A Dictionary of Philosophy, Third Edition
. A statement is incorrigible for someone if he cannot be in error in believing or disbelieving it. Whether such statements exist is disputed, but typical candidates are reports of immediate experience like, ‘I now seem to see something red.’ Incorrible statements are not the same as necessarily true or false statements. The above example, if true, is only contingently true, and we can make mistakes about necessary statements (e.g. in mathematics). In a weaker (though etymologically more correct) sense a statement is incorrigible if we can be mistaken about it but there is no way of correcting us, e.g. perhaps statements reporting our dreams.
A statement is indubitable for someone if he cannot rationally doubt or reject it.
I can reject the statement that I seem to see something red, but not, according to Descartes, the statement that I exist. ‘Incorrigible’ and ‘indubitable’ are often used more loosely, and even interchangeably. See also FOUNDATIONALISM.
J.L.Mackie, ‘Are there any incorrigible empirical statements?’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 1963. (No. Uses ‘incorrigible’ in weak sense, and ‘indubitable’ for strong sense.)
R.W.Miller, ‘Absolute certainty’, Mind, 1978. (Defends an analysis of it which, he claims, avoids danger of leading to scepticism.)
R.Warner, ‘Incorrigibility’, in H.Robinson (ed.), Objections to Physicalism, Clarendon, 1993. (Defends modified version of it.)
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