# Rational Confidence and Standards for Knowledge
**URL:** https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/rational-confidence-and-standards-for-knowledge/514
**Category:** Elliot Temple
**Tags:** cf-article
**Created:** [February 24, 2022, 11:00am UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/rational-confidence-and-standards-for-knowledge/514 "2022-02-24T11:00:02Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Elliot](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/Elliot)
#### Post date: [February 24, 2022, 11:00am UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/rational-confidence-and-standards-for-knowledge/514/1 "2022-02-24T11:00:02Z")
> **[Rational Confidence and Standards for Knowledge](https://criticalfallibilism.com/rational-confidence-and-standards-for-knowledge/)**
>
> If I hold up a fruit and ask you "Which fruit is this?”, you will know the answer immediately and automatically. And you'll have full confidence in your answer. You'll say “That's an apple.” and you will be right and know you're right. (Or if it’s an...
---
### Author:  [@deroj](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/deroj)
#### Post date: [February 25, 2022, 8:01am UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/rational-confidence-and-standards-for-knowledge/514/2 "2022-02-25T08:01:01Z")
I liked this. I think I like all CF articles that I have read. Some I like more. This is one of the ones I like more. I don’t consciously know why I like it more than most CF articles. Maybe because I think I understood it a little better. Maybe because it’s more relevant to a current goal of mine.
Anyway, I wanted to say that I really liked this article.
---
### Author:  [@alanforr](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/alanforr)
#### Post date: [March 1, 2022, 10:06pm UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/rational-confidence-and-standards-for-knowledge/514/3 "2022-03-01T22:06:13Z")
> People see math and science as particularly objective fields. But this isn’t inherent in the fields. It’s a consequence of their inadequate language skills.
Another issue is that the numbers in maths and science are meant to refer to things in the real world. Inadequate language skills often prevent people from referring precisely to the things described by numbers. Maths and science can be undermined by bad philosophy. People say a lot of weird, vague stuff about quantum theory despite the fact that there is a lot of very precise mathematical knowledge about it.
---
### Author:  [@lmf](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/lmf)
#### Post date: [March 2, 2022, 7:40am UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/rational-confidence-and-standards-for-knowledge/514/4 "2022-03-02T07:40:14Z")
I italicized typos:
> You could use a ruler to measure _it’s_ width too, or put a string around it and then measure that string to find out its circumference. You could also time how long it takes you to eat it using a stopwatch. You could be confident about those measurements (knowing, of course, _than_ eating times vary, so you might take more or less time to eat the next apple, and also knowing that none of the measurements are perfectly precise).
---
### Author:  [@ActiveMind](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/u/ActiveMind)
#### Post date: [January 18, 2026, 8:33pm UTC](https://discuss.criticalfallibilism.com/t/rational-confidence-and-standards-for-knowledge/514/5 "2026-01-18T20:33:39Z")
I think some knowledge can be more difficult than others based on how much prerequisite knowledge they require. But once you have the prerequisite knowledge then that knowledge isn’t particularly difficult anymore. For example building rockets is harder than baking cakes in this view. However for some people building rockets could be easier than baking cakes, that depends on their skills for each topic.
Maybe each step in whatever field is inherently equally difficult. The difficulties in steps between fields can vary based on the educational material available. So more difficult knowledge would be knowledge that requires more steps. That also depends on which step you can start on. Though can’t there be some knowledge we think of as more difficult because from birth, or zero knowledge, they require more steps than other fields? Could there be more steps to reach major milestones in certain fields rather than others?
> Also, our current society is biased towards math, measurement and science over philosophy, explanations and conceptual arguments.
Example (1.5 minute clip):
[learn math instead - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQD2cMVuNWk)
According to Hotz the only way to really know something is to know math or physics rather than knowing stuff in philosophy or any other field.
Hmm, when I watch it again it looks like he doesn’t necessarily say only math and physics are the only way to truly understand the world. But I think it’s implied because they are singled out. Otherwise he would say something like “when you use rational methods and have proper standards for knowledge you can learn to know how the world works”.