Communicating certainty and uncertainty in everyday life: An introduction

Abstract

This introduction focuses on the relevance of certainty and uncertainty in social life. We will firstly underscore the structuring role of certainties as it was outlined by the phenomenological approach to the life-world in the first half of the XX century. Drawing on the bottom-up perspective advanced by the interactionist turn in social sciences, we then consider how people routinely (re)construct these certainties in ordinary life through their everyday mundane practices. To empirically illustrate how certainties are - at the same time - presupposed and constituted in everyday communication, we analyze two examples of child/adult interaction. By illuminating some consequences of building upon unquestionable certainties, we raise the issue of uncertainty as a relevant modality in and for everyday life. In the discussion we contend that far from being proper to the philosopher’s attitude as former phenomenology put it, uncertainty and doubt are – or at least may be - the tools for everyday rational and ethical thinking. Finally we present the articles collected in this issue that represents a collective effort to explore the territories of certainty and uncertainty and the relevance the management of epistemics has in social interaction.