ABSTRACT
Beliefs should in principle be considered to be hypotheses; that is, they should not be taken as final or absolutely fixed or beyond revision or modification. The active process of testing our ideas is essential to pragmatic instrumentalism; for ideas and beliefs are related to our behavior and do not exist in abstraction from it. A hypothesis cannot be treated in isolation, but must be considered in its relationship to other beliefs, especially those supported by evidence, and even those that have not been confirmed. The chapter seeks to ascertain how well the belief relates to other theories or propositions that are maintained to be true. Peirce’s principle of fallibilism is central to the objective method. New ideas are at first considered heretical; when accepted, they become dogma; in time they may become superstitions. Some skeptics have drawn from the principle of fallibilism the mistaken conclusion that because all knowledge is prone to error, no knowledge is reliable.
