Abstract

The general project of this dissertation is to defend the logical possibility of some human knowledge being held with certainty. I argue that intentional and phenomenal states, while known a posteriori, nevertheless have been historically held in high epistemic esteem. Traditionally they have been considered such that if anything is known with certainty, they are. Recent attempts, especially from considerations in semantics and the philosophy of mind, to undermine the authority of intentional and phenomenal states are investigated and found either to lack punch or to be insufficiently general. In addition, it is suggested that the number and kind of elements in the range of certainty for a thinker covaries with the cognitive capacities and dispositions of that thinker