Fallibilism

In contemporary epistemology, scholars generally distinguish between global fallibilism and local fallibilism.

Historically, fallibilism is most strongly associated with Charles S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and other pragmatists. Global fallibilism (also called pragmatic fallibilism, contrite fallibilism, epistemic fallibilism, epistemological fallibilism or fallibilistic empiricism) implies that no beliefs can be conclusively justified,[3][5] or in other words, that knowledge does not require certainty.[6][7] Moreover, global fallibilists assert that because empirical knowledge can be revised by further observation, any of the things we take as empirical knowledge might turn out to be false.[4][8] The claim that all assertions are provisional and thus open to revision in light of new evidence is widely taken for granted in the natural sciences.[9]

Other theorists may restrict fallibilism to particular areas of human inquiry or domains of knowledge, such as empirical science or morality.[3] Infallible beliefs, they propose, may also include self-knowledge and those that can be known a priori (such as logical truths and mathematical truths). This view is referred to as local fallibilism.[10] An example of local fallibilism is critical fallibilism (also called radical fallibilism, fallibilistic realism, or more prominently critical rationalism). Although critical fallibilists believe that all assertions are provisional, they dismiss the fact that all claims are fallible.[11]

According to philosopher Scott F. Aikin, fallibilism cannot properly function in the absence of infinite regress.[12] The term, usually attributed to Pyrrhonist philosopher Agrippa, is argued to be the inevitable outcome of all human inquiry, since every proposition requires justification.[13] Infinite regress, also represented within the regress argument, is closely related to the problem of the criterion and is a constituent of the Münchhausen trilemma. Illustrious examples regarding infinite regress are the cosmological argument, turtles all the way down, and the simulation hypothesis. Many philosophers struggle with the metaphysical implications that come along with infinite regress. For this reason, philosophers have gotten creative in their quest to circumvent it.

Somewhere along the seventeenth century, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes introduced the term "infinite progress". With this term, Hobbes had captured the human proclivity to strive for perfection.[14] Philosophers like Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Christian Wolff, and Immanuel Kant, would elaborate further on the concept. Kant even went on to speculate that immortal species should hypothetically be able to develop their capacities to perfection.[15] This sentiment is still alive today. Infinite progress has been associated with concepts like science, religion, technology, economic growth, consumerism, and economic materialism. All these concepts thrive on the belief that they can carry on endlessly. Infinite progress has become the panacea to turn the vicious circles of infinite regress into virtuous circles. However, vicious circles have not yet been eliminated from the world; hyperinflation, the poverty trap, and debt accumulation for instance still occur.

Already in 350 B.C.E, Greek philosopher Aristotle made a distinction between potential and actual infinities. Based on his discourse, it can be said that actual infinities do not exist, because they are paradoxical. Aristotle deemed it impossible for humans to keep on adding members to finite sets indefinitely. It eventually led him to refute some of Zeno's paradoxes.[16] Other relevant examples of potential infinities include Galileo's paradox and the paradox of Hilbert's hotel. The notion that infinite regress and infinite progress only manifest themselves potentially, actually gave rise to fallibilism. According to philosophy professor Elizabeth F. Cooke, fallibilism embraces uncertainty, and infinite regress and infinite progress are not unfortunate limitations on human cognition, but rather necessary antecedents for knowledge acquisition. They allow us to live functional and meaningful lives.[17]

The founder of critical fallibilism: Karl Popper

In the mid-twentieth century, several important philosophers began to critique the foundations of logical positivism. In his work The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1934), Karl Popper, the founder of critical fallibilism, argued for falsifiability as a means to devalue the verifiability criterion.[11] Popper was determined to solve the problem of induction. Ergo, he adamantly proclaimed that scientific truths are not inductively inferred from experience, or merely verified by experimentation, but rather deduced from statements, and justified by means of deliberation and intersubjective consensus within a particular scientific community.[18] Popper also tried to resolve the problem of demarcation, by asserting that all knowledge is fallible, except for knowledge acquired by means of falsification. This implies that falsifications are temporarily infallible, which means that they can logically contradict or methodologically refute any statement conclusively, until they have been retracted by an adequate research community. Hence, critical fallibilism is a form of local fallibilism, because it partly allows infallibilism.[18]

Popper insisted that verification and falsification are logically asymmetrical.[18] However, according to the Duhem-Quine thesis (a global fallibilistic approach), definitive and unambiguous falsifications are impossible,[19] because any empirical test requires one or more auxiliary assumptions (also called a bundle of hypotheses).[20] Another objection holds that the asymmetry is an illusion, because in the action of refuting an argument, scientists will inevitable verify its negation. Thus, verification and falsification are perfectly symmetrical.[21][22] Also evident within the Duhem-Quine thesis is the distinction between underdetermination and overdetermination. Underdetermination is the idea that evidence available to us at any given time may be insufficient.[23] In contrast, overdetermination occurs when multiple causes underlie the evidence, but any cause alone would already be sufficient as part of any syllogism.[24] Underdetermination and overdetermination both contribute to the credibility of fallibilism.

