On Losing Certainty

Matthew James Ratcliffe

doi:10.1007/s11097-024-09999-2

On Losing Certainty

Matthew James Ratcliffe

Philosophy

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

This paper develops a phenomenological account of what it is to lose a primitive and pervasive sense of certainty. I begin by considering Wolfgang Blankenburg’s descriptions of losing common sense or natural self-evidence. Although Blankenburg focuses primarily on schizophrenia, I note that a wider range of phenomenological disturbances can be understood in similar terms—one loses something that previously operated as a pre-reflective, unquestioned basis for experience, thought, and practice. I refer to this as the loss of certainty. Drawing upon and integrating themes in the work of Wittgenstein and Husserl, I propose that losses of certainty centrally involve the inability to tolerate a certain kind of uncertainty. The contrast between having and lacking certainty is to be construed in terms of differing patterns or styles of nonlocalized, practical, bodily anticipation. I conclude by showing how this conception enables us to better understand various different disturbances to which human experience is susceptible.

Original language	English
Number of pages	19
Journal	Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences
Early online date	7 Jun 2024
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-024-09999-2
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 7 Jun 2024

Bibliographical note

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10.1007/s11097-024-09999-2Licence: CC BY

On Losing Certainty
© The Author(s) 2024
Final published version, 840 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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