Fallibilism and Epistemology
The quest for certainty has gotten epistemology into a lot of hot water, and I propose we give it up as a mistake. We should freely admit we can’t be certain of anything, and move on. It is, of course, a reasonable question whether we can consistently get along without certainty, and even if it is possible, whether there is some terrible price to be paid if we do. I will argue that it is indeed possible to do without any epistemologically useful notion of certainty. I will also argue that, while there may be prices to be paid, they are by no means as high as the prices to paid by those who wish to keep certainty as a viable epistemological concept.
But first, let me make good my claim that a lot of trouble in epistemology has been caused by the quest for certainty. First, consider the case of Plato. In the Republic, Plato argues that since knowledge requires certainty, and certainty requires an unchanging subject matter, true knowledge can be only of unchanging forms. There can be no true knowledge of the changing physical world, which then becomes the realm of changing, uncertain doxa, mere opinion. In a stroke, all the kinds of knowledge we take to be constitutive of science are demoted. It is true that Plato has other reasons for espousing his theory of forms, and even if he had himself followed by advice and given up on certainty, he would have had ample reason to retain the theory. Nevertheless, some of his most perplexing epistemological pronouncements would have been left entirely unmotivated. For example, the doctrine of Recollection espoused in the Meno rests on the claim that the only possible explanation for geometrical knowledge, given its apparent innateness and certainty, is that everyone was in contact with the forms before they were born. No certainty, no problem, or at least a different problem. It would have been open to him then to embrace the justified true belief analysis of knowledge--more accurately, true belief with a logos--that he ultimately rejects in the Theaetetus. Epistemology could have leaped ahead two millennia, and some Hellenistic Greek could have been Ed Gettier.
Perhaps a more famous victim of the quest for certainty is Descartes. He noticed that he was often wrong about things he thought he knew, even about some things he believed with a great deal of confidence. Not only have some of hi...
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... the most certainty, and that we are in general bad judges of the success of our own epistemic endeavors, is enough to show that we ought to be very cautious indeed. Just as a judge may not rule on a case in which he has an interest, because people in that situation are prone to bias, so we ought to behave as if we could be wrong in any particular case, because we are wrong in so many cases. We think it the best procedure in general if the particular judge is not permitted to preside in that case, even if he is in fact immune to bias. In the same way, we should think it right to treat every one of our beliefs as potentially in error, even if in fact we cannot be wrong. The question fallibilism answers is the question of what rules are best for knowledge-seeking as an endeavor. So fallibilism is best understood, not as a thesis about our abilities, but as a rule to guide our epistemic endeavors.
One final note. Espousing fallibilism is a no-lose proposition. If my arguments succeed, I have shown fallibilism to be a desirable view. If my arguments fail, I have given inductive support to fallibilism. Either way, fallibilism turns out more probable. So you might as well give up now.
...Greeks, for their part, considered wisdom a virtue, but their conception of wisdom always contained a conventional, conservative element. ..."Wisdom" is not the term one would use to describe a scientific genius, a brilliant artist, an innovator in any field. But these, for Rand, are the highest exemplars of rationality.
(1) Kelly, Thomas (2005). “The Epistemic Significance of Disagreement.” Oxford Studies in Epistemology. Eds. Tamar Szabo Gendler and John Hawthorne. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pg.1 – 36.
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