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The Many Faces of Fallibilism: Exploring Fallibilism in Science, Philosophy, and Theology

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The Grace of Being Fallible in Philosophy, Theology, and Religion

Abstract

Beginning with fallibilism’s roots with C. S. Peirce in the philosophy of science, co-editor Knut-Willy Sæther opens the volume by tracing the move from logical positivism to Karl Popper and subsequent thinkers and to the current picture of fallibilism in certain sciences. Drawing again on Peirce, he continues by mapping the broader philosophical picture and contrasts fallibilism with skepticism. He then explores three areas in theology—dogmatism, the nature of faith, and virtue—and shows how fallibilism sheds light on these subjects. He concludes by considering some of fallibilism’s implications for ontology.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Anthony O’Hear, “Fallibilism,” in A Companion to Epistemology, eds. Jonathan Dancy and Ernest Sosa (Oxford/Malden: Blackwell Publishers Ltd., 1993), 138.

  2. 2.

    Nicolas Rescher, “Fallibilism,” in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (London: Routledge, 1998), 545.

  3. 3.

    See such as John Polkinghorne, Scientists as Theologians (London: SPCK, 1996), 11ff.

  4. 4.

    See Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (New York: Harper & Row, 1965).

  5. 5.

    Rescher, “Fallibilism”, 547.

  6. 6.

    Rescher, “Fallibilism”, 546.

  7. 7.

    Arild Utaker, Tenker hjernen? Språk, menneske, teknikk (Oslo: Vidarforlaget, 2018), 242.

  8. 8.

    McLeish touches on a similar careful understanding of knowledge in science. He describes our development of ideas and the scientific process in a nuanced way: “No scientific theory is born antelope fashion, fully formed in limb and energy, able to run for itself and keep out of harm’s way. Our ideas emerge far more frequently as a marsupial birth—inadequate, vulnerable and almost powerless.” See Tom McLeish, Faith and Wisdom in Science (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 200.

  9. 9.

    See also Knut-Willy Sæther, “Rationality in Play? A Philosophical Journey in the Current Landscape of Facts and Truth,” Navigating Post-Truth and Alternative Facts: Religion and Science as Political Theology, ed. Jennifer Baldwin, (Lanham/Boulder/New York: Lexington Books, 2018), 63–79.

  10. 10.

    Rescher, “Fallibilism”, 545.

  11. 11.

    Charles Sanders Peirce, “The Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism,” in Philosophical Writings of Peirce, ed. Justus Buchler (New York: Dover, 1955), 42ff.

  12. 12.

    Peirce, “The Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism,” 42.

  13. 13.

    Peirce, “The Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism,” 55.

  14. 14.

    Peirce, “The Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism,” 55.

  15. 15.

    Peirce, “The Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism,” 55.

  16. 16.

    Peirce, “The Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism,” 58.

  17. 17.

    Peirce, “The Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism,” 59.

  18. 18.

    See Alejandro García-Rivera, The Community of the Beautiful. A Theological Aesthetics (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1999), 8.

  19. 19.

    Robert Audi, Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge (Abingdon: Routledge, 2003), 7.

  20. 20.

    Audi, Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge, 8.

  21. 21.

    Audi, Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge, 9.

  22. 22.

    Rescher, “Fallibilism,” 545.

  23. 23.

    Rescher, “Fallibilism,” 548.

  24. 24.

    Nicolas Rescher, Cognitive Pragmatism: The Theory of Knowledge in Pragmatic Perspective (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001), 64.

  25. 25.

    Craig M. Barnes, “Having faith in God is better than being certain about God,” at: https://www.christiancentury.org/article/faith-matters/having-faith-god-better-being-certain-about-god, July 13, 2018, accessed February 21, 2019.

  26. 26.

    Peirce, “The Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism,” 57.

  27. 27.

    Andy Sanders, at: https://www.kfki.hu/~cheminfo/polanyi/9912/sanders.html, accessed February 21, 2019.

  28. 28.

    Dogmatism is not synonymous with foundationalism as the first (as for relativism) can be considered more as an assumed position, while foundationalism “belongs” to the context of justification of beliefs. The discussion on dogmatism/foundationalism and relativism is not only related to theology but also relevant in a larger philosophical framework. Here, I narrow it to theology for making my theological point clear.

  29. 29.

    The topic of foundationalism is unquestionably more complex than described here. For my purpose, I have in mind what can be described as strong foundationalism. See Audi, Epistemology: A Contemporary Introduction to the Theory of Knowledge, 184–216.

  30. 30.

    Andy F. Sanders, “Dogmatism, Fallibilism and Truth: A Polanyian Puzzle,” Polanyiana, at: https://www.kfki.hu/~cheminfo/polanyi/9912/sanders.html, accessed February 21, 2019.

  31. 31.

    Brandon Dahm, “The Certainty of Faith: A Problem for Christian Fallibilists,” Journal of Analytic Theology, vol. 3 (May 2015): 130.

  32. 32.

