Editing Pragmatism (section)

===Reconciliation of anti-skepticism and fallibilism===
[[Hilary Putnam]] has suggested that the reconciliation of anti-skepticism<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|last=McKinsey|first=Michael|title=Skepticism and Content Externalism|date=2018|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/skepticism-content-externalism/|encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|editor-last=Zalta|editor-first=Edward N.|access-date=2023-03-14|edition=Summer 2018|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University}}</ref> and [[fallibilism]] is the central goal of American pragmatism.<ref name=Putnam1994>{{cite book |last=Putnam |first=Hilary |date=1994 |chapter=Pragmatism and moral objectivity |title=Words and Life |location=Cambridge, MA |publisher=Harvard University Press |page=[https://archive.org/details/wordslife0000putn/page/152 152] |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/wordslife0000putn/page/152 |chapter-url-access=registration |isbn=9780674956063 |oclc=29218832 |quote=that one can be both fallibilistic ''and'' antiskeptical is perhaps ''the'' unique insight of American pragmatism}}</ref><ref name=Rescher2007>{{cite book |last=Rescher |first=Nicholas |author-link=Nicholas Rescher |date=2007 |chapter=Pragmatism |editor-last=Boundas |editor-first=Constantin V. |title=Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth-Century Philosophies |location=Edinburgh |publisher=Edinburgh University Press |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=9jAkDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA137 137] |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9jAkDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA137 |isbn=9780748620975 |oclc=85690580}}</ref><ref name=Tiercelin2014>{{cite book |last=Tiercelin |first=Claudine |chapter=Why we should take a stand, and the stand we should take |date=2014-10-14 |chapter-url=http://books.openedition.org/cdf/3658 |title=The Pragmatists and the Human Logic of Truth |series=Philosophie de la connaissance |location=Paris |publisher=Collège de France |isbn=978-2-7226-0339-4 |access-date=2022-05-31}}</ref> Although all human knowledge is partial, with no ability to take a "God's-eye-view", this does not necessitate a globalized skeptical attitude, a radical [[philosophical skepticism]] (as distinguished from that which is called [[scientific skepticism]]). Peirce insisted that (1) in reasoning, there is the presupposition, and at least the hope,<ref>{{cite web |last=Peirce |first=C. S. |date=1902 |title=The Carnegie Institute Application, Memoir 10, MS L75.361-2 |url=https://arisbe.sitehost.iu.edu/menu/library/bycsp/L75/ver1/l75v1-01.htm |website=arisbe.sitehost.iu.edu |access-date=2023-04-04}}</ref> that truth and the real are discoverable and would be discovered, sooner or later but still inevitably, by investigation taken far enough,<ref name=Peirce1878/> and (2) contrary to Descartes's famous and influential methodology in the ''[[Meditations on First Philosophy]]'', doubt cannot be feigned or created by verbal fiat to motivate fruitful inquiry, and much less can philosophy begin in universal doubt.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Peirce |first=C. S. |date=1868 |title=Some Consequences of Four Incapacities |journal=[[Journal of Speculative Philosophy]] |volume=2 |issue=3 |pages=140–157 |jstor=25665649 |jstor-access=free |url=http://www.peirce.org/writings/p27.html}} [https://books.google.com/books?id=YHkqP2JHJ_IC&pg=RA1-PA140 Google Books]. See opening pages. Reprinted in ''Collected Papers'' v. 5, paragraphs 264–317, ''Writings'' v. 2, pp. 211–242, ''Essential Peirce'' v. 1, pp. 28–55.</ref> Doubt, like belief, requires justification. Genuine doubt irritates and inhibits, in the sense that belief is that upon which one is prepared to act.<ref name=Peirce1878/> It arises from confrontation with some specific recalcitrant matter of fact (which Dewey called a "situation"), which unsettles our belief in some specific proposition. Inquiry is then the rationally self-controlled process of attempting to return to a settled state of belief about the matter. Note that anti-skepticism is a reaction to modern academic skepticism in the wake of Descartes. The pragmatist insistence that all knowledge is tentative is quite congenial to the older skeptical tradition.