Infallibilism

Infallibilism is the position that humans can attain knowledge carrying a 100% guarantee against error - the ancient Greek ideal CF calls epistēmē. CF and Critical Rationalism reject it outright: any idea could harbor an error we missed, perfection is permanently out of reach, and mistakes are common rather than merely possible. Denying that such guaranteed knowledge is attainable is exactly what makes one a fallibilist.

CF traces infallibilism through the standard definition of knowledge as justified, true belief. The “true” requirement is the infallibilist culprit: it implies anything later found to contain an error was never knowledge at all, which absurdly disqualifies nearly all the ideas that actually serve us. CF instead recognizes fallible knowledge (doxa) - useful, effective ideas that might still be mistaken.

A subtler form hides in degrees. People deny being infallibilists by claiming only, say, a 99% guarantee rather than 100%. CF argues this does not escape the problem: partial guarantees against error do not really make sense, and confidence numbers in epistemology are usually made up. Lowering your stated confidence because a criticism exists is a way of not addressing the criticism.

Infallibilism should not be confused with contextual certainty - being certain enough within a context, with no known refutation, which CF endorses. The real opposition is between seeking guarantees and pursuing open-ended error correction: since we cannot prevent error, we look for and fix it instead. Justificationism - trying to prove ideas true or probable via positive arguments - is itself an attempt to fight fallibility, and inherits infallibilism’s mistake.