,’ an ‘ideal being,’ by means of its ‘cognitional presence.’
Knowledge has the quality of truth and error in its judgments. Logical truth is the conformity of the mind to the thing. Ontological truth is the conformity of the thing to the mind; ontological error is the disconformity of the thing to the mind. Truth in general is the conformity between mind and thing; error in general is the disconformity between mind and thing. Men universally distinguish between truth and error and consider them irreconcilable opposites. The fundamental problem is: Can the mind transcend itself, conform to outside reality, and thereby acquire truth?
The attitude of the mind toward knowledge is threefold: doubt, opinion and certitude.
Doubt is that state of the mind in which a suspended judgment ensues, due to the mind’s inability to decide whether the judgment is true or false. It is either negative or positive.
Opinion is a state of the mind in which it decides for the truth or judgment, but with fear of the possibility of error.
Certitude is a state of the mind in which it gives a firm assent to a judgment without fear of the possibility of error. The absence of this fear is the negative factor of certitude; the consciously apprehended reasons for the firm assent are the positive factor. There are degrees of certitude. If the motive of certitude is based on the law of customary human conduct, we have moral certitude; if it is based on a physical law, it is physical certitude; if it is based on a metaphysical law, it is metaphysical certitude: the firmness of the assent increases in this order.
It is the purpose of epistemology to investigate the validity of these ideas.
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