 Investigations into the concept of truthlikeness only began in earnest in the early nineteen sixties. Why was truthlikeness such a latecomer to the philosophical scene? It wasn’t until the latter half of the twentieth century that mainstream philosophers gave up on the Cartesian goal of infallible knowledge. The idea that we are quite possibly, even probably, mistaken in our most cherished beliefs, that they might well be just false, was mostly considered tantamount to capitulation to the skeptic. By the middle of the twentieth century, however, it was clear that many of our commonsense beliefs, as well as previous scientific theories, are strictly speaking, false. Further, the increasingly rapid turnover of scientific theories suggested that, far from being certain, they are ever vulnerable to refutation, and typically are eventually refuted and replaced by some new theory. The history of inquiry is one of a parade of refuted theories, replaced by other theories awaiting their turn at the guillotine. (This is the “dismal induction”, see also the entry  on realism and theory change in science.)