Cognitive Vulnerability, Verisimilitude and Truth

MEMBERS OF THE RESEARCH PROJECT<br /><br />Principal Investigator (PI)<br /><br />-Óscar L. González-Castán, Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)<br /><br />Research Team<br /><br />-José María Ariso Salgado (Universidad Internacional de la Rioja)<br /><br />-Ángeles Jiménez Perona (UCM)<br /><br />-Javier Vilanova (UCM)<br /><br />-Astrid Wagner (Centro Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, CSIC)<br /><br />

The concept of truth and its normative and regulative function in our search for knowledge has been one of the key issues in epistemology. However this hegemonic position has had an important but negative consequence. Epistemologists have regarded the concepts of falsehood and mistake as the underside of the concept of truth and have defined them in a subsidiary form in relation to it: falsehood and mistake as the non-truth. <br /><br />This general attitude towards falsehood does not necessarily mean that this concept has been completely neglected in contemporary epistemological debates. On the contrary, it has been present in different ways. Peirce"s fallibilism, Popper"s falsifiability and his notion of verisimilitude, Laudan"s meta-pessimistic induction and, more recently, New Evil Demon scenarios are some remarkable forms in which falsehood and mistake have been regarded as the main ingredient of these other more comprehensive concepts. However, each of these philosophical theories has drawn only partial consequences from the meaning of our mistakes and false theories. Many of these consequences are mutually incompatible and deserve a critical revision, an extension and a more detailed interrelation so that we can gain a more accurate picture of their epistemological role. Tackling these issues appropriately is central to provide an understanding of truth and of its possible justification that is more articulated and complex than what we have had until now. At the same time it will avoid some reductivists dichotomies such as the dichotomy between deflationary and inflationary theories of truth. <br /><br />The aim of this research project is to enhance in a novel way the meaning that the discovery and recognition of falsehood and mistake have for our beliefs and theories.

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