# The Error Argument ## Intro Everyone is wrong sometimes. You are sure the meeting is on Tuesday, and it is on Wednesday. Whole generations of scientists were sure the sun went around the earth, that burning released a substance called phlogiston, that light needed an invisible "ether" to travel through. All wrong. But think about what being wrong takes. To be wrong about the meeting, your belief has to be aimed at the real meeting and miss it. There has to be a fact of the matter that your belief falls short of. And when science corrects itself again and again, each theory measured against a better one, the whole process assumes there is one fixed truth out there that every theory is trying to reach and none fully holds. The American philosopher Josiah Royce noticed something striking about that. A standard of complete truth, against which every mistake can be measured, looks less like a pile of facts and more like what a mind holds when it knows everything. The Error Argument says the best explanation of the possibility of error is a Knower who holds the whole truth: "God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things" ([1 John 3:20](/codex/1-john-3-20/), ASV). ## In full The Error Argument is a likelihood argument from the possibility of error, developed from Josiah Royce's argument in *The Religious Aspect of Philosophy* (1885) but landing in Christian theism rather than Royce's absolute idealism. Its explanandum is the reality and structure of error: some judgments are false; a false judgment must be about its object and fail to fit it; and human inquiry, in individual cognition and in the history of science, proceeds by correction toward a standard no present state of inquiry possesses. A deductive spine (P1 to P6) argues that error requires a determinate standard of truth that outruns every finite judgment, that the history of scientific correction presupposes such a standard rather than constructing it, and that a complete, determinate, intelligible totality of truth against which every judgment is measured is far more expected if it is the knowledge of a complete Knower than if it is a brute, unknown totality. Royce concluded to an all-inclusive Absolute Thought of which finite minds are fragments; the Christian reading keeps his insight while rejecting his monism: God knows all truth, and finite minds are creatures distinct from him, which is why their errors are really theirs. The main rivals, pragmatism (Peirce, James), deflationism and coherentism, are shown either to presuppose the standard or to lose the distinction between being wrong and being outvoted. The conclusion is confirmatory and contested: its key step, that complete truth is best understood as truth known, is rejected by many realists, and the ledger says so. ## Format note This is a **braided case**, the house format for new [Ris3n Arguments](/codex/ris3n-arguments/): a valid spine, each premise with independent strands, a knot, a likelihood ledger and a defeater gate. It braids four fields. **Objective truth** contributes the claim that a false judgment fails a determinate standard. **Philosophy** contributes Royce's argument, Augustine's account of truth above the mind, and the pragmatist and deflationary rivals. **Psychology** contributes the brain's own error signal, which shows cognition is built to measure itself against a standard it has not yet met. **History of science** contributes the long record of theories corrected by successors, a record that only makes sense if there is something they were all wrong about. ## The spine | # | Premise | |---|---| | **P1** | **Error is real.** Some judgments are false, and some of their falsity is discovered. | | **P2** | **Error needs a standard.** A judgment is in error only if it is about some object and fails to fit how that object really is; so error requires a determinate truth beyond the judgment. | | **P3** | **The standard outruns inquiry.** The history of correction, in individual minds and in science, shows that the standard is not any present state of belief: every state of inquiry is measured against something it does not yet hold. | | **P4** | **Complete truth fits a complete Knower.** A complete, determinate and intelligible totality of truth, against which every finite judgment is measured, is far more expected if it is the knowledge of a complete Knower than if no one holds it. | | **P5** | **The hypotheses.