Everyone is certain and you are not sure of anything
Confidence is everywhere and you cannot find the ground.
Courses
See what you would learn
Understand what it means to know something, using claims you meet every day.
A course introducing the philosophy of knowledge through ordinary life. It covers evidence, scepticism and certainty, what separates knowledge from belief, and how to hold claims with the confidence they deserve.
Open Cadence on the App Store, type the sentence when it asks what you want to learn, and answer a few setup questions. Free to start. Android testers can request early access.
Type this when Cadence asks what you want to learn
I want to understand how philosophers think about knowledge and belief. Explore evidence, skepticism, and certainty through claims I might encounter in everyday life.
Change any word so it fits your situation. The course is built from what you type and a few setup questions.
- Best for
- Philosophy
- Prerequisites
- None. Bring the situation you have.
- Course length
- 7 to 30 lessons, sized to your goal
- Lesson pace
- About 10 minutes a day
- Format
- Read it, or play the audio
- Access
- Available on the App Store, with early features and Android testing access
Before the course is built
Setup asks about your situation first.
Lesson 1 opens on the moment you describe, and the examples use your role. For this request, expect questions like these.
- What raises the question for you: misinformation, science, religion, or philosophy itself?
- Do you tend toward too much certainty or too much doubt?
- Is there a claim you are trying to decide whether to believe?
Right for now
If any of this sounds familiar, start here.
You want to know what counts as evidence
Testimony, experience, authority and data all claim the title.
You are drawn to the big questions
How do we know anything is a question you keep returning to.
Course arc
Where the course goes, in order.
Cadence writes the lessons for you, so the exact path follows your answers. This is the ground a course built from this sentence covers.
01 / 06Knowledge and belief
Justified true belief, its famous problems, and why the question is practical.
Scepticism
Ancient and modern doubt, and what it leaves standing.
Perception and testimony
What your senses and other people can and cannot establish.
Reason and evidence
Deduction, induction and how science justifies claims.
Certainty
Why absolute certainty is rare and why that is fine.
Everyday epistemology
Applying the ideas to news, experts and your own strong beliefs.
What changes
What you will be able to do, and what you will stop believing.
You will be able to
Distinguish knowledge from belief
Explain what justification adds and why it matters.
Weigh kinds of evidence
Rate testimony, perception, reasoning and authority for a given claim.
Calibrate your confidence
Hold beliefs with degrees of certainty that match the support.
Ideas this course corrects
You either know something or you do not
Knowledge comes in degrees of justification. Most of what we know, we know provisionally.
Scepticism means believing nothing
Healthy scepticism proportions belief to evidence. Believing nothing is just another failure of calibration.
Course questions
What to know before you start.
Is this a fixed course?
No. Cadence builds the course when you type the sentence and answer a few setup questions, so the lessons follow your situation. This page describes what a course built from this request covers. You see the whole path before Lesson 1.
Who is this course for?
A course introducing the philosophy of knowledge through ordinary life. It covers evidence, scepticism and certainty, what separates knowledge from belief, and how to hold claims with the confidence they deserve. It sits under Philosophy in the Ideas & discovery part of the library.
Do I need any prior experience?
No. Setup asks what you already know and where you want to use it, and the course starts from there. Bring a real situation if you have one; the examples are built around it.
How long does it take?
Courses run 7 to 30 lessons of about 10 minutes, sized to what you asked for. One lesson a day is the intended pace, and you can go faster. Lessons can be read or played as audio.
Does this course award a certificate or degree?
No. Cadence is for practical self-learning and does not award accredited degrees or professional certification.
Start today
Type it, answer a few questions, open Lesson 1.
The sentence to type
I want to understand how philosophers think about knowledge and belief. Explore evidence, skepticism, and certainty through claims I might encounter in everyday life.
Open Cadence on the App Store, type the sentence when it asks what you want to learn, and answer a few setup questions. Free to start. Android testers can request early access.