Wisdom Bullets

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Should we look for knowledge or certainty

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Deduction (steping on previous truths and making an inference) is the only way to be certain of a proposition. But certainty is not the same as knowledge.
Induction, on the other hand, is the proposal of a general principle, based on the regularity of a some observations.
Deduction (the use of logic) makes me very certain, but adds very little knowledge to me: the deducted truth is already into the previous ones (the premises).
Induction let me jump on completely new truths. But, who can guarantee that “swans are white” just because all that I have seen, happen to be white? Induction gives me joy of novelty, but, seldom, the comfort of certainty.
The moral of this story is: knowledge, as any human growth operation (like love, or virtue) can on be achieved “dialectically”, zigzaging between opposites. Forget about finding an optimun.

Determinism is religion

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Modernity is a deterministic worldview, not for scientific reasons, but for theological prejudices. Descartes believed that God (and his laws of Nature) was the only real cause in Nature, and, therefore, everything is determined in advance. This was a pathetic reductionism of the knowledge of causality already achieved by Aristotle and the medievals.