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Topic: Fallibilism

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	Jacques Maritain Center: Mariano Artigas
		Fallibilism need in no way give rise to any skeptical or relativist conclusions (...) Every discovery of a mistake constitutes a real advance in our knowledge (...) Criticism, it seems, is the only way we have of detecting our mistakes, and of learning from them in a systematic way (44).
		Fallibilism is mainly an attitude, namely «the acceptance of the fact that we may err»; this attitude is connected with logical arguments (for instance, the impossibility of verifying an universal statement by means of particular tests): but it has nothing to do with relativism.
		One of the main difficulties of fallibilism seems to be that it provides a negative account of scientific method and, therefore, it does not justice to the positive results and the corresponding reliability of scientific theories.
	www.nd.edu /Departments/Maritain/ti/artigas.htm (14463 words)

	Fallibilism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Fallibilism is the philosophical doctrine that absolute certainty about knowledge is impossible; or at least that all claims to knowledge could, in principle, be mistaken.
		Another proponent of fallibilism is Karl Popper, who builds his theory of knowledge, critical rationalism, on fallibilistic presuppositions.
		Moral fallibilism is a specific subset of the broader epistemological fallibilism outlined above.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Fallibilism (504 words)

	Commens Peirce Dictionary: Fallibilism
		Indeed, out of a contrite fallibilism, combined with a high faith in the reality of knowledge, and an intense desire to find things out, all my philosophy has always seemed to me to grow.
		Nor does fallibilism say that men cannot attain a sure knowledge of the creations of their own minds.
		For fallibilism is the doctrine that our knowledge is never absolute but always swims, as it were, in a continuum of uncertainty and of indeterminacy.
	www.helsinki.fi /science/commens/terms/fallibilism.html (1009 words)

	Fallibilism [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy] (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22)
		Fallibilism is the epistemological thesis that no belief (theory, view, thesis, and so on) can ever be rationally supported or justified in a conclusive way.
		Fallibilism tells us that there is no conclusive justification and no rational certainty for any of our beliefs or theses.
		F’s main virtue, as a formulation of fallibilism, is its locating the culprit fallibility as arising within the putative justification that is present on behalf of a given belief.
	www.iep.utm.edu /f/fallibil.htm (13201 words)

	[No title]
		The doctrine of fallibilism will also be denied by those who fear its consequences for science, for religion, and for morality.
		But it would be quite misunderstanding the doctrine of fallibilism to suppose that it means that twice two is probably not exactly four.
		But in order really to see all there is in the doctrine of fallibilism, it is necessary to introduce the idea of continuity, or unbrokenness.
	www.princeton.edu /~batke/peirce/fal_c_ev_97.htm (5080 words)

	quine: terms explained (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22)
		The most basic definition of fallibilism is that some parts of accepted knowledge claims could be wrong or at least flawed.
		The response of the scientific community in that case is to revise the knowledge claim, not to deny the possibility of knowing anything for sure.
		He not only applied fallibilism to science, but to any analytic statement as well.
	www.rit.edu /~quine/fallibilism.html (333 words)

	DOGMATISM, FALLIBILISM AND TRUTH
		As dogmatism and fallibilism differ in their implications regarding the notions of truth and falsity, and Polanyi is adopting both, the intriguing question is whether the prima facie discrepancy between dogmatism and fallibilism has any serious consequences for his account of truth.
		Fallibilism may be characterized as an epistemological thesis which says that our human cognitive powers are fallible in the sense that we are liable to hold false beliefs.
		However, fallibilism denies the thesis that to know is to know that one knows; we may be mistaken in determining which of our beliefs are in fact true.
	www.kfki.hu /chemonet/polanyi/9912/sanders.html (5370 words)

	The Ethical Roots of Karl Popper's Epistemology
		However, when Popper speaks about criticism, critical rationalism or fallibilism he often refers to a more complex issue which involves personal attitudes, as he refers, for instance, to «intellectual honesty», «self-criticism» and «intellectual modesty», and he speaks of admitting «our mistakes, our fallibility, our ignorance», which clearly implies an ethical attitude
		Fallibilism need in no way give rise to any skeptical or relativist conclusions (...) Every discovery of a mistake constitutes a real advance in our knowledge (...) Criticism, it seems, is the only way we have of detecting our mistakes, and of learning from them in a systematic way
		Obviously, fallibilism occupies an important place in Popper's philosophy and it cannot be reduced to a mere reaction of the young Popper when he faced some particular events, important as they may be
	www.unav.es /cryf/theethicalrootsofkarlpopper.html (14433 words)

