Peirce and the Scientific Conception of Truth1

Albert Atkin.

Sheffield University, United Kingdom

Introduction

C.S. Peirce's concepts of truth and reality are inextricably bound up in his

concept of science. What I intend to do in this article is give an account of three

complex, important and elusive ideas in Peirce's theories - ‘science’, ‘truth’ and

‘reality’. The notion of science is integral to the whole of Peirce's concept of

truth. However, central to Peirce's concept of science is his notion of inquiry,

which in turn is integral to his concepts of belief and doubt. To simply place

science within this system is inadequate however, since outlining Peirce's

concept of what science is, is itself a feat of explanatory gymnastics. His

concept of science uses ideas of what is tantamount to ‘guess work’, he

acknowledges that the Baconian assumption of presupositionalist science

cannot hold, and, in liberal interpretations, can be seen as pre-empting

Popperian principles of falsification and the Kuhn/Feyerbend insistence that

science be seen as existing in a socio-historical setting.

What I am attempting in this article is offer an introduction and briefest of

explorations of a truly original and ingenious system: to do more would require a

book, not a paper. I shall begin by outlining Peirce's system of belief, doubt and

how inquiry arises from these concepts. I shall then go on to discuss inquiry in

more depth before showing how science arises from this. Before discussing the

nature and status of the concepts of truth and reality that in turn arise from

science I shall discuss in more detail the logical structure of Peirce's concept of

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science and why he takes it to be the means by which we get to truth. I shall also

draw attention to areas of dispute, both of interpretation and content as and

when they arise in the expository detail.

Belief, Doubt and Inquiry

It is well acknowledged that the ground spring for Peirce's notion of belief is the

work of the Scottish psychologist Alexander Bain (Bain 1859).2 Bain endorsed

a dispositionalist theory of belief, the idea being that a belief is roughly whatever

inspires us to act. Peirce takes the idea and through it defines his own theory of

belief and doubt. For Peirce belief is a state that is stable to such an extent that

the actions we perform in accordance with it are habitual. So set are our beliefs

in this dispositional mode that we accept them unreflectively and are prepared

to act upon them.

This, of course, is not to say that they could not cause us concerns;

Peirce was a fallibilist and thought that no belief was immune to recalcitrance.

Doubt, in Peirce's theory, is the direct consequence of such recalcitrance. The

habitual belief states of Peirce's theory have to run the gambit of everyday

experience and a contradictory experiential episode to such states throws their

habitual nature into disarray. Doubt then is characterised as the state where

stable belief is broken and habitual action disrupted as a result. Peirce

characterises doubt as a state of irritation, a state where our actions are no

longer ordained by habit, where we are unsure about how to proceed where, we

have experienced something that appears to undermine the basis for our habit.

Doubt however does lead to actions of its own in Peirce's account.

Whenever we are in a state of doubt, we are inclined to find an end to the

accompanying irritation, the feelings of disruption. In short, we are driven to

inquiry in an attempt to eradicate doubt and settle belief into a state of habit

once more. Inquiry is the means by which we settle belief and is the mode we

are driven to whenever belief is unsettled. So, what is the importance of this

structure of habitual belief, doubt and inquiry for our over-riding concerns of truth

and reality?

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The answer is simple. For Peirce, truth just is the state of permanently

settled belief; reality is defined in terms of the state represented by these

permanently settled beliefs. Inquiry is the means by which we get to this final

settled state through a repeated process of belief habits, recalcitrance and

doubt and inquiry until inquiry is at an end. This answer does however lead to

certain further questions. For example, what is the relationship between truth

and reality an sich and truth and reality at some staging post on the way to

inquiries end? What kind of truth will this be? These questions I will address

later. For now our concerns lie with the possibility of any method of permanently

fixing belief providing truth. If truth is just a state of belief that is permanently

fixed won't a state fixed even by the most inappropriate means still count as

truth? This would initially appear to be so, but Peirce pre-empts this and shows

why inappropriate and specious methods of inquiry cannot provide permanently

fixed belief.

The Methods of Inquiry

In his paper The Fixation of Belief (1877) Peirce outlines methods of inquiry

that have been used in the past, are used today (though less prominently) and

assesses their effectiveness in fixing belief. These methods are taken by Peirce

to be specious. He then outlines a further method of inquiry, science, which he

takes to be the current chosen means of belief settlement and further more the

only effective method to end inquiry.