** Christian theism posits an omniscient God, distinct from finite minds, whose knowledge is the standard; naturalism must treat the standard as brute and unknown, or replace it with consensus (pragmatism) or with nothing substantive (deflationism). | | **P6** | **The likelihood principle.** Evidence far more expected on one hypothesis than on another confirms the first over the second. | | **C** | **Therefore the possibility of error confirms theism, a complete Knower, over naturalism.** | **Validity.** P1 to P3 establish the datum: real error, measured against a determinate standard that outruns every state of inquiry. P4 says such a standard is far more expected if a complete Knower holds it. P5 assigns that to theism and the alternatives to naturalism. P6 converts the comparison into confirmation. The form is a likelihood comparison closed by modus ponens. **Strength of the conclusion.** Confirmatory and contested. Royce thought the argument was a demonstration. This page does not. P4 is a judgment about which picture of truth best explains the data, and a hard-nosed realist can say truth is simply mind-independent fact needing no knower. The ledger records that. ## P1, Error is real ### Inductive strand 1. **Ordinary life.** People are corrected by calendars, scales and other people every day. The concept of a mistake is among the first that children learn. 2. **Even the sceptic presupposes it.** "You might be wrong" is meaningful only if being wrong is possible. A thoroughgoing denial of error ("every belief is true for the one who holds it") is itself a belief its critics think false, and so refutes itself. See [Self-refutation](/codex/self-refutation/). 3. **Science's record.** Ptolemaic astronomy, phlogiston chemistry, the luminiferous ether and Newtonian gravitation as an exact theory were each held by the best minds of their age and each corrected. ### Abductive strand | Explanation of P1's data | Explanatory power | Scope | Simplicity | Ad hoc? | |---|---|---|---|---| | There is a determinate truth that judgments can fail to fit | Explains mistakes and their discovery | All domains | One posit | No | | Relativism: truth is relative to the believer | Removes error | Self-refuting; cannot explain discovering one's own mistake | Simple | Yes | ### Convergence Common sense, logic (the self-refutation of relativism) and the history of science all reach P1. No serious rival denies it outright. ### Objections and rebuttals 1. *"Error is just disagreement."* **Rebuttal.** Then a lone dissenter who was right, like Semmelweis on hand-washing, was in error until the others agreed. Most people think he was right all along. ## P2, Error needs a standard ### Inductive strand 1. **Royce's argument.** Josiah Royce, *The Religious Aspect of Philosophy* (Houghton Mifflin, 1885), chapter 11, "The Possibility of Error," argued that a judgment can be in error only if it means the very object it gets wrong; yet a judgment taken alone cannot both include its object and fail to fit it. So judgment and object must both fall within a wider thought that compares them. Royce concluded that the possibility of error implies an actual, complete thought. 2. **Truth above the mind.** [Augustine](/codex/augustine/), *On Free Choice of the Will*, book II, argued that the truths of number and wisdom are common to every mind, unchangeable, and above our minds, since we judge by them rather than judging them; and that what is above our minds in this way is God, or leads to God. 3. **The brain's own error signal.** William Gehring and colleagues, "A Neural System for Error Detection and Compensation" (*Psychological Science* 4, 1993), and Michael Falkenstein and colleagues (*Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology* 78, 1991), identified the error-related negativity, a brain response that follows an erroneous action within a fraction of a second and is larger when accuracy matters. The brain registers error as a mismatch between what was done and what was intended. At the level of the neuron as at the level of the theory, error is defined by a standard. ### Abductive strand | Explanation of P2's data | Explanatory power | Scope | Simplicity | Ad hoc? | |---|---|---|---|---| | A determinate truth, held in a complete thought, against which each judgment is measured | Explains how a judgment can be about an object and fail to fit it | All error | One posit | No | | Correspondence with brute, unknown fact | Explains failure to fit | Leaves open how judgments come to be about their objects at all | Simple | No | | Error as mismatch with an internal goal only | Explains the neural signal | Cannot explain error about matters no one has a goal for | Narrow | Partly | ### Convergence Classical idealism (Royce), patristic philosophy (Augustine), and cognitive neuroscience (Gehring, Falkenstein) reach P2, the claim that error is always error relative to a standard, by different routes. The neuroscience does not prove anything about God; it shows that the structure Royce analyzed is built into cognition itself. See [Intentionality](/codex/intentionality/). ### Objections and rebuttals 1. *"Royce's argument is a trick: aboutness is just a causal relation."