Furthermore, fallibilism has been employed by philosopher Willard V. O. Quine to attack, among other things, the distinction between analytic and synthetic statements.[25] British philosopher Susan Haack, following Quine, has argued that the nature of fallibilism is often misunderstood, because people tend to confuse fallible propositions with fallible agents. She claims that logic is revisable, which means that analyticity does not exist and necessity (or a priority) does not extend to logical truths. She hereby opposes the conviction that propositions in logic are infallible, while agents can be fallible.[26] Critical rationalist Hans Albert argues that it is impossible to prove any truth with certainty, not only in logic, but also in mathematics.[27]

Imre Lakatos, in the 1960s, known for his contributions to mathematical fallibilism.

In Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical Discovery (1976), philosopher Imre Lakatos implemented mathematical proofs into the Popperian framework of critical fallibilism. Lakatos's mathematical fallibilism is the general view that all mathematical theorems are falsifiable.[28] Mathematical fallibilism deviates from traditional views held by philosophers like Hegel, Peirce, and Popper.[28][29] Although Peirce introduced global fallibilism, he seems to preclude the possibility of us being mistaken in our mathematical beliefs.[4] Mathematical fallibilism appears to uphold that even though a mathematical conjecture cannot be proven true, we may consider some to be good approximations or estimations of the truth. This so called verisimilitude may provide us with consistency amidst an inherent incompleteness in mathematics.[30] Mathematical fallibilism differs from quasi-empiricism, to the extend that the former does not incorporate infinitism, which makes it more suitable alongside set theory.[31]

In the philosophy of mathematics, the central tenet of fallibilism is undecidability (which bears resemblance to the notion of isostheneia; the antithesis of appearance and judgement).[28] Two distinct types of the word "undecidable" are currently being applied. The first one relates to the continuum hypothesis; the hypothesis that a statement can neither be proved nor be refuted in a specified deductive system.[32] The continuum hypothesis was proposed by mathematician Georg Cantor in 1873.[33] This type of undecidability is used in the context of the independence of the continuum hypothesis, namely because this statement is said to be independent from the axioms in Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory combined with the axiom of choice (also called ZFC). Both the hypothesis and its negation are consistent with these axioms. Many noteworthy discoveries have preceded the establishment of the continuum hypothesis. In 1877, Cantor introduced the diagonal argument to prove that the cardinality of two finite sets is equal, by putting them into a one-to-one correspondence.[34] Diagonalization reappeared in Cantors theorem, in 1891, to show that the power set of any countable set must have strictly higher cardinality.[35] The existence of the power set has been postulated in the axiom of power set; a vital part of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory. Moreover, in 1899, Cantor's paradox was discovered. It postulates that there is no set of all cardinalities.[35] Two years later, polymath Bertrand Russell would invalidate the existence of the universal set by pointing towards Russell's paradox, which implies that no set can contain itself as an element (or member). The universal set can be confuted by utilizing either the axiom schema of separation or the axiom of regularity.[36] In contrast to the universal set, a power set does not contain itself. It was only after 1940 that mathematician Kurt Gödel showed, by applying inter alia the diagonal lemma, that the continuum hypothesis cannot be refuted,[32] and after 1963, that fellow mathematician Paul Cohen revealed, through the method of forcing, that the continuum hypothesis cannot be proved either.[37] In spite of the undecidability, both Gödel and Cohen suspected the continuum hypothesis to be false. This sense of suspicion, in conjunction with a firm belief in the consistency of ZFC, is in line with mathematical fallibilism.[38] Mathematical fallibilists suppose that new axioms, for example the axiom of projective determinacy, might improve ZFC, but that these axioms won't allow for dependence of the continuum hypothesis.[39]

The second type of undecidability is used in relation to computability theory (or recursion theory) and applies not solely to statements but specifically to decision problems; mathematical questions of decidability. An undecidable problem is a type of computational problem in which there are countably infinite sets of questions, each requiring an effective method to determine whether an output is either "yes or no" (or whether a statement is either "true or false"), but where there cannot be any computer program or Turing machine that will always provide the correct answer. Any program would occasionally give a wrong answer or run forever without giving any answer.[40] Famous examples of undecidable problems are the halting problem and the Entscheidungsproblem. Conventionally, an undecidable problem is derived from a recursive set, formulated in undecidable language, and measured by the Turing degree.[41][42] Practically all undecidable problems are unsolved, but not all unsolved problems are undecidable. Undecidability, with respect to computer science and mathematical logic, is also called unsolvability or non-computability. In the end, both types of undecidability can help to build a case for fallibilism, by providing these fundamental thought experiments.

