Certainty and Uncertainty

A common manifestation of Temporalization in ordinary experience is the seeking of completion, while one of Spatialization is that of innovation. For example, experience is frequently constituted by the desire for closure, as well as that for novelty and variety. Nevertheless, Psychological theories have traditionally privileged concrescence over discrescence, perhaps not more prominently than in the significance they accord to Certainty, the attainment of which is the achieving of closure. That privilege is implicit even where the principle of Certainty seems to receive an explicit challenge, i. e. in Dewey's exposure of the 'quest for certainty' as underlying theological and philosophical systems throughout history. But, despite his criticism of the tradition, Dewey nevertheless accedes to the principle, by merely proposing a modification of it, i. e. a quest for probability. He thereby perpetuates the under-appreciation of the dynamic constructive role of uncertainty in experience, e. g. the seeking of novelty and variety, one which he does seem to briefly recognize in other contexts, i. e. its implication in creative activity, but which he ultimately denigrates as a destabilizing dimension of experience.