* **Rebuttal.** Causal theories of reference struggle with error itself: if a belief is about whatever causes it, then the cause of a mistaken belief is what it is about, and it is not mistaken. This is the familiar disjunction problem for causal theories of content. 2. *"The ERN is about tasks, not truth."* **Rebuttal.** Agreed. It is cited only to show that error is intrinsically relative to a standard, at every level where we find it. ## P3, The standard outruns inquiry ### Inductive strand 1. **The history of correction.** Copernicus and Kepler corrected Ptolemy; Lavoisier's oxygen chemistry replaced phlogiston in the 1770s and 1780s; the Michelson-Morley experiment (1887) and Einstein's special relativity (1905) removed the ether; general relativity (1915) explained the anomaly in Mercury's orbit that Newton's theory could not. Each was a correction against a standard the earlier theory missed. 2. **The pessimistic meta-induction.** Larry Laudan, "A Confutation of Convergent Realism" (*Philosophy of Science* 48, 1981), argued from the record of successful but false past theories that our current theories are probably false too. Whatever one makes of the conclusion, the argument presupposes exactly what P3 claims: a determinate truth that successive theories fall short of. 3. **Individual metacognition.** People revise their confidence, notice their mistakes and change their minds. Inquiry at every scale is organized around a target it has not reached. ### Abductive strand | Explanation of P3's data | Explanatory power | Scope | Simplicity | Ad hoc? | |---|---|---|---|---| | A fixed, complete truth that inquiry approaches | Explains correction, progress and the meta-induction alike | All inquiry | One posit | No | | Pragmatism: truth is what inquiry would agree on in the long run (Peirce) | Explains correction as convergence | Requires a determinate limit now, which is the standard by another name | Moderate | Partly | | Kuhnian incommensurability: successive paradigms are not better or worse, only different | Explains revolutions | Cannot explain why later theories predict what earlier ones could not | Moderate | Partly | ### Convergence History of science (the standard cases), philosophy of science from both realist and anti-realist sides (Laudan is an anti-realist), and the psychology of metacognition reach P3. The anti-realist's own best argument uses it. ### Objections and rebuttals 1. *"Science never reaches truth, so there may be none."* **Rebuttal.** Then science never corrects anything either, it only changes. Every scientist who calls a past theory wrong uses the standard P3 describes. ## P4, Complete truth fits a complete Knower ### Inductive strand 1. **Plantinga's anti-realism.** Alvin Plantinga, "How to Be an Anti-Realist" (*Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association* 56, 1982), argued that the anti-realist insight, that truth is tied to what an ideal knower would believe, is best honoured by theism: truth is what God believes. That keeps the link between truth and knowing without making truth depend on human minds. See [Alvin Plantinga](/codex/alvin-plantinga/). 2. **Truth-bearers are thought-like.** The bearers of truth (propositions) are about things and stand in logical relations, which are marks of thought. See [The Babel Argument](/codex/the-babel-argument/) and [Anyone Who Affirms Universals Must Affirm God](/codex/anyone-who-affirms-universals-must-affirm-god/). 3. **Truth is unified.