Incertezza e bisogno di certezza come condizione originaria dell’esistenza. Una prospettiva kantiana

Uncertainty and the Need for Certainty as the Original Condition of Existence. A Kantian Perspective Abstract. Human existence as an experience of the world and of others is marked by absolute uncertainty, a condition which needs to be overcome. This paper shows how reason has responded to the need for certainty in different ways, pursuing, for example with Descartes, the objective certainty of knowing or, with Kant, the subjective certainty of believing. Kant moves the reflection from a level of certainty which should guarantee the objectivity of knowledge to a level of “subjective certainty of cognition”. In contrast to Cartesian rationalism, Kant identifies in reason the need to formulate judgments and to take something to be true (das Fürwahrhalten) even when it cannot be based on objective grounds of knowledge. For Kant need is a feeling produced by reason. The paper therefore understands the need for certainty as a metaphysical need of human reason to take something to be true, that is to express a judgment which, based on the different degree of truth contained in it, leads to having an opinion, believing or knowing. Kant opposes moral certainty based on rational belief to the certainty of knowledge towards which human beings tend in an attempt to eliminate the original experience of uncertainty. According to the paper, Kant proposes a new model of reason which, based on the fundamental distinction between knowledge and cognition, identifies the possibility of moral cognition in believing and in the lack of apodictic certainty.