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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.
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] |