** The truths against which errors are measured are not a heap but a system: they are consistent, they entail one another, and new truths fit old ones. A unified, consistent, intelligible system is what a single mind's knowledge would be. ### Abductive strand | Explanation of a complete standard of truth | Explanatory power | Scope | Simplicity | Ad hoc? | |---|---|---|---|---| | The knowledge of an omniscient, personal God, distinct from creatures | Explains completeness, determinacy, unity, intelligibility and the link between truth and knowing | All truth | One posit | No | | Brute mind-independent fact (metaphysical realism without God) | Explains completeness and determinacy | Silent on unity and intelligibility, and on why truth is the kind of thing minds can know | Simple | No, but brute | | Royce's Absolute, of which finite minds are parts | Explains completeness and unity | Struggles to explain why a part of the all-knowing mind is in error | One posit | Partly: error becomes the Absolute's own | ### Convergence Idealist philosophy (Royce), Christian philosophy (Augustine, Plantinga) and contemporary philosophy of propositions reach the view that truth and knowledge are internally related. Many realist philosophers deny it; the convergence is real but not universal. ### Objections and rebuttals 1. *"Truth needs no knower. Snow is white whether or not anyone knows it."* **Rebuttal.** Agreed for human knowers, which is why the argument does not make truth depend on us. The question is whether the complete, unified system of truth is better explained as unknown brute fact or as known. P4 is a likelihood judgment, and the ledger rates it as contested. ## P5, The hypotheses ### Inductive strand 1. **Christian theism.** God's "understanding is infinite" ([Psalm 147:5](/codex/psalms-147-5/)); he knows our thoughts afar off ([Psalm 139:1-6](/codex/psalms-139-1-6/)); he "knoweth all things" ([1 John 3:20](/codex/1-john-3-20/)). Christ says "I am ... the truth" ([John 14:6](/codex/john-14-6/)) and "thy word is truth" ([John 17:17](/codex/john-17-17/)). Finite minds are creatures, not parts of God, so their errors are genuinely theirs, and their knowledge is partial now but will be full ([1 Corinthians 13:12](/codex/1-corinthians-13-12/)). 2. **Why not Royce's Absolute.** Royce's argument concluded to an all-inclusive Thought of which every finite mind is a fragment. That leaves error inside the Absolute and blurs the difference between creature and Creator. Christian theism keeps the complete Knower without the monism. See [Idealism](/codex/idealism/) and [Pantheism](/codex/pantheism/). 3. **Naturalism.** On naturalism there is no complete knower. The standard of truth is either brute fact no one holds, or it is replaced. ### Abductive strand The naturalist's replacements are pragmatism and deflationism, treated in the defeater gate. Coherentism is a third: truth as coherence within a system of beliefs. But a system of beliefs can be fully coherent and false, so coherentism must appeal either to the coherence of an ideal, complete system, which returns us to P4, or give up the distinction between coherent and true. See [Coherentism](/codex/coherentism/) and [Theories of Truth](/codex/theories-of-truth/). ### Convergence Christian theology, the history of American philosophy (Royce against James) and contemporary theories of truth agree on the options. They disagree on which is best. ### Objections and rebuttals 1. *"If God knows all truth, how can we know anything?"* **Rebuttal.** The way a student can know a theorem the teacher knows better: partially, really, and correctably. Royce's monism had the problem; Christian theism does not. ## P6, The likelihood principle ### Inductive strand The principle is standard in probability theory and scientific confirmation. ### Abductive strand Rejecting it would undercut the very scientific self-correction this argument studies. ### Convergence Bayesian and likelihoodist schools agree on this comparative use. ### Objections and rebuttals 1. *"Priors decide."* **Rebuttal.** The ledger is prior-agnostic; see [Cumulative Case for Christian Theism](/codex/cumulative-case-for-christian-theism/). ## The knot The strands are independent: nineteenth-century idealism (Royce), patristic philosophy (Augustine), analytic philosophy of religion (Plantinga), philosophy of science (Laudan), the history of science (the standard cases) and cognitive neuroscience (Gehring and colleagues; Falkenstein and colleagues). Two overlaps are counted once: the two ERN papers are one finding, and the P4 point about thought-like truth-bearers is argued at [The Babel Argument](/codex/the-babel-argument/), so it is weighed there, not twice. P2 overlaps the [Argument from Perception](/codex/argument-from-perception/) on the normativity of error; that page concerns