I asked dutiful questions about the history, and the future, of desserts, and Ferran responded instantly, in Spanish, not with the guarded caution of his younger brother or the academic certainty of Jordi Butrón but with eager, nodding, flowing eloquence.
Each is obsessed with a literary quest: Bernard is hoping his Byron theory will land him media celebrity; she lusts after academic certainty.
However, Chesa was by no means a certainty for academic honours.
He lacked the tentativeness expected of British academics when voicing their certainties.
On these early mornings Worn-out grinding gears Downshift away from the Certainty of academic madness And steer clear of the wild Turns of first-love sadness.
Like DeRose (2005), Ludlow casts EC as a piece of 'ordinary language' philosophy, and in that spirit he presents the results of Google searches in which clauses like, "…by objective standards", "…by academic standards", "…with some certainty", "…doggone well…", and so on, accompany uses of 'know(s)'.
The Skeptical Academics denied that certainty on any subject was possible and worked out a sophisticated theory of probability as a guide to practical decision making.
Besides the baptism by fire, there are several certainties in an academic's life cycle during the early years.
Trystan Gravelle as the proselytising John exudes the authority that comes from stillness, Geraldine James as the prime minister combines public decisiveness with private solitude, and Danny Webb is all blazing certainty as the God-hating academic.
Preferred or perceived necessary styles may be superficial and the need for certainty may relate more to passing academic examinations than the realistic future practice of medicine.