Fallibilism improves upon the ideas associated with philosophical skepticism. Hilary Putnam said that the basic insight in pragmatism is the combination of fallibilism and antiskepticism.[43] According to philosophy professor Richard Feldman, nearly all versions of ancient and modern skepticism depend on the mistaken assumption that justification, and thus knowledge, requires conclusive evidence or certainty.[6] An exception can be made for mitigated skepticism. In philosophical parlance, mitigated skepticism is an attitude which supports doubt in knowledge.[44] This attitude is conserved in philosophical endeavors like scientific skepticism (or rational skepticism) and David Hume's inductive skepticism (or inductive fallibilism). Scientific skepticism questions the veracity of claims lacking empirical evidence, while inductive skepticism avers that inductive inference in forming predictions and generalizations cannot be conclusively justified or proven.[45] Mitigated skepticism is also evident in the philosophical journey of Karl Popper.[28] Furthermore, Popper demonstrates the value of fallibilism in his book The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945) by echoing the third maxim inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi: "surety brings ruin".[46]

But the fallibility of our knowledge — or the thesis that all knowledge is guesswork, though some consists of guesses which have been most severely tested — must not be cited in support of scepticism or relativism. From the fact that we can err, and that a criterion of truth which might save us from error does not exist, it does not follow that the choice between theories is arbitrary, or non-rational: that we cannot learn, or get nearer to the truth: that our knowledge cannot grow.

— Karl Popper

Global fallibilism differs slightly from academic skepticism (also called global skepticism, absolute skepticism, universal skepticism, radical skepticism, or epistemological nihilism) in the sense that global fallibilists assume that no beliefs are certain (not even when established a priori), while proponents of academic skepticism advocate that no beliefs exist. In order to defend their position, these skeptics will either engage in epochē, a suspension of judgement, or they will resort to acatalepsy, a rejection of all knowledge.[47] The concept of epoché is often accredited to Pyrrhonian skepticism, while the concept of acatalepsy can be traced back to multiple branches of skepticism. Acatalepsy is also closely related to the Socratic paradox. Nonetheless, epoché and acatalepsy are respectively self-contradictory and self-refuting, namely because both concepts rely (be it logically or methodologically) on its existence to serve as a justification.[48] Lastly, local skepticism is the view that people cannot obtain knowledge of a particular area or subject (e.g. morality, religion, or metaphysics).

Moral fallibilism is a specific subset of local fallibilism. In the debate between moral subjectivism and moral objectivism, moral fallibilism holds out a third plausible stance: that objectively true moral standards may exist, but they cannot be reliably or conclusively determined by humans. Moral fallibilism bears similarities with objective value pluralism, a view proposed by Isaiah Berlin.[49] Other theorists reject objective morality and rather adhere to moral realism, moral relativism or moral subjectivism.

Nearly all philosophers today are fallibilists in some sense of the term.[3] Few would claim that knowledge requires absolute certainty, or deny that scientific claims are revisable, though in the 21st century some philosophers have argued for some version of infallibilist knowledge.[50][51][52] Historically, many Western philosophers from Plato to Saint Augustine to René Descartes have argued that some human beliefs are infallibly known. Plausible candidates for infallible beliefs include logical truths ("Either Jones is a Democrat or Jones is not a Democrat"), immediate appearances ("It seems that I see a patch of blue"), and incorrigible beliefs (i.e., beliefs that are true in virtue of being believed, such as Descartes' "I think, therefore I am"). Many others, however, have taken even these types of beliefs to be fallible.[26]

• Logical holism
• Pancritical rationalism
• Perspectivism
• Probabilism
• Defeasible reasoning

• Charles S. Peirce: Selected Writings, by Philip P. Wiener (Dover, 1980)
• Charles S. Peirce and the Philosophy of Science, by Edward C. Moore (Alabama, 1993)
• Traktat über kritische Vernunft, by Hans Albert (Tübingen, 1968)