perception's capacity to be mistaken, this one what any mistake presupposes. ## The ledger Prior-agnostic: the ledger asks only how expected each datum is under each hypothesis. The ratings are reasoned judgments from the sections above, not measurements. | Datum | How expected on theism | How expected on naturalism | Favours | Why | Independent? | |---|---|---|---|---|---| | Error is real (P1) | High | High | Even | Every view accepts it | Yes | | Error requires a determinate standard beyond the judgment (P2) | High | Moderate | Theism, slightly | Brute-fact realism also supplies a standard | Yes | | Cognition is built to register error against a standard (ERN) | High | High | Even | Selection explains error monitoring | Yes | | Inquiry corrects toward a standard no state of inquiry holds (P3) | High | Moderate | Theism, slightly | Realism explains it; pragmatism must presuppose it | Yes | | The standard is complete, unified and intelligible | High | Low to moderate | Theism, modestly; contested | Brute realism leaves unity and intelligibility unexplained | Partly overlaps the Babel Argument | | Truth is internally related to knowing (P4) | High | Low | Theism, clearly, if P4 is granted | Contested: many realists deny it | Depends on P4 | **Net.** The first four rows mostly establish the datum and are roughly even, because a realist naturalist accepts them too. The weight sits on the last two: a complete, unified, intelligible standard, internally related to knowing, is what a complete Knower would supply. The argument is as strong as P4, and P4 is contested. ## The defeater gate **Pragmatism and deflation.** The strongest objection says the argument mistakes a grammatical requirement for a metaphysical one. Two versions are common. - **Pragmatism.** Charles Sanders Peirce, "How to Make Our Ideas Clear" (*Popular Science Monthly* 12, 1878), wrote that "the opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth." William James, *Pragmatism* (1907), called the true "only the expedient in the way of our thinking." On this view error is departure from the long-run consensus of inquiry, and no complete Knower is needed. James spent years developing a pragmatist reply to Royce's argument from error. See [William James](/codex/william-james/). - **Deflationism.** Paul Horwich, *Truth* (Oxford, 1990), argues that "true" has no substantive nature: to say "it is true that snow is white" is just to say snow is white. Error is then just believing p when not-p, and nothing further is needed to explain it. The reply has three steps. 1. **Peirce's limit is the standard by another name.** "The opinion fated to be agreed to" must already be determinate now, or present inquiry could not be wrong relative to it. A determinate opinion that no one yet holds but that every inquiry is measured against is what P4 describes. Peirce relocated the complete truth to the end of inquiry; he did not remove it. 2. **James loses the difference between wrong and outvoted.** If the true is the expedient, a useful falsehood is true and an inconvenient truth is false. Few pragmatists accept that consequence, and Peirce himself did not. 3. **Deflationism explains the word, not the world.** Horwich may be right about the predicate "true." But the argument concerns the standard that "snow is white" is answerable to, and what makes the whole system of such facts determinate, unified and knowable. Deflationism is neutral on that and leaves the question where P4 places it. What the gate concedes: a metaphysical realist who holds that truth is brute, unknown fact can resist P4 without pragmatism or deflation. That is the argument's real opponent, and the ledger prices that view as coherent but leaving unity and intelligibility unexplained. ## Concessions - *Grant:* Royce was an absolute idealist, and Christians should not follow him there. *Now collect:* his insight, that error needs a complete standard, survives without his monism. - *Grant:* the error signal in the brain is about tasks. *Now collect:* it shows error is relative to a standard at every level, which is P2. - *Grant:* Laudan may be right that current theories are false. *Now collect:* then there is a truth they are false about, which is P3. ## Cheatsheet **The 30-second version (read aloud).