CF Dictionary A reference for Critical Fallibilism

CF Dictionary · Critical Rationalism Terms

Critical Rationalism (CR)

An epistemology by Karl Popper. Reality and objective truth exist; humans are fallible; knowledge grows by conjectures and refutations.

Also: CR, Popperian epistemology

Critical Rationalism (CR) is the epistemology developed by 20th-century philosopher Karl Popper, later refined by David Deutsch. "Epistemology" means the philosophy of knowledge — the study of how we think, learn, and evaluate ideas. CR is itself a group of ideas, so it can be used to evaluate itself.

Core CR claims

  • Reality and objective truth exist, and we can know about them.
  • Humans are unavoidably fallible — capable of making mistakes. Mistakes are common, not rare.
  • We can never guarantee that any of our ideas is true.
  • Fallible knowledge is possible, which avoids both authoritarianism and skepticism.
  • Knowledge is created by an evolutionary process of guesses and criticism (conjectures-and-refutations).
  • Ideas should be judged by their content, not their source (content-based-judgment). Don't defer to credentials, prestige, or popularity.
  • We should value explanations and solutions to problems.
  • Learning is learner-driven; knowledge cannot be poured into a person.
  • We should make piecemeal improvements to existing knowledge (tradition), not revolutionary replacements.

CR's response to the regress problem

CR rejects justificationism — the idea that knowledge must be justified by further claims. The regress-argument shows that any chain of justification either:

  1. Regresses infinitely (you justify A with B, B with C, C with D, …),
  2. Circles back on itself (circular reasoning), or
  3. Stops at a dogma (an unjustified starting point).

CR's response: accept our fallibility and figure out how to deal with it. Don't fight the regress problem — find an approach that doesn't rely on infallibilist guarantees.

CR-specific terms

CR also names several traditions and habits that CF adopts and extends: static-and-dynamic-memes, solipsism (CR's critique), instrumentalism (CR's critique), strong-empiricism (CR's critique), Three Worlds Theory, bounded vs. unbounded progress, jump-to-universality, non-empirical-criticism.

How CF builds on CR

CF retains CR's major ideas and themes, then develops them further. CF adds:

Temple frames CF as "retains CR's major ideas and themes. It offers further developments rather than a rival viewpoint."