Newman, Fallibilism, and Epistemic Certainty

Abstract Newman’s Grammar of Assent argues ‘that you can believe what you cannot absolutely prove’ (Edward Caswall). Analytic commentators persuasively urge that Newman endorses fallibilism: one can know propositions that are not entailed by one’s evidence. They further suggest that Newman believes one can know a proposition with ‘certitude’ if one lacks epistemic certainty that it is true. I here argue that Newman rejects the latter claim. The Grammar contends that one can have rational knowledge or ‘certitude’ in certain propositions, even if one’s evidence does not entail their truth. Some interpreters hold that in Newman’s view, one’s rational confidence in certitudes reached via ‘informal inference’ is high but imperfect, since it rests on imperfect evidence. Yet this ignores the certitude’s distinctive nature and diminishes the significance of his argument in the Grammar , rendering his disagreement with Locke insubstantial. But how can Newman maintain that one can have rational certainty in propositions that are not entailed by one’s evidence? Comparison with Alvin Plantinga’s ‘proper functionalist’ account of epistemic probability illuminates Newman’s position. By using Plantinga to characterise Newman’s implicit understanding of epistemic probability, one can appreciate both the relationship of Newman’s epistemology to historical interlocutors and the originality of his insight.