Fallibilism and EpistemologyThe quest for certainty has landed epistemology in a lot of hot water, and I propose that we abandon it as a mistake. We should freely admit that we cannot be sure of anything and move on. It is of course reasonable to ask whether we can always agree without certainty and, even if we can, whether there is a terrible price to pay if we do. I will argue that it is indeed possible to dispense with any notion of epistemologically useful certainty. I will also argue that while there may be prices to pay, they are by no means as high as the prices to be paid by those who wish to retain certainty as a viable epistemological concept. But first let me confirm my assertion that many problems in epistemology have been caused by the quest for certainty. Let us first take the case of Plato. In The Republic, Plato argues that since knowledge requires certainty, and certainty requires an immutable subject, true knowledge can only have immutable forms. There can be no real knowledge of the changing physical world, which then becomes the domain of a changing and uncertain doxa, of mere opinion. In one fell swoop, all the types of knowledge we consider constitutive of science are demoted. It is true that Plato had other reasons for adopting his theory of forms, and even if he himself had followed the advice and renounced certainty, he would have had many reasons to retain this theory. Nevertheless, some of his more puzzling epistemological statements would have been left completely unmotivated. For example, the doctrine of Recollection adopted in the Meno is based on the assertion that the only possible explanation of geometric knowledge, given its apparent innateness and certainty, is that everyone was in contact with the forms before their birth. No certainty, no problem, or at least a different problem. It would then have been open to him to adopt the justified analysis of knowledge by true belief – more precisely, true belief with a logos – which he ultimately rejects in the Theaetetus. Epistemology could have jumped two millennia, and a Hellenistic Greek could have been Ed Gettier. Perhaps Descartes is a more famous victim of the quest for certainty. He noticed that he was often wrong about things he thought he knew, even about some things he believed with great confidence. Not only do we have some of the middle of paper......the most certainty, and the fact that we are generally poor judges of the success of our own epistemic efforts, is enough to show that we should be very careful indeed . Just as a judge cannot rule on a case in which he has an interest, because people in that situation are prone to be prejudiced, so we should behave as if we could be wrong in a particular case, because that we are wrong in many cases. case. We believe that the best procedure is generally that the judge in question should not be allowed to preside over this case, even if he or she is in fact free from bias. In the same way, we should consider it right to treat each of our beliefs as potentially wrong, even if in fact we cannot be wrong. The question fallibilism answers is which rules are best for the pursuit of knowledge as a business. It is therefore better to understand fallibilism, not as a thesis about our capacities, but as a rule intended to guide our epistemic efforts. One last remark. Adopt the.