EPISTEMIC HUMILITY WITHOUT RELATIVISM: Hierarchy, Fallibility, and Knowledge After Postmodernism

Contemporary epistemology often treats hierarchy as synonymous with dogmatism, resulting in flattened models of knowledge that undermine normativity, critique, and rational adjudication. This paper challenges the assumption that epistemic humility requires epistemic equality. It argues that fallibility does not entail flat epistemology and that hierarchy need not imply infallibility. Drawing on the MKS®-Thronaxis Framework, the paper articulates a model of domain-specific authority grounded in stratified reality, where different forms of knowing possess differentiated but limited authority. Theology, philosophy, and empirical science are shown to function collaboratively rather than competitively when properly ordered. The paper concludes that genuine epistemic humility requires structured hierarchy, not relativistic levelling, and that ordered participation offers a viable post-postmodern epistemology