Knowledge, truth and fallibility
pp. 127-148
in: Ioanna Kuuradi, Robert S. Cohen (eds), The concept of knowledge, Berlin, Springer, 1995Abstract
Epistemology in the Western tradition is replete with implicit claims to infallibility. Truth, for example, is widely supposed to be what is the case independently of any human point of view. This independence from point of view has seemed crucial for the simple reason that the human point of view is essentially fallible while truth is tautologically devoid of error. The logical consequence of this, namely that knowledge of truth is humanly impossible, is drawn by the skeptic but resisted by all others, damn all logic. (Note, by the way, that the skeptic does not conclude that he knows this consequence.) This chaos is even more evident in talk of necessary truth. The necessary, is, by the usual definition, that which cannot be otherwise. This supposed de re situation is taken to confer apodeictic certainty on our cognitions of necessary truth. But if we are fallible, why may it not, whatever it may be, turn out to be otherwise? So again, only infallibility would suffice for knowledge of necessity. From which the lesson must be: "Epistemologist, humanize your concepts of truth and necessity".