The Development of Fallibilism in Modern Epistemology and Philosophy of Science.
The Development of Fallibilism in Modern Epistemology and Philosophy of Science.
Akelyan Davit
Summary
Key words: possibility of error, methodology, epistemology, philosophy of science, rationalism, empiricism, problem of induction, fallibility, truth
In nineteenth- and twentieth-century epistemology and philosophy of science, the conceptual development of fallibilism was shaped by several factors. Most importantly, it was influenced by the crisis of classical physics and the emergence of quantum and relativistic theories, as well as by attempts to reconsider and reinterpret traditional epistemological and philosophy-of-science issues. The foundational works of representatives of American pragmatism and positivist philosophy also played a significant role.
Although pragmatists and positivists articulated and developed the core principles of fallibilism, they did not transform it from a general worldview into a fully developed methodological program. Consequently, the epistemological and methodological significance of fallibilism for addressing contemporary problems in epistemology and the philosophy of science has remained a matter of debate.
Within the framework of critical rationalism, particularly in the works of Karl Popper, fallibilism acquires a normative methodological status. It becomes a comprehensive methodological program in the form of non-inductivist falsificationism. Popper’s approach offers solutions to the problems of demarcation and induction, overcomes the limitations of irrationalist conceptual approaches, and develops a fallibilist-evolutionary epistemology that reconciles the fallibility of knowledge with truth as the goal of science, linking the recognition of error with the growth of knowledge and the advancement of science.