In
philosophy, incorrigibility is a property of a philosophical
proposition
In logic and linguistics, a proposition is the meaning of a declarative sentence. In philosophy, " meaning" is understood to be a non-linguistic entity which is shared by all sentences with the same meaning. Equivalently, a proposition is the no ...
, which implies that it is
necessarily true simply by virtue of being believed. A common example of such a proposition is
René Descartes
René Descartes ( or ; ; Latinized: Renatus Cartesius; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science. Ma ...
' "
cogito ergo sum
The Latin , usually translated into English as "I think, therefore I am", is the "first principle" of René Descartes's philosophy. He originally published it in French as , in his 1637 ''Discourse on the Method'', so as to reach a wider audien ...
" ("I think, therefore I am").
In
law
Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been vario ...
, incorrigibility concerns patterns of repeated or habitual disobedience of
minors with respect to their guardians. Laws framed around incorrigibility were formerly used against minors to commit them for longer periods of confinement for
status offense
A status offense is an action that is prohibited only to a certain class of people, and most often applied only to offenses committed by minors.
In the United States, the term status offense also refers to an offense such as a traffic violati ...
s than an adult would have been for committing the same crimes, as contested in the landmark ''
In re Gault'' decision from 1967.
Philosophy
Charles Raff draws a distinction between three types of incorrigibility:
* Type-1: It is logically necessary that, when the statement is sincerely made, it is true.
* Type-2: It is necessary that when the statement is believed to be true, it is true.
* Type-3: It is necessary that when the statement is true, it is believed to be true.
Type-2 and type-3 incorrigibility are logical
converses
Chuck Taylor All-Stars or Converse All Stars (also referred to as "Converse", "Chuck Taylors", "Chucks", "Cons", "All Stars", and "Chucky Ts") is a model of casual shoe manufactured by Converse (a subsidiary of Nike, Inc. since 2003) that was i ...
, and therefore
logically independent. Charles Raff argues that
introspection
Introspection is the examination of one's own conscious thoughts and feelings. In psychology, the process of introspection relies on the observation of one's mental state, while in a spiritual context it may refer to the examination of one's sou ...
is not type-1 incorrigible, but is in fact type-2 and type-3 incorrigible.
Johnathan Harrison has argued that "
incorrigible" may be the wrong term, since it seems to imply (by the dictionary definition)
The Free Dictionary
a sense that the beliefs cannot be ''changed'', which isn't actually true. In Harrison's view, the incorrigibility of a proposition actually implies something about the nature of ''believing''—for example, that one must exist in order to believe—rather than the nature of the proposition itself.
For illustration, consider Descartes': ''I think, therefore I exist.'' Stated in incorrigible form, this could be: "That I believe that I exist implies that my belief is true". Harrison argues that a belief being true is really only incidental to the matter, that really what the cogito proves is that ''belief'' implies ''existence''. One could equally well say, "That I believe God exists implies that I exist." or "That I believe I do not exist implies that my belief is false."—and these would have the same essential meaning as the cogito.
References
Epistemology
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