How Negative Knowledge Relates to Negative Certainty: An Instance of Cognitive Vulnerability

Abstract

In this chapter, I aim to show how Ortega y Gasset’s conception of “belief” and Wittgenstein’s notion of “certainty” can also be understood in negative terms; furthermore, I analyze how they relate to negative knowledge. Firstly, I delve into Ortega y Gasset’s use of the expressions “death belief” and “negative reality,” as he scarcely focused on their characteristics and consequences. Secondly, and taking as a reference Wittgenstein’s conception of “certainty,” I show in which sense we can refer to a “negative certainty” by applying this expression to the case of Edison’s invention of the incandescent bulb. Lastly, I use this very example to show how it illustrates diverse nuances of the new epistemological concept of “cognitive vulnerability” that González-Castán has developed in order to find a balance between human fallibilism and cognitive success-understood as the fact of stating true things-without stressing more one than the other.