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Fallibilism

The philosophical claim that no belief can have justification which guarantees the truth of the belief.

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Origin

From the Latin fallibilis, “liable to err.” The philosophical position was developed by American pragmatist Charles Sanders Peirce in the late 19th century, who argued that no belief can be justified with absolute certainty. Karl Popper later built on this with his principle of falsifiability — that scientific theories must be testable and potentially disprovable.

Updated February 22, 2026