The three specious methods Peirce lists are: tenacity (a blinkered

retention of ones view in the face of recalcitrance); authority (this is where

beliefs are settled by adherence to institutional dogma, the catholic church

appearing to be Peirce’s paradigm example); and what could be best

described as apriorism (a rationalistic approach working from assumed

principles rather than experiential fact). All three are seen as capable of fixing

beliefs to an extent. All, however, will fail in permanently fixing belief.

The failure of tenacity will come about, Peirce argues, from its reliance

on insularity in the face of our inclusion in a wider social community. Interaction

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with the community of which we are a part will expose us to views different from

our own. We can of course insist that our views are right and all others wrong

(which is rather the whole point of the method) but a constant barrage of

contradictory views will at some point lead us to question the status of our own

belief habits.

A further point against the method of tenacity would seem to be that to

retain ones own views at the expense of all others would require realising that

that is what one is doing. For example, taking the approach of an ostrich, which

is how Peirce characterises the method of tenacity (CE 3, 249, 1877), and

hiding your head in the face of recalcitrance implies that one knows what one is

hiding from and why. In order to know either of these things the ultimate stability

of ones own beliefs are brought into doubt.

The failure of authority as a method of permanently fixing belief comes

about through reasons similar to the flaws in the method of tenacity. Although

the method of authority decides belief habits for whole communities it cannot

possibly dictate the content of all beliefs; beliefs which each individual must then

decide for themselves leading inevitably to difference and doubt. Further more,

the method can do very little about the views of other communities which, just as

conflicting views must lead to doubt on an individual level, will raise questions

about the stability of these communally dictated beliefs.

The failure of apriorism is due, according to Peirce, to it taking principles

and building rational systems upon them without recourse to experience.

Although this often leads to impressive systems of beliefs they are divorced

from the world and are merely a matter of taste. By being a matter of taste,

belief habits become a part of the intellectual age and fashion changing with the

ages and fashions thereby offering no permanent settlement. With every change

of age, comes a change of belief system and another upheaval, which will in turn

lead to new tastes and new systems with further upheavals.

None of these methods of inquiry can fix belief and we would feel

unhappy if they were the methods by which we were supposed to arrive at truth.

Peirce suggests that the only method left open to us is science. Scientific

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inquiry is supposed to fix our beliefs by subjecting our hypotheses to experience

and observation. Our beliefs are plotted against a reality independent of us

giving us objective evidence for the validity and stability of our beliefs. It is reality

where recalcitrance and belief de-stabilisation will most likely come from and

reality the evidential body which will offer stability. This way, evidence

contradictory to our beliefs is out there for us to observe, no longer is it a matter

of our opinion (tenacity and apriorism) or someone else's (authority): our beliefs

either have evidential support or not. This however, still says very little about

what Peirce takes science to be.

The Structure of Science

So far, we have seen that Peirce takes his theory of inquiry to lead us to accept

scientific method as the only viable means to get at truth and reality. How

effective or stable Peirce's arguments are for this is hotly debated. We will look

at these arguments for accepting science in more detail latter but first we will

look at and assess the method Peirce thinks that as lovers of truth we are duty

bound to accept.

Peirce's concept of science has a clear taxonomy3 and divides the

scientific method into three stages: abduction, deduction and induction. I shall

outline what Peirce takes these stages to involve before going on to address

questions and concerns raised with them.4

Abduction

To best detail what abduction is it seems worthwhile saying a little about what

abduction isn't. Ian Hacking (1983) suggests that Peirce's notion of abduction is

something like inference to the best explanation.

The idea is that if, confronted by some phenomenon, you find one explanation

(perhaps with some initial plausibility) that makes sense of what is otherwise

inexplicable, then you should conclude that the explanation is probably right.

(Hacking 1983: 52)

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It occurs to me that, although fundamentally correct, there is something amiss in

Hacking's interpretation of Peircian abduction here. My own reading of Peirce

would suggest that abduction has very little to do with judging whether or not

some plausible hypotheses or explanation is right. Abduction is not about

concluding that some hypotheses is right or wrong, merely that it could be a

viable candidate for fit with observed states. Consider:

Abduction commits us to nothing. It merely causes a hypotheses to be set down

[...] to be tried. (CP 5. 602, 1903.)

