Peirce, C. S. (1877). The Fixation of Belief. Popular Science Monthly, 12(1), 1–15.
Summary
This paper, the first of a series on scientific investigation, aims to define belief and distinguish the method of science from other methods of fixing belief: tenacity, authority, and a priori reasoning.
Our minds can either be in a state of belief or a state of doubt. The purpose of inquiry is to advance from doubt, which is uncomfortable, to belief, from which we can develop our mental habits that lead to action.
All methods of fixing belief seek to relieve the discomfort of doubt, but only the method of science requires that the conclusions of inquiry actually coincide with facts about the world.
Atomic notes
- Inquiry is the struggle to go from doubt to belief, after Peirce
- Four methods of fixing belief, after Peirce
Reconstruction
II
Reasoning involves considering premises to reach a logical conclusion. Good reasoning occurs when both premises and conclusion are true. Our reasoning is biased (e.g., toward optimism). We select one inference over another because of our habits of mind.
A good habit leads to good reasoning. Each habit of mind can be formulated as a propositional guiding principle. The validity of an inference depends on whether the habit is generally able to produce true conclusions.
There are two types of facts: those that are necessary to assume as guiding principles (i.e., axioms), and those that are objects of inquiry. The primary example of axiomatic facts are the existence of doubt and belief as mental states.
III
There are three key differences between doubt and belief:
- They produce different sensations.
- Beliefs shape our mental habits, which determine our actions; doubt does not.
- Doubt is uncomfortable, and we seek to achieve a calm state of belief.
Thus, both doubt and belief have positive effects upon us, though very different ones. Belief does not make us act at once, but puts us into such a condition that we shall behave in some certain way, when the occasion arises. Doubt has not the least such active effect, but stimulates us to inquiry until it is destroyed.
IV
Inquiry is the struggle to go from a state of doubt to one of belief. We are motivated to perform inquiry by the “irritation” of doubt. The final opinion achieved through inquiry is not necessarily true. Similarly, the initial propositions that found inquiry are not necessarily absolutely true, but are merely free from doubt.
With the doubt, therefore, the struggle begins, and with the cessation of doubt it ends. Hence, the sole object of inquiry is the settlement of opinion.
V
There are four methods of fixing belief: tenacity, authority, reasoning a priori, and science. While the earlier methods may be more convenient than the later, they have disadvantages that the later aim to overcome. The method of science is superior because it is the only one that requires belief to coincide with reality.
The method of tenacity involves sticking arbitrarily to one view out of the dread of doubt and a desire to maintain peace of mind. The method may lead to inconveniences when beliefs do not align with practical outcomes, but the advantages are greater to a person who uses this method. In this sense, such people are not behaving irrationally.
If it be true that death is annihilation, then the man who believes he will certainly go straight to heaven when he dies, provided he have fulfilled certain simple observances in this life, has a cheap pleasure which will not be followed by the least disappointment.
The method of tenacity reduces truth to something private. It is challenged by the concept that “another man’s thought or sentiment may be equivalent to one’s own.”
The method of authority resolves conflict between the opinions of men by fixing belief in the community. This method requires an institution to specify and teach valid beliefs, to suppress contrary opinions and maintain ignorance, to leverage individuals’ emotions and faith, and punish those who reject the established beliefs. Consequently, this method leads to unparalleled cruelties.
For the mass of mankind, then, there is perhaps no better method than this. If it is their highest impulse to be intellectual slaves, then slaves they ought to remain.
However, there will always be individuals “raised above” authoritarian tactics which prevent its absolute efficacy. The a priori method, associated with intellectuals, draws conclusions from “agreeable” foundational propositions which are not directly observed. Its essence is similar to the method of authority in that belief depends on accidental circumstances instead of concrete facts.
It makes of inquiry something similar to the development of taste; but taste, unfortunately, is always more or less a matter of fashion. … To satisfy our doubts, therefore, it is necessary that a method should be found by which our beliefs may be determined by nothing human, but by some external permanency.
The method of science uses induction from facts about reality that affect every person in order to obtain conclusions that will be accepted by every person. It is the only method that does not generate more doubt. Its basic “hypothesis” is that there are indeed facts that are “real.”
Question #concept-question
What distinguishes this so-called hypothesis from an axiom, if it is concretely assumed and justified by an argument of reason?
There are Real things, whose characters are entirely independent of our opinions about them; those Reals affect our senses according to regular laws, and, though our sensations are as different as are our relations to the objects, yet, by taking advantage of the laws of perception, we can ascertain by reasoning how things really and truly are; and any man, if he have sufficient experience and he reason enough about it, will be led to the one True conclusion. The new conception here involved is that of Reality.
This is the only one of the four methods which presents any distinction of a right and a wrong way. … [A man] should consider that, after all, he wishes his opinions to coincide with the fact, and that there is no reason why the results of those three first methods should do so. To bring about this effect is the prerogative of the method of science