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THE_TRUE_PEIRCE
July 24, 2021
August 03, 2021
December 4, 2021
There's some good material up at
the mighty Stanford Encyclopedia It works with some of the same
of Philosophy on Peirce's ideas quotes of Pierce that John Dewey
about "truth": and Bertrand Russell use...
And I guess I was puzzling
over them ten years ago:
PEIRCE_REALITY
Charles Sanders Peirce...
"... is generally recognized for first proposing a
'pragmatic' theory of truth. Peirce's pragmatic https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-pragmatic/
theory of truth is a byproduct of his pragmatic
theory of meaning. In a frequently-quoted passage in C.S. Pierce is often
'How to Make Our Ideas Clear' (1878), Peirce writes regarded as the
that, in order to pin down the meaning of a concept, founding member of
we must: pragmatism. As is
typical of founders,
'Consider what effects, which might he didn't like what
conceivably have practical bearings, we anyone else was doing
conceive the object of our conception to with it, and thought
have. Then, our conception of these about changing the
effects is the whole of our conception of name for his philosophy
the object.' (1878 [1986: 266]) to 'pragmaticalism'.
"The meaning of the concept of 'truth'
then boils down to the 'practical
bearings' of using this term: that is,
of describing a belief as true. What,
then, is the practical difference of Perhaps: "Why does this matter?
calling it 'true'? Is there any reason we should care?"
Peirce asserted that true beliefs
eventually gain general acceptance by
withstanding future inquiry. And
inquiry, for Peirce, is the process This gets very close
that takes us from a state of doubt to circularity:
to a state of stable belief.
Truth is what we converge on
Peirce from 1878, which the SEP by inquiry, inquiry is what
calls "the pragmatic meaning of gets us to the truth.
truth":
There's an out there, though: really
"'All the followers of science the claim is inquiry gets us to
are fully persuaded that the *stability*, so once we achieve
processes of investigation, if stability, we will call that truth.
only pushed far enough, will give
one certain solution to every A number of objections come
question to which they can be up immediately-- the kind of
applied. ... The opinion which is points that Bertrand Russell
fated to be ultimately agreed to raised:
by all who investigate, is what
we mean by the truth.'" There's a commonly
observed phenomena of
That's really classic "persistant myths",
Peirce: he's doing an PEIRCE_THE_MAN ideas that stick in
analogy to the concept of people's minds without
"taking a limit" that's at good reason.
the core of conventional
formulations of There are many
calculus... or perhaps religious beliefs that
he's reaching for a remain stable for
generalization of it. centuries, despite
seeming patently
INFINITE_WILDBERGER ridculous to people who
aren't members of that
religion.
And that gets us to
another set of issues:
Peirce evidently worried about the "inquiry" isn't just
supernatural connotations of the word something an individual
'fate' (this was the 1800s after all). does on their own, it's
a social process--
Further from the SEP: that's certainly so in
the case of "scientific
"Peirce realized that his reference to inquiry".
'fate' could be easily misinterpreted. In
a less-frequently quoted footnote to this It would seem that
passage he writes that 'fate' is not meant there are different
in a 'superstitious' sense but rather as sub-cultures that
'that which is sure to come true, and can converge on different
nohow be avoided' (1878 [1986: 273]). Over stabilties...
time Peirce moderated his position,
referring less to fate and unanimous Or at least
agreement and more to scientific meta-stabilities.
investigation and general consensus (Misak
2004). The result is an account that views
truth as what would be the result of Pierce seems to be
scientific inquiry, if scientific inquiry referring to a strangely
were allowed to go on indefinitely. In idealized condition, a
1901 Peirce writes that:" hypothetical state in
which all this pragmatic
'Truth is that concordance of inquiry has had a chance
an abstract statement with the to proceed for a long,
ideal limit towards which perhaps infinitely long
endless investigation would amount of time.
tend to bring scientific
belief.' (1901a [1935 5.565]) Interestingly, he
understands we may
This is a fine example, I never get there,
think, of Pierce's tendency but he doesn't care:
to constantly re-write, to
try to achieve greater PEIRCE_REALITY
clarity and to push the
ideas a little further.
