Certainty i
Certainty. A tone of voice in which
one declares how things are.
These I should expunge from philosophical language.
Purge the sentences that don’t push us further.
Forget transcendent certainty connected
as it is with your concept of spirit.
I act with complete certainty
but this certainty is my own.
I have compelling grounds for my certitude. I know
expresses comfortable certainty, not the certainty that struggles.
Now I would like to regard this certainty not as something
akin to hastiness or superficiality but as a form of life.
(That is very badly expressed and probably badly thought as well.)
The elementary mistake of confusing one’s thoughts with one’s knowledge?
Here I am inclined to fight windmills because
I cannot yet say the thing I really want to say.
I want to say It’s not that on some points men know
the truth with perfect certainty.
No: perfect certainty is only a matter
of their attitude. But of course there is still a mistake
even here. Is my understanding only blindness
to my own lack of understanding? It often seems so to me.
It is as if I know did not tolerate metaphysical emphasis. What is
the proof that I know something? Most certainly not my saying I know it.
Here a doubt would seem to drag everything
with it and plunge it into chaos.
I should like to say If I am wrong about this
I have no guarantee that anything I say is true.
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