	EDUCATION REVIEW
		The distinction between fallibilism and relativism is indeed highly significant for Siegel, and he uses it in several of the essays to defeat his critics.
		The further distinction in his argument is the again familiar one between relativism and fallibilism and the consequent epistemological roles of justification and truth.
		It would contribute greatly to the conversation about rationality to link his notion of fallibilism to feminist discourse on issues such as the struggles between subjectivism and objectivism, as well as feminist (and other) philosophers’; willingness to theorize ethics and epistemology as not-so-separate entities.
	edrev.asu.edu /reviews/rev87.htm (6555 words)

	Fallibilism (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22)
		Fallibilism is a philosophical doctrine regarding natural science, most closely associated with Charles Sanders Peirce, which maintains that our scientific knowledge claims are invariably vulnerable and may turn out to be false.
		Fallibilism does not insist on the falsity of our scientific claims but rather on their tentativity as inevitable estimates: it does not hold that knowledge is unavailable here, but rather that it is always provisional.
		The interesting fact is that fallibilism is a more plausible doctrine with respect to scientific knowledge than with respect to the less demanding ‘knowledge’ of everyday life (Rescher, 1998).
	www.db.dk /jni/lifeboat/Concepts/Fallibilism.htm (195 words)

	Catallarchy » Toward a Fallibilist Synthesis (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22)
		Now as to Trent’s question, I’m not sure where fallibilism leads one to be on the old left-right political spectrum.
		Fallibilism could readily explain this– it’s those in power who are actually telling other people what to do, not just thinking about how they’d like to do so– but I doubt it’s necessary.
		Hence fallibilism seems to be an approach to ethics that takes this into account in a digestible way - analyzing arguments from both utilitarian and natural rights grounds, and (if there is a difference, or an unintuitive result) explain the difference in terms of some misapplication of one or both theories.
	catallarchy.net /blog/archives/2005/06/24/toward-a-fallibilist-synthesis (4205 words)

	Quodlibet Online Journal: The Futility of Philosophic Inquiry - by Michael Mock (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22)
		The theory that I shall advocate is a synthesis of fallibilism and proper functionalism.
		Fallibilism seems to think that the certainty requirement for knowledge is unreasonably high, for we seem to be saying something that is different and much stronger when we maintain that we know something with absolute certainty than when we merely claim to know something.
		Fallibilism also says that, in addition to merely very good reasons, knowledge requires true belief, and whatever condition is necessary in order to deal with the Gettier problem.
	www.quodlibet.net /mock-futility.shtml (8415 words)

	Common Sense, Science and Scepticism - Cambridge University Press
		This book is an introductory and historically-based survey of the debate, siding for the most part with scepticism to show that the desire to vanquish it has often led to doctrines of idealism or anti-realism.
		Scepticism, science and common sense produce another view, fallibilism or critical rationalism: although we can have little or no certain knowledge, as the sceptics maintain, we can and do have plenty of conjectural knowledge.
		Fallibilism incorporates an uncompromising realism about perception, science, and the nature of truth.
	www.cambridge.org /uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521436257 (255 words)

	HighBeam Research - Article
		Now, according to Douven's apparent reading of Methodological Fallibilism (the reading underlying step 1), this thesis asserts not the methodologically fallible character of all empirical theses, but their contingent character, the supposed fact that for every empirical theory T, there is a possible world in which T does not hold.
		For instance, given Douven's characterization of Methodological Fallibilism, the opponent of metaphysical realism who identifies the truth of a theory with its being epistemically ideal is misrepresented as endorsing the negation of Methodological Fallibilism.
		That is: for every empirical theory T, there are relevant possible circumstances of use of T where (some of) the proposition(s) expressed by T turn(s) out to be false; and, of course, in every relevant context of use for T, this theory is assumed to keep its prominent epistemic feature: being epistemically ideal.
	courses.washington.edu /dbt560/possibilities.doc (4747 words)

	Swarthmore College
		Fallibilism is the idea that our knowledge is imperfect, provisional, subject to revision in the face of new evidence.
		For centuries, doctrine had held that there were demonstrative, self-evident truths, as with a Euclidean theorem, and that all else was mere opinion.
		Today, scientific fallibilism has spread across the globe; it holds sway even in the theocracy of Iran, where scientific and technological knowledge is revered, especially, alas, when it produces new forms of weaponry.
	www.swarthmore.edu /news/commencement2006/appiah.php (819 words)

