fallibilism
(ˈfælɪbɪlɪz(ə)m)
[f. fallible a. + -ism.]
The principle that propositions concerning empirical knowledge cannot be proved.
| c 1897 C. S. Peirce Coll. Papers (1931) I. i. iii. 61 Fallibilism..only says that people cannot attain absolute certainty concerning questions of fact. Ibid. 70 Fallibilism is the doctrine that our knowledge is never absolute but always swims, as it were, in a continuum of uncertainty and of indeterminacy. 1941 Mind L. 81 Fallibilism which denies intuitive or certain knowledge even of common-sense propositions. |