Gewissheit

Gewissheit is a German noun meaning certainty or assurance about the truth of a proposition, arising from evidence, reasoning, or conviction. Etymologically, it derives from gewiss meaning certain, with the suffix -heit forming an abstract noun that denotes a state or quality.

In everyday language, Gewissheit denotes a strong conviction or confidence that something is the case. It can express epistemic certainty, but it is not necessarily an absolute, indubitable truth. The term may appear in phrases such as Glaubensgewissheit (certainty of faith) and is not interchangeable with Sicherheit (safety) or Zuversicht (hope).

In philosophy, Gewissheit has been central to inquiries into the foundations of knowledge. It is used to refer to a form of knowledge that is free from doubt. In the German Enlightenment and subsequent traditions, scholars distinguished Gewissheit from mere belief. Immanuel Kant, for example, spoke of apodictische Gewissheit—knowledge that is certain in a deductive sense, as in mathematics or pure natural science—while acknowledging that empirical knowledge rests on a priori forms and can be challenged by skepticism. Hume’s critique raised questions about the possibility of empirical Gewissheit, particularly regarding causality and induction.

In contemporary usage, Gewissheit is often understood as high confidence grounded in evidence, rather than absolute, indemonstrable certainty. It remains a common term in philosophy, theology, and everyday discourse for describing the degree of conviction attributed to a proposition.