** To be wrong, you have to aim at the truth and miss. Science has been wrong a thousand times: the sun going round the earth, phlogiston, the ether. Every correction measures a theory against a truth none of our theories fully holds. So there is a complete, fixed standard that every mind, every theory, every generation falls short of. A complete, unified, intelligible standard of truth looks like what a mind holds when it knows everything. The Bible says God knows all things, and Jesus said, "I am the truth." **Fast facts:** 1. Royce (1885), "The Possibility of Error": error implies a complete thought that compares judgment and object. 2. Gehring et al. (*Psychological Science*, 1993): the brain produces an error signal within a fraction of a second of a mistake. 3. Laudan (1981): past successful theories were false; the argument presupposes a truth they missed. 4. Peirce (1878): truth is "the opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate." 5. Plantinga (1982): the way to be an anti-realist is to be a theist: truth is what God believes. **The closing line.** Every mistake is a small confession that there is a truth bigger than the one who made it. ## Cross-examination ### Round 1, Can you be wrong? - **Q:** Have you ever been wrong about something you were sure of? - **If they say yes:** then there was a truth your belief failed to fit. Where was that truth while you were wrong? ### Round 2, Science - **Q:** Was Ptolemy wrong, or just different? - **If they say wrong:** then there is a fixed truth that theories approach and miss. - **If they say different:** then why does modern astronomy predict what his could not? ### Round 3, The standard - **Q:** Is the complete truth, everything that is the case, a unified, consistent, intelligible whole? - **If they say yes:** then what kind of thing is a unified, intelligible whole of truths, if not what a mind knows? - **If they say it is just brute fact:** then why is it intelligible at all? ### Dodge table | Dodge | What it concedes | Reply | |---|---|---| | "Truth is what works." | We distinguish working from failing | "Then a useful lie is true. Do you believe that?" | | "Truth is consensus." | Consensus can be measured | "Then the lone dissenter who was right was wrong until everyone agreed." | | "'True' is just a word." | We use it correctly | "The word, yes. I'm asking about what our beliefs are answerable to." | | "Science never reaches truth." | Science corrects itself | "Correction toward what?" | ## Live-cite kit **Scripture (ASV):** - [Psalm 139:1-2, 6](/codex/psalms-139-1-6/): O Jehovah, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising; Thou understandest my thought afar off ... Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain unto it ([Psalm 139:1-2, 6](/codex/psalms-139-1-6/), ASV) - [Psalm 147:5](/codex/psalms-147-5/): Great is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite ([Psalm 147:5](/codex/psalms-147-5/), ASV) - [1 John 3:20](/codex/1-john-3-20/): because if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things ([1 John 3:20](/codex/1-john-3-20/), ASV) - [John 14:6](/codex/john-14-6/): Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by me ([John 14:6](/codex/john-14-6/), ASV) - [1 Corinthians 13:12](/codex/1-corinthians-13-12/): For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known ([1 Corinthians 13:12](/codex/1-corinthians-13-12/), ASV) - [Romans 3:4](/codex/romans-3-4/): yea, let God be found true, but every man a liar ([Romans 3:4](/codex/romans-3-4/), ASV) **Scholarly:** - Josiah Royce, *The Religious Aspect of Philosophy* (1885), chapter 11: the possibility of error implies a complete thought. - Augustine, *On Free Choice of the Will*, book II: truth is above our minds and common to all. - Alvin Plantinga, "How to Be an Anti-Realist" (1982): truth is what God believes. - William Gehring et al., *Psychological Science* 4 (1993): the error-related negativity. **Aphorism:** "You cannot miss a target that is not there." ## Connection to Scripture - [Psalm 139:1-6](/codex/psalms-139-1-6/), God's knowledge is complete where ours is "too wonderful," the complete standard against which we are known. - [Psalm 147:5](/codex/psalms-147-5/), an understanding without limit. - [1 John 3:20](/codex/1-john-3-20/), "God is greater than our heart": even our self-judgment can err, and God's does not. - [John 14:6](/codex/john-14-6/) and [John 18:37-38](/codex/john-18-37-38/), Christ claims to be the truth, and Pilate asks what truth is. - [1 Corinthians 13:12](/codex/1-corinthians-13-12/), partial knowledge now, full knowledge later: inquiry approaching a truth already known. - [Isaiah 55:8-9](/codex/isaiah-55-8-9/), God's