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Full Idea
In my view, once we admit that our beliefs about our sensory states are not infallible, incorrigibility would be a vice rather than a virtue.
Gist of Idea
If senses are fallible, then being open to correction is an epistemological virtue
Source
Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 4.3)
Book Ref
Dancy,Jonathan: 'Introduction to Contemporary Epistemology' [Blackwell 1985], p.64
A Reaction
This seems to be axiomatic among modern philosophers, and I certainly agree with it.
| 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] |