This is not to say that Hacking doesn't grasp the whole point of Peircian

abduction5 but to characterise it as inference to the best explanation is, in my

opinion, misleading in as much as it fails to highlight the truly conjectural nature

of the abductive stage of science. Indeed we are trying to find an explanation of

the facts presented to us through experience but we are not in any position to

judge the correctness of these conjectures at the abductive stage. As a matter

of fact, us faced with any body of observations, the range of possible

conjectures open to would seem to be vast with nothing suggesting the

correctness of one above all others.

Having said this it should be a little clearer as to what the abductive

stage is about: hypotheses creation. We face experience and offer conjectural

explanation or hypotheses that must then be selected for testing.

HYPOTHESES SELECTION

As we have seen, the possible number of conjectural hypotheses for any body

of observations is potentially vast. How then are we to choose which of the

conjectures should be forwarded for testing? What is the process of selection?

We cannot after all use a criterion of truth or correctness since this is where the

overall method is supposed to be taking us. Furthermore, accordance with

observation is why the conjectural hypotheses have been put forward in the first

place so this will not offer a criterion of choice either. Peirce's answer is to

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choose an entirely different criterion of selection to any that might immediately

be taken as conducive to finding correct hypotheses: economy.

The concept of economy in Peirce's theory of science is taken by some

to be one of his most important contributions (see Rescher 1978) and it is

indeed a truly ingenious tool. It plays its part in what ought to be described as

the second mode of the abductive process. The creative phase of the abductive

process outlined above should be seen as the narrow construal of abduction,

whereas the second mode suggests an economy governed process of

hypothesis selection. The idea is that we follow the creative first phase,

hypothesis creation, with a regulated process of selection for testing from the

body of conjectures that we have created. The regulation of this process is to be

through economic considerations. So how is this to work?

The whole notion of economy of research works on something closely

akin to a cost-benefit analysis. Cost, at base level, is to be taken as the

expenditure of time and money. The benefit, or return on this cost, is to be seen

in terms of addition to knowledge and the effect range of the hypotheses in

question being shown as true (or false). For example, simplicity and accuracy

are to be seen as benefits. Other benefits such as having the equipment to test

would also count in favour of a hypothesis' selection. This notion of benefit is

wide ranging and would just as likely rule out candidates that would seem

intuitively to be correct (because the cost of testing would be far to much) as it

would suggest the selection of hypotheses that seem on the surface to be wrong

headed. Such "wrong headed" hypotheses might be cheap, quick, easy or rule

out a whole lot of other possibilities by being proved (or not). Our picking a

hypothesis for testing need not have anything to do with our beliefs about its

correctness; instead, we must consider how settling the truthfulness, one way or

another, through testing can contribute to our knowledge. Consider:

[The] main problem is, how, with a given expenditure of money, time, and energy,

to obtain the most valuable addition to our knowledge. (CP. 7.140, c1879).

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So we have a second abductive phase: hypothesis selection. Having at first

created a series of conjectural hypotheses we can then go on to select which of

these we will be best served by testing. The next stage after abductive creation

and selection is deduction and although it is not the testing stage that our

selected hypotheses must eventually undergo, it is where we begin to look at the

effects of the theories we are left with after the abductive phases are complete.

Deduction

When we have hypotheses that are deemed fit for testing our next stage will be

to deduce logical consequences from them. Peirce sees deduction as two

staged (see CP 6.471, 1908). Firstly, we must construct our hypothesis in

logical terms making it clear and consistent. After this constructive stage we

must enter a stage of derivation where we attempt to derive predictions about

what we may have to experience in testing to determine our hypothesis' truth-

value. Furthermore, Peirce identifies two kinds of deduction, performing

different roles at the two stages of deductive inference. These Peirce refers to

as corollarial and theorematic deduction (see CP. 7.204, 1901) and again, like

the abductive process, one is more regulated and one is more creative.

Corollarial represents the regulated (and, when employed at the constructive

stage, regulative) type of deduction, and can be seen as a strictly mechanical

method where propositions are established by purely logical and analytical

process on internal terms. Corollarial deductions are made without assuming

any propositions outside of what can taken from the hypothesis whose truth is to

be established. It should be obvious why corollarial deduction is closely akin to

the first, constructive, stage of Peirce's abductive process since both are

concerned with clear and consistent logical explication of consequents.

