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Single Idea 17637

[filed under theme 11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 3. Fallibilism ]

Full Idea

Even where there is the highest degree of obviousness, we cannot assume that we are infallible - a sufficient conflict with other obvious propositions may lead us to abandon our belief, as in the case of a hallucination afterwards recognised as such.

Gist of Idea

The most obvious beliefs are not infallible, as other obvious beliefs may conflict

Source

Bertrand Russell (Regressive Method for Premises in Mathematics [1907], p.279)

Book Ref

Russell,Bertrand: 'Essays in Analysis', ed/tr. Lackey,Douglas [George Braziller 1973], p.279

A Reaction

This approach to fallibilism seems to arise from the paradox that undermined Frege's rather obvious looking axioms. After Peirce and Russell, fallibilism has become a secure norm of modern thought.

The 13 ideas with the same theme [beliefs can counts as knowledge even if they are not certain]:

12569 Knowledge by senses is less certain than that by intuition or reason, but it is still knowledge [Locke]
14768 Infallibility in science is just a joke [Peirce]
14770 Reasoning is based on statistical induction, so it can't achieve certainty or precision [Peirce]
19107 Inquiry is not standing on bedrock facts, but standing in hope on a shifting bog [Peirce]
22870 No belief can be so settled that it is not subject to further inquiry [Dewey]
17637 The most obvious beliefs are not infallible, as other obvious beliefs may conflict [Russell]
12897 To say S knows P, but cannot eliminate not-P, sounds like a contradiction [Lewis]
2755 If senses are fallible, then being open to correction is an epistemological virtue [Dancy,J]
6898 Fallibilism is the view that all knowledge-claims are provisional [Mautner]
19701 Fallibilism is consistent with dogmatism or scepticism, and is not alternative to them [Dougherty]
19700 It is best to see the fallibility in the reasons, rather than in the agents or the knowledge [Dougherty]
19702 We can't normally say that we know something 'but it might be false' [Dougherty]
19718 Indefeasibility does not imply infallibility [Grundmann]