	Mitchell Aboulafia (ed.), Myra Bookman (ed.), Catherine Kemp (ed.) - Habermas and Pragmatism - Reviewed by Christopher ...
		Stylizing somewhat, we might even speculate that Habermas aims for a measure of anti-skeptical fallibilism in his methodological and epistemological projects by drawing on C. Peirceâs attempt to save the cognitive content of the Kantian ideas of reason without recourse, however, to a metaphysical appeal to the noumenal realm.
		Of course, realizing such aspirations towards an anti-skeptical fallibilism and an anti-reductivist naturalism involves one in a sort of philosophical high-wire act, finding just the right path between the dead-ends of dogmatism and skepticism, between over-confident rationalism and a dismissal of philosophy as passÃ©.
		If Rockmore and Apel point to the precariousness of Habermasâs Peirce-inspired balance between fallibilism and skepticism with respect to epistemology and philosophy itself, many of the remaining essays evince the precariousness of his Mead-inspired balance between naturalism and scientistic reductivism with respect to the semantic content of human cultures and subjectivity.
	ndpr.nd.edu /review.cfm?id=1395 (1643 words)

	Philip de Bary - Thomas Reid and Scepticism: His reliabilist response - Reviewed by James Somerville, The University of ...
		Further misunderstanding is betrayed in another reason given for ascribing fallibilism to Reid.
		The passage is taken as evidence that âReidâs fallibilism is thorough-going enough to extend even toâ consciousness (p.
		Reidâs assault on the theory, far from being irrelevant to diabolical or divine deception, has the potential to undermine the blockbuster fallibilism de Bary attributes to him.
	ndpr.nd.edu /review.cfm?id=1103 (2233 words)

	The Anti-Manicheist: What is Fallibilism? (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-22)
		I am looking into whether one can incorporate fallibilism into doing a biblical, practical evangelical theology that benefits from systems theory and what the implications would be of such.
		As I understand it, Fallibilism is taking seriously the consequences of how we see but in part as through a mirror darkly for our ecclesiological and missiological reflections.
		It also coincides with the view that, even though the Bible's teachings are inerrant when interpreted correctly in the literal sense as it would have been understood by the original audience, it does not provide Christians an exhaustive blue-print for right conduct in every conceivable ethical situation, although it is relevant for every such situation.
	wetzell.blogspot.com /2005/11/what-is-fallibilism.html (535 words)

	Philosophia Mathematica Abstracts: Vol. 11
		In this paper, it will be shown that Peirce was of two minds about whether his scientific fallibilism, the recognition of the possibility of error in our beliefs, applied to mathematics.
		It will be argued that Peirce can and should hold a theory of fallibilism within mathematics, and that this position is more consistent with his overall pragmatic theory of inquiry and his general commitment to the growth of knowledge.
		But to make the argument for fallibilism in mathematics, Peirce's theory of fallibilism must be reconceived to incorporate two different kinds of fallibilism, which correspond to two different kinds of truth claims.
	www.umanitoba.ca /pm/absvol11.html (1070 words)

	20th WCP: Humanity Educating Philosophy
		Many have made the argument that while humanity can be deceived, one individual can know, and therefore teach the others about their deceptions and false beliefs.
		It was Charles S. Peirce who introduced us to the idea of fallibilism, and stimulated us to explore the idea that individual selves are fallible, partial, social human beings, and therefore that we may need a community of knowers to help us more fully understand what we think we know.
		Many disagree with me that fallibilism entails the need to embrace pluralism on epistemic grounds.
	www.bu.edu /wcp/Papers/Educ/EducThay.htm (3273 words)

	Opiniatrety: My APA Paper
		If contextualism is to support fallibilism about lottery cases, the contextualist must say that there is a standard for knowledge by which, when we consider whether Bill will be rich this year, we may ignore the possibility that Bill's ticket wins.
		The hyperactive context-shifting necessary to reconcile fallibilism with unqualified DC was undesirable because it threatened those epistemic practices.
		On fallibilism, we may know that p if we are properly ignoring an improbable alternative to p.
	mattweiner.net /blog/archives/000159.html (7614 words)

	Totalitarianism vs Empiricism - TheologyWeb Campus
		Those committed to unfettered inquiry are unlikely to resort to threats and coercion to silence opposing views.In contrast, adherents of faith-based views of reality that are unresponsive to evidence may be less inclined toward cognitive humility.
		The driving assumption can be quite the opposite of fallibilism: my revealed, intuited, empirically non-responsive worldview is necessarily true, so any contradictions of it must be discounted as illusory and wrong-headed.
		Indeed, it’s hard to find an example of an ideology that seeks to universalize itself that doesn’t ultimately rest on some unquestionable truth about the universe or human nature, whether it be Aryan superiority, the existence of Allah, the divinity of Jesus, or the final and benign rationality of free market enterprize.
	www.theologyweb.com /campus/showthread.php?p=1688406#post1688406 (689 words)

	fallibilism - OneLook Dictionary Search
		Tip: Click on the first link on a line below to go directly to a page where "fallibilism" is defined.
		Fallibilism : The Ism Book A Field Guide to the Nomenclature of Philosophy [home, info]
		Fallibilism : Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy [home, info]
	www.onelook.com /cgi-bin/cgiwrap/bware/dofind.cgi?word=fallibilism (125 words)

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