The second kind of deduction, theorematic, attempts to draw predictions

from placing what we may deduce into experiential settings. This will show what

effects we might expect our hypotheses to have. This is more creative and

offers conjectural truths for our hypotheses. This second stage is more closely

akin to the derivative stage of induction (see below) and is involved quite

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centrally in it; however, the corollarial deduction is also at use in the derivative

stage. Before we can make conjectures or predictions on our hypotheses (or

theorematic deductions), we first must make clear and consistent deductions

from our internal terms (or corollarial deductions). Before we make our creative

theorematic predictions we must have performed corollarial deductions to make

the propositions we are working from for our predictions internally logical and

secure.

So, we have created and selected hypotheses for testing, we have

deduced predictions for their effects and think we know what to expect from

them we must now subject the hypotheses to empirical testing and see if all our

abductions and deductions will fit with the world. How, is this to proceed?

Induction

The process of induction in Peirce's method of science is, on the surface, quite

simple. Its role is to confirm or disconfirm the hypotheses we have put forward

from our two earlier stages of the inquiry. This is done by taking our deductively

processed abductive conjectures and by holding them up to the world, as it

were, see if they fit or not. This simplicity however can be misleading and it is

still worth drawing out what induction is supposed to do.

Induction is about confirming or falsifying the hypotheses we have put

forward. That is to say, that it will not, or at least should not be seen as offering

us alternatives to falsified theories: that is the role of the abductive and

deductive stages. To take this point further, induction is also not there to offer us

any indication as to where our new abductive and deductive conjectures should

go in order to create inductively confirmable theories. Its job is, purely and

simply, the empirical testing of hypotheses where testing means confirming or

falsifying. The inductive stage of the scientific mode should not offer, or be the

ground for, any of the qualitative features of inquiry. That said, how is this

empirical confirmation/falsification supposed to work?

PROBABILITY

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Induction is supposed to work through quantitative means only. This, for Peirce,

means validating the inductive method with a statistical approach through the

use of probability. What Peirce has in mind is frequentialist probability theory, or

at least an adaptation of it.6 The frequentialist method is perhaps best

characterised in terms of a simple equation quantifying over the probable

occurrence of some specified event, a coin toss is the usual example given. To

get a statistic for probability we need to work out the relative frequency of the

favoured case to the total number of possible cases. In a coin toss, for example,

we favour heads which is one of two possible cases so has a probability of 0.5

or one in two. This however isn't functional in inductive testing unless it is

performed over long sequences.

Consider that to prove we have a one in two chance of coming up heads

we toss a coin twice. It comes up heads once out of the two.7 Are we proved

right? What if it were to come up heads both times, would that mean that with

that coin we had a fool proof chance of coming up heads every time? The point

is that to test the conjecture we have made about the probability of the coin

coming up heads fifty percent of the time we need to make a long sequence of

trials, this way any particular anomaly about our coin will show itself or the

validity of our coin tossing conjecture will reveal itself. We are looking for long

run relative frequency and this is central to Peirce's notion of frequentialist

probability.

This seems straightforward enough but what Peirce has here is a

method for imposing probability values for the long run relative frequency of

events. His concern at this inductive stage of science, however, is to find

probability values for arguments, propositions or hypotheses. Events either

happen or they don't: arguments, propositions, hypotheses, etc. aren't the same

in that they are either true or false. Peirce, however, finds a way of using this to

create probability ratios for arguments etc.

Peirce uses the same calculative process by taking the relative

frequencies of arguments of a certain type with true premises leading to true

conclusions over the total number of that argument type with true premises

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alone. This gives him an idea of the probability of finding an inference from true

premises to true conclusions from the argument type in question. It also offers

Peirce the means for justifying the inductive method he uses at this stage of the

scientific mode.8 What Peirce wants to show is how we can have the

assurances that long run relative frequency gives us for the probability of events

in our inductive testing on hypotheses and he does this by recourse to what is

taken to be the tendency of samples to exhibit similar patterns to the body from

which they are drawn. This is generally referred to as the weak law of large

numbers.

