Confidence

In CF, rational confidence is the state of having a clear answer that you can defend with objective reasoning — reasoning that would convince any reasonable person, not just yourself.

What rational confidence is

• Easy cases. You can be highly confident identifying an apple, weighing it, or measuring its width.
• Hard cases. Philosophy is "hard" because of low skill, not because of inherent difficulty.
• Right kind of evidence. Confidence comes from having actively looked for errors, not from lack of doubt.

What it is not

• Not subjective "feeling sure". A feeling of confidence is uncorrelated with being right.
• Not credence. CF rejects 0.9 confidence as a measure.
• Not immunity to criticism. Being confident should invite criticism, not block it.

How to build rational confidence

1. Practise. Recognising apples is easy because you have lots of practice.
2. Use objective-reasoning — write or speak your reasoning so anyone can check.
3. Seek criticism. Look hard for errors in your own work.
4. Build automatized knowledge for routine cases.

CF holds that philosophy can have the same kind of rational confidence as identifying an apple — once you're skilled at it. Difficulty is a property of your skill, not the subject.

"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." — criticalfallibilism.com