CF Dictionary · Knowledge & Epistemology
Truth
In CF, truth is approached but never guaranteed — error correction moves us closer without arriving.
CF follows CR in treating truth as a real, objective property of ideas, but as something we cannot directly verify — only approach via error-correction.
CR's stance
- Objective truth exists.
- We can have ideas that correspond to truth.
- We can never be sure any particular idea corresponds to truth.
- We learn by getting closer to truth through criticism.
CF's extension
CF adds:
- No degrees of truth. A claim isn't "70% true". It's either refuted or non-refuted.
- No truthlikeness. CF rejects "approximate truth" or "verisimilitude" as a measure.
- Truth is the destination, not the status. We don't claim a non-refuted idea is true; we say it has no known errors.
Why this matters
Saying "I have the truth" is a infallibilist claim. CF's careful language — "non-refuted" instead of "true" — keeps the door open to criticism and avoids dogmatism.
"Reality and objective truth exist, and we can know about them." — criticalfallibilism.com