The idea behind the weak law of large numbers is that if, for example,

seventy five percent of a sufficiently large population exhibit some characteristic

then a significant number of good-sized samples drawn from that population will

exhibit the same characteristic in approximately the same ratio. The result of

this would be that our hypotheses that, say, three quarters of my vast numbers of

battery hens have fowl pest could be borne out (or not) by a sufficiently high

sample of inductive testing.9 We would be looking for the long run relative

frequency of my hens with fowl pest over my hens. Any inductive sampling taking

place in an attempt to test the hypothesis about my hens would be conforming to

the assurances of long run relative frequency through the weak law of large

numbers. If our hypothesis is wrong, the weak law of large numbers means that

a sufficient number of large samples will show this. If we are right, the tendency

of the samples to mirror the population from which they are drawn will bear this

out. Either way our inductive testing of hypotheses can be given the same

statistical assurances of probability ratios and long run relative frequency as

events through Peirce's use of argument type and the weak law of large

numbers.

Summary

So, we have the means of testing our deductively processed abductive

conjectures through this statistically assured inductive stage. We face

recalcitrance by offering conjectural answers that are processed for

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confirmation/falsification testing. When our conjectures are confirmed by the

inductive interaction with experience we find our doubt removed and our belief

settled once more. Where we find our abductions falsified or unconfirmed by the

inductive stage we remain in doubt and must start again at the abductive stage,

attempting to remove the irritation that has unsettled our belief habits. However,

questions need to be addressed about these various stages of the scientific

mode of inquiry.

The Structure of Science: Questions and Clarification

Of the three stages of inquiry in Peirce's model of science, deduction is

perhaps the only one free from criticism. This is mainly because its assumptions

are self-contained. Abduction and induction are seen in a different light and are

criticised by many commentators, mainly because they contain evidential gaps.

Induction, only taking samples, leaves room for error. Abduction is purely

conjectural and creative also leaving room for error. This isn't seen as a

significant problem for abduction since its offerings are conjectural and Peirce

takes a fallibilist stance. Further more, and perhaps more importantly, Peirce

opposes any Cartesian foundationalist paradigms. For Peirce we do not need

to have firm undoubtable truths to build our theories upon: we can make the

required corrections as we go along rather like Otto Neurath's metaphor of

rebuilding the ship plank by plank as we sail it (Neurath 1959). As such, it is

quite all right to begin with abductive conjectures. There are other difficulties

though, both for abduction and induction.

Hypotheses Creation

The central concern raised against abduction is how, given the short time span

that we have been engaged in scientific inquiry, is it possible for us to have hit

upon so many correct ideas. This concern was particularly relevant for Peirce's

own era since science was seen to have already resolved most of the essential

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puzzles of the universe. Although we recognise the possibility of scientific

relativism more strongly (since Kuhn at least), the question is still a valid one.

How are we to account for the rate at which Peirce's theory of abduction

produces confirmable conjectures and the extent of their success given the

sheer number of possible hypotheses, propositions, conjectures etc. that are

open to us? Although it often gets things completely wrong, our abductive

hypotheses are often very close to the mark: why do we always seem to guess

just about right?

The answer that Peirce offers is evolution. Guessing right in new and

novel situations would be a character trait that quite easily lends itself to

selection since it offers an advantage over those without it. Assuming

evolutionary theory to be correct, and ‘best guessing’ to offer an advantage in

this process, humans ought to possess something of such adaptive value.

Further more, Peirce suggests (CP. 5.604, 1898) that as working parts of a

universe that obeys certain laws and generalities, we would be privy to (although

instinctively) such laws and be imbued with the natural proclivity to guess them

correctly. In later papers (CP. 6.469, 1908 for example) Peirce defines this

evolved instinct as a natural ability to fall upon the plausible. This gives a

stronger definition to the evolutionary instinct in as much as puts a more

immediate and cognisable name on the instinct of guessing right. This,

however, does little to eleviate certain concerns.

Rescher (1978) finds himself troubled by this appeal to evolution and

instinct and offers a kind of Peircian-Popperian assimilation. His proposal is to

substitute Peirce's appeal to an instinctive ability with what he calls "the

methodology of inquiry and substantiation" (Rescher 1978: 61; italics in

original). This is supposed to be the formulation of hypotheses through the use

of heuristic principles that have been developed and adopted after emerging as

the most functional methods of a Popperian system of trial and error testing.