One might point out
that Pierce's ideas on
how "stability == But then, maybe they
truth" were not in *were* converging on
themselves stable. a particular line...
I don't *think* that this is
just a reflexive ironic There's no particular
cheap-shot: Ideas about truth requirement that it needs
may themselves be regarded as to be the *same* standard.
true or false, and
pragmatically it would seem
they also need to be held to
some "pragmatic" standard.
Consider that the modern ("post-Kuhn")
understanding of scientific progress
allows for the possibility that at any But it doesn't seem that Peirce
moment there may be another "revolution". is allowing for an open-ended
process, a renewal of inquiry--
Stability is a relative thing:
what looks stable may turn out
to be meta-stable...
"Consequently, truth does not depend
on actual unanimity or an actual end
to inquiry:
'If Truth consists in
satisfaction, it cannot be
any actual satisfaction, but So knowing whether your truth
must be the satisfaction really is true is effectively
which would ultimately be impossible, you're essentially
found if the inquiry were making a guess as to where it's all
pushed to its ultimate and going to end up-- (or *would* end
indefeasible issue.' (1908 up if it *could* end up.).
[1935: 6.485], emphasis in
original) " ..((CHECK TODO)) That kind of uncertainty is not at
all an unusual feature of the modern
world--
"As these references to inquiry and
investigation make clear, Peirce's But this does, I think, raise a
concern is with how we come to have question as to whether this particular
and hold the opinions we do." metaphysic is necessarily better than
the old one-to-one correspondence of
ideas and reality.
"Some beliefs may in fact be very
durable but would not stand up to
inquiry and investigation (this is true
of many cognitive biases, such as the Actually, this does not
Dunning-Kruger effect where people seem all that clear, at
remain blissfully unaware of their own least not to me.
incompetence). For Peirce, a true belief
is not simply one we will hold onto Could it be that the author
obstinately. Rather, a true belief is here is starting to put words
one that has and will continue to hold in Peirce's mouth to defend
up to sustained inquiry. In the him from modern attacks?
practical terms Peirce prefers, this
means that to have a true belief is to Or it could be I'm missing
have a belief that is dependable in the the obvious because Dewey
face of all future challenges." missed it, and I've been
infected by his blindspots.
" ... Peirce is skeptical that the correspondence
theory of truth-- roughly, the idea that true
beliefs correspond to reality-- has much useful to
say about the concept of truth. The problem with the
correspondence theory of truth, he argues, is that
it is only 'nominally' correct and hence 'useless'
(1906 [1998: 379, 380]) as far as describing truth's
practical value. In particular, the correspondence
theory of truth sheds no light on what makes true
beliefs valuable, the role of truth in the process
of inquiry, or how best to go about discovering and
defending true beliefs."
This embrace of a flexible notion of truth
as something that has to be useful for
present purposes always feels like an The idea that true
abdication, a lawyer's notion of truth. scientists never study
something without having a
pragmatic reason to care
"For Peirce, the importance of truth rests about it seems very
not on a 'transcendental' (1901a [1935: peculiar.
5.572]) connection between beliefs on the
one hand and reality on the other, but The ornithologist might try
rather on the practical connection between to determine the diet of the
doubt and belief, and the processes of Hoot Owl without having any
inquiry that take us from the former to the pressing concern riding on
latter:" the result.
'If by truth and falsity you mean something
not definable in terms of doubt and belief
in any way, then you are talking of
entities of whose existence you can know Wouldn't that also be true
nothing, and which Ockham's razor would of this hypothetical
clean shave off. Your problems would be inevitable destination of
greatly simplified, if, instead of saying inquiry?
that you want to know the 'Truth', you
were simply to say that you want to attain
a state of belief unassailable by doubt.'
(1905 [1998: 336])
(Bit of a Peirce
fanboy, are we?)
"For Peirce, a true belief is one that is
indefeasible and unassailable-- and
indefeasible and unassailable for all the
right reasons: namely, because it will stand
up to all further inquiry and investigation." But you can't know that
you're really at that
stage. So...
"'if we were to reach a stage where we could
no longer improve upon a belief, there is
no point in withholding the title
"true" from it.' (Misak 2000: 101)"
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