thoughts higher than ours. ## Scholarship Published academic works this page draws on, each matched to a publisher, index or library catalog record. - William J. Gehring et al., "A Neural System for Error Detection and Compensation," *Psychological Science* 4 (1993). [doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.1993.tb00586.x](https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1993.tb00586.x) - William James, *Pragmatism: A new name for some old ways of thinking* (Longmans, Green and Co, 1907). [doi:10.1037/10851-000](https://doi.org/10.1037/10851-000) - Larry Laudan, "A Confutation of Convergent Realism," *Philosophy of Science* 48 (1981). [doi:10.1086/288975](https://doi.org/10.1086/288975) - Alvin Plantinga, "How to be an Anti-Realist," *Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association* 56 (1982). [doi:10.2307/3131293](https://doi.org/10.2307/3131293) - Josiah Royce, *The religious aspect of philosophy: A critique of the bases of conduct and of faith* (Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1885). [doi:10.1037/12799-000](https://doi.org/10.1037/12799-000) ## See also - [Ris3n Arguments](/codex/ris3n-arguments/), the hub of ris3n's original arguments - [Arguments](/codex/arguments/), the master index - [Theories of Truth](/codex/theories-of-truth/), correspondence, coherence and pragmatism compared - [Coherentism](/codex/coherentism/), the coherence rival - [Idealism](/codex/idealism/), Royce's tradition, and why this argument does not follow it into monism - [William James](/codex/william-james/), Royce's great opponent on truth - [The Babel Argument](/codex/the-babel-argument/), propositions as thought-like truth-bearers - [Argument from Perception](/codex/argument-from-perception/), perception's capacity for error - [Anyone Who Affirms Universals Must Affirm God](/codex/anyone-who-affirms-universals-must-affirm-god/), abstract objects and the divine mind - [Argument from Intelligibility](/codex/argument-from-intelligibility/), a world built to be understood - [Alvin Plantinga](/codex/alvin-plantinga/), the anti-realist argument for theism - [Self-refutation](/codex/self-refutation/), why denying error refutes itself - [Cumulative Case for Christian Theism](/codex/cumulative-case-for-christian-theism/), where this argument contributes ## Common questions this page answers **Q: What is Josiah Royce's argument from error?** In *The Religious Aspect of Philosophy* (1885), Royce argued that to be wrong, a judgment must be about its object and fail to fit it, and that this is possible only if judgment and object both fall within a wider, complete thought that compares them. He concluded there is an all-knowing Absolute. The Error Argument keeps his insight but lands in Christian theism, where God knows all truth and finite minds are distinct creatures. **Q: Does being wrong prove there is objective truth?** It shows that error is measured against a standard beyond the mistaken belief. Even the claim "you might be wrong" assumes there is a truth you might miss. Denying all objective truth refutes itself, since the denial is offered as true. **Q: What does the history of science say about truth?** Science has repeatedly corrected itself: Copernicus over Ptolemy, oxygen over phlogiston, relativity over the ether. Even philosophers who think current theories are probably false, like Larry Laudan, assume there is a truth those theories fall short of. **Q: Does the brain detect its own mistakes?** Yes. Researchers in the early 1990s identified the error-related negativity, a brain signal that appears within a fraction of a second after a mistaken action. It shows that cognition is built to measure itself against a standard, though it does not by itself say anything about God. **Q: Isn't truth just what works, as pragmatists say?** William James said the true is "only the expedient in the way of our thinking," but that makes a useful falsehood true. Charles Peirce defined truth as what all investigators would finally agree on, but that final opinion must already be fixed now for present beliefs to be wrong relative to it, which is the standard the argument describes. **Q: Why does truth point to God?** The argument claims that a complete, unified and intelligible standard of truth, against which every mistake is measured, is best explained as the knowledge of a complete Knower. Many philosophers disagree and treat truth as brute fact. The argument is offered as evidence, not proof.