SUSAN HAACK

FALLIBILISM AND NECESSITY*

1. T H E PROBLEM

Peirce describes himself as a 'contrite fallibilist' (see 1.14, c. 1897)1;

he stresses that any of our beliefs may be mistaken, that our beliefs
can never be absolutely certain, perfectly precise, or completely
universal, and he urges that we always be prepared to revise our
beliefs, to 'dump the whole cartload', as he picturesquely puts it, 'the
moment experience is against them' (1.55, c. 1896). When it comes,
however, to the question of whether we are fallible, not only with
respect to our ordinary, empirical beliefs, but also with respect to our
mathematical beliefs, Peirce's confident anti-dogmatism seems to
falter. Peirce believes that the truths of mathematics are necessary.
And he seems to suspect that the necessity of mathematical truths
somehow precludes the possibility of our being mistaken in our
mathematical beliefs; for when (e.g. 7.108, 1892, 1.248, 1902) he
claims that fallibilism does extend even to mathematics he is tempted
to compromise his commitment to the necessity of mathematical
truths, and to hint that mathematical inference is, after all, only
probable, and when, elsewhere (e.g. 1.149, c. 1897) he stresses the
necessary character of mathematical truths, he also hints that we are
fallible only with respect to our factual beliefs. 2
What is puzzling about this, to my mind, is why Peirce should think
that there is a difficulty about reconciling fallibilism with the necessity
of mathematical truths. Why should one n o t allow that we may hold
false mathematical beliefs, and at the same time grant that mathema-
tical truths are necessarily t r u e ? - o f course, if mathematical truths
are necessarily true, then, if we hold false mathematical beliefs, those
beliefs are necessarily false; but there is still no obvious difficulty in
that. (If I add up a long column of figures incorrectly, then, if the correct
answer is necessarily true, my answer is necessarily false. But why
should it be supposed that t h a t precludes my adding up the column
incorrectly?)

Synthese 41 (1979) 37-63. 0039-7857/79/0411-0037$02.70.

Copyright © 1979by D. Reidel Publishing Co., Dordrecht, Holland, and Boston, U.S.A.
38 SUSAN HAACK

So my object, in the present paper, is, first, to understand why

Peirce should have suspected that there is a difficulty about reconcil-
ing fallibilism and necessity, and, secondly, to discover whether the
difficulty he suspects is genuine. Both issues, I shall suggest, turn
upon the question of exactly what fallibilism amounts to. I shall argue
that there is a thesis which is rather easily mistaken for fallibilism,
which is incompatible with the necessity of mathematical (or any
other) truths; but that a correct formulation of fallibilism shows that it
can be reconciled with necessity. I shall then suggest that Peirce's
uncertainty about whether fallibilism can be extended to mathematics
can be explained by his failure to specify fallibilism very carefully. I
shall conclude with some remarks about affinities between my
arguments and those that support Lakatos' fallibilist philosophy of
mathematics, and some comments on the significance of the pos-
sibility of reconciling fallibilism and necessity for Quine's philosophy
of logic.
First, though, I'll set the stage by sketching Peirce's arguments, on
the one hand, for the necessity of mathematical truths, and, on the
other, for fallibilism.

2. N E C E S S I T Y

In early papers Peirce offers an account of the status of mathematical

truths which rather strikingly anticipates some central theses of
logicism. There are, he claims (3.20 ff, 1867) certain propositions,
propositions which may be taken as definitions of mathematical
objects, from which the truths of mathematics follow 'syllogistically';
so the truths of mathematics can be reduced to logic and definitions,
and require no reference to experience or intuition. In a paper of 1881
(3.252 ff) Peirce works out this idea in more detail, urging, notably,
that in the derivation of mathematical truths traditional, Aristotelian
logic will need to be supplemented by the logic of relatives, (Usually,
the beginning of modern logicism is set at 1879, with the publication
of Frege's Begriffsschrift.)
Subsequently, however, Peirce came to think that these ideas were
quite misguided (indeed, to say-4.333, c. 1905-that the 1867 paper