Abstract

Kant’s conception of the relation between knowledge and doubt stands opposed to much of contemporary epistemology. For Kant denies that it is possible for one to have knowledge of how things are without having a ground for one’s judgment that guarantees its truth. Knowledge, according to him, is judgment that is based on a ground that the judger recognizes to guarantee the truth of her judgment. A judgment that is based on such a ground, trivially, excludes any doubt the judger might have had with respect to it. Therefore knowledge implies certainty. Much of contemporary epistemology has no room for the idea of a truth-guaranteeing ground. By contrast, Kant thinks that the rejection of the idea of a truth-guaranteeing ground has a devastating effect. It does not only render unintelligible the idea of knowledge, but, because of that, the very idea of a subject that is able to be ignorant about things, to have doubts about them or even to err about them. The paper defends the Kantian account of knowledge with the aim to show that ignorance, doubt and error can only characterize, and hence trouble, a subject that knows herself to have a capacity that enables her to overcome any possible doubt and error.