Outline and illustrate the view that certainty is confined to introspection and the tautological. (15 marks)

A tautology is a statement that says the same thing twice, but in different words. A tautological statement is another term for an analytic proposition (one that is true just in the virtue of the meaning of the words). It is universally agreed that analytic propositions are necessary (cannot be false); thus making it difficult to argue that they are not certain. One example of this is as follows, 'they followed after each other in succession' - this is a tautology because '...following one after the other...' and 'in succession' mean the same thing and are just a repetition of a statement using different words.

Beliefs based on introspection are the observation of one's mental states and processes, and are beliefs that one cannot doubt, even if they aren't necessarily true. Both Descartes and Hume agreed that I cannot doubt my experience themselves, for example, I can doubt that I am seeing a table, but I cannot doubt that I seem to be seeing a table - this claim isn't necessarily true, but it is contingent (it's possible that it is certain).