more from this thinker     |     more from this text

Single Idea 6898

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

Full Idea

Fallibilism is the view, proposed by Peirce, and found in Reichenbach, Popper, Quine etc that all knowledge-claims are provisional and in principle revisable, or that the possibility of error is ever-present.

Clarification

'Fallible' means could be wrong

Gist of Idea

Fallibilism is the view that all knowledge-claims are provisional

Source

Thomas Mautner (Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy [1996], p.194)

Book Ref

Mautner,Thomas: 'Dictionary of Philosophy' [Penguin 1997], p.194

A Reaction

I think of this as footnote to all thought which reads "Note 1: but you never quite know". Personally I would call myself a fallibilist, and am surprise at anyone who doesn't. The point is that this does not negate 'knowledge'. I am fairly sure 2+3=5.

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]