PS100 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Fallibilism, Augmented Reality, Epithelium
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It"s great to see that you"re starti(cid:374)g to u(cid:374)dersta(cid:374)d philosophy, ho(cid:449)e(cid:448)er i should (cid:272)lear a fe(cid:449) thi(cid:374)gs up. Absolute certainty is achieved when there is perfect knowledge without any doubt or skepticism. Mathematics and other formal sciences can have absolute certainty; however, it is impossible to ensure absolute certainty in empirical sciences. Subjects such as biology, chemistry and economics are only able to use observation and experimentation to confirm theories; and because of flaws in these methods, empirical sciences are not able to achieve absolute certainty. There is a total of three concrete reasons in which why empirical science can never achieve absolute certainty. Firstly, all observation and experimentation is biased by sensations. The five senses: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching, cannot be used as confirmation for another because they are not fully reliable. In other words, relying on your eyes to confirm something you hear is not absolute; this is because all senses can be fooled.