Rescher takes this to be superior to Peirce's system because it avoids an

appeal to evolution.10

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It occurs to me however that an appeal to instinct might still be required

since the building up of heuristic principles might also be argued as taking too

long to account for rate and success. The finding of heuristic principles that work

depends on what kind of success we have at finding correct theories through

trial and error. How then have we discovered so many heuristic principles

(displayed through the amount of correct science that we have) given the sheer

amount of trial and error that we would have to go through to find a correct

theory leading to a heuristic principle? I'm sure that we might have found more

theories that are correct by hitting upon methods to find them than if we had

pure trial and error with no appeal to evolution. However, I am unconvinced that

Rescher's reconstruction of Peircian abduction would adequately answer

concerns about the rate and degree of success of the scientific method.

That is not to say that I find Peirce's appeal to evolutionary instinct

satisfying either. I cannot see how Peirce's appeal is any more grounded than

Descartes' own appeal to the goodness of God not to deceive him (Descartes

1988 p99) and it occurs to me that by his own standards Peirce has made an

abductive conjecture to defend abductive conjectures. An appeal to evolutionary

instinct that manifests itself in an ability to be good at guessing is highly

conjectural and although good guessing would seem to have some adaptive

value, one ought to worry about the stability of this natural instincts metaphysical

base.

Hypotheses Testing

The most important thing to note about the inductive stage of Peirce's scientific

method of inquiry is that it is often misunderstood. Induction is by its nature self-

correcting, particularly the frequentialist method that we are attributing to Peirce.

That is to say that any errors or incorrect hypotheses would show themselves

with the continuation of inductive testing and sampling. Such is the nature of

induction's self correcting tendency that if we were in a universe where induction

were not self correcting inductive steps and random sampling etc. would reveal

this. The problem is that this is easily conflated to suggest that science as a

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whole is self-correcting or that induction alone is what gives the truth: this is not

how Peirce's theory works.11 Consider for example:

[Peirce] says [...] that all forms of induction are self corrective.... And I think it

would be less than candid not to say that Peirce offers no cogent reasons, [...]

Peirce acts as if his argument about quantitative induction shows all other

species of induction to be self-corrective as well. (Laudan. 1974: 293)

Here Laudan falls foul of a misunderstanding that I think Rescher, amongst

others, also commits. As far as I can tell, Peirce never commits himself to any

form of induction other than statistical or quantitative. Rescher as well as

Laudan seem to take the whole of Peirce's system to consist of, or depend

upon, inductive process. Rescher (1978) for example imposes a taxonomic

specification on Peirce's system that consists entirely of induction: what I would

take to be abduction and deduction Rescher defines as qualitative induction;

what I take to be induction Rescher defines as quantitative induction. He also

sets about reconstructing Peirce's position to enable him to retain this multi-

inductive view of science and still use the self-correcting nature of quantitative

induction. I cannot see how Peirce is supposed to have taken this view which

unfortunately gives the impression of creating a straw man of Peirce's system.

From the taxonomy that Rescher gives it would be easy to misinterpret

Peirce’s claims about science and truth. If one has the view that the whole of

Peirce's scientific method of inquiry is based around induction then it is easy to

see why one would think that Peirce is committed to treating science as a whole

as self-correcting. Furthermore, it is also easy to see why, given the belief that

what is maintained at the end of science is the truth, one would think that Peirce

is committed to the belief that induction is what will furnish us with the truth. As

was said before, Peirce's system does not work like this. Induction may be self-

monitoring or self-corrective but it is only one stage in Peirce's overall system of

scientific inquiry. Abduction and deduction have no self-monitoring or self-

correcting features, and as such, Peirce's scientific method cannot be self-

corrective as a whole. Neither, given that all three methods must work together

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to produce, select, deduce and test hypotheses, could induction alone be

responsible for getting us to the truth at the end of inquiry.

Summary

We have seen then that Peirce sees the scientific method of inquiry as being

made up of three stages: abduction, deduction and induction. We have also

seen the detail of these three stages and some of the controversies and

questions they throw up. However, there are wider questions to ask and far

more encompassing issues to deal with. What we have done so far is to look at

the detail of the method of inquiry that Peirce thinks will ultimately succeed in

fixing belief, ending inquiry and providing us with truth. What we now have to do

is ask if the scientific method really is the only means we have of reaching truth

an sich. Or more to the point, why it is that the other methods cannot do this.

Furthermore we need to detail exactly what kind of truth and reality Peirce thinks

he is giving us through this method, and see how plausible we think this is.

Why Science?

