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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 30 ideas from Thomas Mautner

9959 'Real' definitions give the essential properties of things under a concept [Mautner]
9961 'Contextual definitions' replace whole statements, not just expressions [Mautner]
9958 Recursive definition defines each instance from a previous instance [Mautner]
9960 A stipulative definition lays down that an expression is to have a certain meaning [Mautner]
9957 Ostensive definitions point to an object which an expression denotes [Mautner]
6219 The fallacy of composition is the assumption that what is true of the parts is true of the whole [Mautner]
4782 'All x are y' is equivalent to 'all non-y are non-x', so observing paper is white confirms 'ravens are black' [Mautner, by PG]
6881 Analytic philosophy studies the unimportant, and sharpens tools instead of using them [Mautner]
6886 Counterfactuals are not true, they are merely valid [Mautner]
6885 Counterfactuals are true if in every world close to actual where p is the case, q is also the case [Mautner]
6884 Counterfactuals say 'If it had been, or were, p, then it would be q' [Mautner]
6882 Counterfactuals presuppose a belief (or a fact) that the condition is false [Mautner]
6883 Maybe counterfactuals are only true if they contain valid inference from premisses [Mautner]
6896 Double effect is the distinction between what is foreseen and what is intended [Mautner]
6897 Double effect acts need goodness, unintended evil, good not caused by evil, and outweighing [Mautner]
6877 Entailment is logical requirement; it may be not(p and not-q), but that has problems [Mautner]
5452 'Essentialism' is opposed to existentialism, and claims there is a human nature [Mautner]
5449 Essentialism is often identified with belief in 'de re' necessary truths [Mautner]
6898 Fallibilism is the view that all knowledge-claims are provisional [Mautner]
6888 Fuzzy logic is based on the notion that there can be membership of a set to some degree [Mautner]
4783 Observing lots of green x can confirm 'all x are green' or 'all x are grue', where 'grue' is arbitrary [Mautner, by PG]
5439 The 'hermeneutic circle' says parts and wholes are interdependent, and so cannot be interpreted [Mautner]
6880 Strict implication says false propositions imply everything, and everything implies true propositions [Mautner]
6879 'Material implication' is defined as 'not(p and not-q)', but seems to imply a connection between p and q [Mautner]
6899 The references of indexicals ('there', 'now', 'I') depend on the circumstances of utterance [Mautner]
6878 A person who 'infers' draws the conclusion, but a person who 'implies' leaves it to the audience [Mautner]
6887 Linguistic philosophy approaches problems by attending to actual linguistic usage [Mautner]
6890 Quantifiers turn an open sentence into one to which a truth-value can be assigned [Mautner]
6452 'Sense-data' arrived in 1910, but it denotes ideas in Locke, Berkeley and Hume [Mautner]
6889 Vagueness seems to be inconsistent with the view that every proposition is true or false [Mautner]