    To steer clear of both foundationalism and relativism, we find different solutions. One is J. Wentzel van Huyssteen’s postfoundationalism. Postfoundationalist rationality is “a model of rationality (…) where a fusion of epistemological and hermeneutical concerns will enable a focused (though fallibilist) quest for intelligibility through the epistemic skills of responsible, critical judgement and discernment”. See J. Wentzel van Huyssteen, The Shaping of Rationality (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1999), 33. This gives room for decision-making, however open for revisions: “When at any point in time we make a strong and particular decision for something in the light of the best reasons available to us, there need to be no incompatibility between accepting that set of fallible claims for a substantial period of time, and also being prepared to reconsider them when we have good reasons for doing so.” See van Huyssteen, The Shaping of Rationality, 144.

  33. 33.

    McLeish, Faith and Wisdom in Science, 200.

  34. 34.

    Andy F. Sanders, “Dogmatism, Fallibilism and Truth: A Polanyian Puzzle,” at: https://www.kfki.hu/~cheminfo/polanyi/9912/sanders.html, accessed February 21, 2019.

  35. 35.

    Dahm, “The Certainty of Faith: A Problem for Christian Fallibilists,” 130.

  36. 36.

    Paul D. Murray, “Fallibilism, Faith and Theology: Putting Nicholas Rescher to Theological Work,” Modern Theology 20:3 (July 2004), 344.

  37. 37.

    Dahm, “The Certainty of Faith: A Problem for Christian Fallibilists,” 138.

  38. 38.

    See Dahm, “The Certainty of Faith: A Problem for Christian Fallibilists,” 132.

  39. 39.

    See Brandon Dahm who presents and discusses three types of certainty relevant for theology: Epistemic, moral, and psychological. Dahm, “The Certainty of Faith: A Problem for Christina Fallibilists,” 130.

  40. 40.

    Murray, “Fallibilism, Faith and Theology: Putting Nicholas Rescher to Theological Work,” 344.

  41. 41.

    Murray, “Fallibilism, Faith and Theology: Putting Nicholas Rescher to Theological Work,” 345. Quoting Pascal, Murray states: “what we can establish by reasoning is not the direct conclusion that there is a God, but only that oblique result that belief in God is warranted”.

  42. 42.

    Heb 11:1. See Murray, “Fallibilism, Faith and Theology: Putting Nicholas Rescher to Theological Work,” 343.

  43. 43.

    Murray, “Fallibilism, Faith and Theology: Putting Nicholas Rescher to Theological Work,” 343.

  44. 44.

    1 Cor 13,12 KJV.

  45. 45.

    van Huyssteen, The Shaping of Rationality, 161.

  46. 46.

    Alessandra Tanesini, “Virtues, Emotions and Fallibilism,” in Epistemology and the Emotions, eds. Georg Brun, Ulvi Doğuoğlu and Dominique Kuenzle (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), 67.

  47. 47.

    Tanesini, “Virtues, Emotions and Fallibilism,” 70.

  48. 48.

    Tanesini, “Virtues, Emotions and Fallibilism,” 70,

  49. 49.

    Rescher, “Fallibilism”, 548.

  50. 50.

    Murray, “Fallibilism, Faith and Theology: Putting Nicholas Rescher to Theological Work”, 351.

  51. 51.

    Robert Burch, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce/, accessed February 21, 2019.

  52. 52.

    By exploring fallibilism and indeterminism, we need to be aware of other trajectories in fallibilism and related ontological claims. If the best current understanding of reality is deterministic it is not the case that we would give up fallibilism concerning human knowledge and its claims. My point in this context is to explore one possible trajectory between epistemological fallibilism and ontology.

  53. 53.

    See Amos Yong, “Personal Selfhood(?) and Human Experience in Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism,” Paideia Project: Proceedings of the 20th World Congress of Philosophy (1998), at: http://www.bu.edu/wcp/MainPPer.htm., accessed February 21, 2019.

  54. 54.

    Christopher A. Stephenson, Types of Pentecostal Theology. Method, System, Spirit (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 89.

  55. 55.

    John Polkinghorne, The Faith of a Physicist (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 156.

  56. 56.

    Rescher, Cognitive Pragmatism: The Theory of Knowledge in Pragmatic Perspective, 106.

  57. 57.

    Andreas Losch, “Our World is more than Physics: A Constructive-Critical Comment on the Current Science and Theology Debate,” Theology and Science, vol. 3, no. 3 (2005): 281.

  58. 58.

    Losch, “Our World is more than Physics: A Constructive-Critical Comment on the Current Science and Theology Debate,” 283.

  59. 59.

    Losch, “Our World is more than Physics: A Constructive-Critical Comment on the Current Science and Theology Debate,” 283.

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  1. Department of Religious Studies, Volda University College, Volda, Norway

    Knut-Willy Sæther

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  1. Overseas Ministries Studies Center, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Thomas John Hastings

  2. Department of Religious Studies, Volda University College, Volda, Norway

    Knut-Willy Sæther

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Sæther, KW. (2021). The Many Faces of Fallibilism: Exploring Fallibilism in Science, Philosophy, and Theology. In: Hastings, T.J., Sæther, KW. (eds) The Grace of Being Fallible in Philosophy, Theology, and Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55916-8_2

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