The issues at play here consist of the way in which Peirce outlines the failure of

the specious methods, the success of science and therefore the reasons he

suggests for the adoption of scientific method. The question in the title above

has as much to do with asking ‘why not adopt other methods’ as it is to do with

‘why science’. In a sense, we are looking for a prescriptive constraint on our

method for getting at the truth. It is clear that we could choose science for fixing

belief, but has Peirce shown that we should choose it rather than any other

method?

The areas I want to highlight for discussion here concern Peirce's notion

of community in the fixing of beliefs, the importance of an appeal to an

independent reality and also a method invoked by Cheryl Misak (1991) whereby

definitional stops are employed. The claim that each of these areas support, or

are significant in, the success of science and provide a reason why we should

follow it rather than the specious methods will be addressed.

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Communalism

The notion behind communalism is that the break down of the specious

methods is due to their inability to accommodate the plurality of views that must

arise from a community of inquirers. Science on the other hand is able to

accommodate this to such an extent that a notion of community is central to its

success as provider of truth through the ending of inquiry.

The method of tenacity, as was pointed out, falls foul of contradiction

from the views expressed by others, the same applies to apriorism, which is

contradicted by the changing tastes of others. The method of authority also falls

foul of this in as much as not all beliefs can be fixed so communities must

provide answers themselves, which will of course lead to contradictions and

doubt. Furthermore, other ideologies will exist that also contradict the beliefs

dictated by authority. The point is that beliefs must necessarily exist across

communities of believers, since we are communal animals, and the only way the

specious methods can accommodate this fact is by requiring a uniformity of

belief. This is a rare if not impossible occurrence.

Science on the other hand requires no uniformity of beliefs to succeed.

Indeed the method of science requires that a community of inquirers be less

defined by their immediate social context. We should see ourselves as part of a

socio-historical community of inquirers each contributing to the final state of

belief where recalcitrance and doubt are no longer present.

The scientific world is like is like a colony of insects in that the individual strives to

produce that which he himself cannot hope to enjoy. One generation collects

premises in order that a distant generation may discover what they mean. (CP.

7.87, c1902)

Without a community, and all the diversity of belief that this brings, Peirce

believes science cannot even progress. Science takes the very thing that

undermines the other methods, diversity of opinion and belief, and makes a

virtue of it.12 Or does it?

18

The problem is that Peirce's description of what unnerves the followers of

the specious methods is the presence of contradictory belief. This is not ruled

out in the scientific method, in fact diversity is encouraged, so why does this no

longer make people feel unsettled? There would appear to be no reason why it

wouldn't unsettle people. In whatever way we come by a belief, contradictory

beliefs make us question the stability of our own. Misak (1991) raises this point

(she calls it the ‘psychological hypothesis’) and although I am in broad

agreement with it, there is something deeper involved in the notion of scientific

socio-historical communalism that I think rebukes this objection.

Firstly, though I want to look at Misak's own suggestions as to why the

specious methods fail, I also intend to suggest why this proposal should not be

taken up and to point out an important feature common to both it and the

communalist method.

Misak's Definitional Stop

Misak (1991) offers a very simple argument against the specious methods and

in favour of the scientific method. She suggests that the specious methods

breach a definitional parameter of what a belief is whereas the scientific

method gives rise to no such breach. Her suggestion is that Peirce views

beliefs as crumbling in the face of contradiction or recalcitrance, experienced

when a person acknowledges that the method used to fix their beliefs did not

consider experience in the process. As such, she claims that any mental state

that does 'not resign in these circumstances' cannot be considered a genuine

belief. By this definitional stop, the mental states produced by the specious

methods have no immediate right to be called beliefs and, considering that

Misak thinks the arguments for communalism are defunct, these mental states

will make no resignation to recalcitrance. However, apart from the fact that I

think it isn't all that apparent that the arguments of communalism are misplaced,

Misak points out that most of what she takes Peirce to say about a definitional

criterion for beliefs are only hints. As such, I would say that she is right to put a

definitional criterion on beliefs and to question the validity of specious beliefs in

19

the face of this criterion, but ultimately I would question whether we could use

such an argument against the specious methods.

