H. P. Grice: On Incorrigibility versus Infallibility

infallibility Epistemology The impossibility of being mistaken. Some philosophers claim that certain perceptual beliefs, such as “I am in pain,” are infallible and therefore may serve as the basis for justifying other beliefs. But others argue that even in such cases mistakes are possible through applying the wrong concept to a given item. Questions of infallibility have been discussed with the related notion of incorrigibility. An infallible claim cannot be mistaken, while an incorrigible claim cannot be corrected and hence cannot be mistaken. Infallibility is also used for the view that it is impossible for knowledge to be wrong. A requirement that knowledge must be infallible would have the effect of excluding many legitimate questions from debate. Many philosophers do not think that this is acceptable, for it would reject all procedures liable to error and would radically narrow the scope of knowledge. The possibility of knowledge might vanish altogether because if fallibilism is correct, even propositions that we take to be necessary truths are in principle open to error. The notion of the infallibility of knowledge can be traced to Plato’s philosophy and is one type of rationalist ideal. The idea that scientific knowledge should be infallible has been challenged by Popper’s claim that only when a theory can be falsified is it a real scientific theory.