As Misak says, Peirce only really hints at these definitional criteria and I

think that we may be assuming more about Peirce than we really ought to if we

accept Misak's reading. What is more, taking into account Peirce's widely

acknowledge Bainian inheritance (see CP. 5.12, c1906), I would suggest that

the only criterion for belief that we can safely impose upon Peirce is the Bainian

notion of that by which an individual is prepared to act. The result is that the

specious methods do give rise to beliefs albeit through a safe Bainian definition

rather than Misak's more intuitive but less secure reading of belief. However, I

do believe that Misak points to the most important aspect of the scientific

method in offering her definitional stop argument against the specious methods.

The definitional points that she makes come from her commitment to the

thought that beliefs should be 'sensitive to evidence or experience': it is this

notion of accordance with experiential reality that I would suggest is the key to

understanding the failure of the specious methods and the prescriptive pull of

the scientific method.

Experience and Reality

As I said, although I don't accept Misak's point about providing definitions for

beliefs, I think the seeds from which her proposals spring are important

because they rely on the idea of an independent body of experiences. A similar

notion is implicit in the communalist arguments for the failure of the specious

methods, which is why I think the psychological hypothesis objection can be

argued against.

What I am suggesting is that the method of science carries with it

broader notions of fixing beliefs than those carried by the specious methods.

The specious methods take the beliefs they have fixed to be the truth an sich.

The method of science on the other hand works along side Peirce's fallibilist

commitments so we should be aware that as a scientific community we may not

have truth an sich only some working approximation of it. Facing a contradiction

20

to something we are not taking as truth-in-itself should not fill us with fear or

anxiety in the same sense as it should if the contradiction we are facing

undermines what we take to be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the

truth. Furthermore, if we were taking the scientific method, a recalcitrant

experience or contradiction would actually be an indication that we are moving

in the right direction rather than a loathsome erosion of all that we hold sacred

and true. So, is communalism the way to justify the scientific method over the

specious methods?

In and of itself, no. It shows what we would get if we adopted the scientific

method not that it should be adopted. However, what the rebuttal of the

psychological hypothesis objection does show is where the prescriptive pull of

the scientific method lies. Consider why communalism could be seen as

capable of rebuking the psychological hypothesis objection. The rebuttal works

on the premise that the scientific method doesn't lead to doubt in the same way

as the specious methods. The point is that we are trying to eradicate doubt and

fix beliefs. The way in which we come into a state of doubt is by meeting

recalcitrant evidence to the beliefs that we hold true. The way to avoid doubt is

to fix beliefs in such a way as they do not meet recalcitrance.13 Any method that

can do this is the one that we ought to follow.

The communalist rebuttal of the psychological hypothesis objection

highlights this much and Misak's definitional criterion highlights the best way to

avoid doubt through recalcitrant proof beliefs. The source of recalcitrance and

contradiction to our beliefs, however they are fixed is experience of reality. If we

fix a belief through tenacity, authority, apriorism or science, any recalcitrant

evidence will be found in our experience of reality. It would seem then that the

best way to avoid contradiction from reality is not to contradict it. What this

means is that our beliefs must be fixed in a way that is sensitive to experience

and tries to accord with it.

One method that does fix beliefs (rather than define them) in a way that is

sensitive to experience is science. Science is the only method that creates

beliefs that are ‘designed to be resigned’ in the face of recalcitrant experiences

21

in the hope that we can find others that will accord with those experiences. If we

never change our beliefs to accord with reality the recalcitrance and doubt

experienced by the specious believer will never be avoided. In science we have

a method that can, eventually, provide us with reality accordant, doubt resistant

beliefs. That is why we ought to adopt it, not because it is the only one that

creates or works with a certain conception of belief, or because it doesn't

require communal uniformity of belief.

Truth and Reality

We would appear to have a method of inquiry that compels those of us who fear

error and doubt to adopt it. This method also appears to be able to ‘get us to

truth’. However, it is not immediately apparent what kind of truth we are

supposed to be getting or what the detail of our getting to the truth is. It is clear

from what has already been said that Peirce holds the truth to be the end of

inquiry but this does not tell us what kind of truth this is meant to be or the

relation between truth at the end of inquiry and the truth we have at some interval

along the way. This relation between truth and reality here and now and truth and

reality an sich is an important point and the answer we give here can either give

rise to or allay some potentially serious and damaging problems.

Consensus or Convergence?

The issue at play here is how to get to the end of inquiry where our conception

of ultimate truth is. In Peirce’s account we obviously follow the scientific method

but does the knowledge that we gather from this method build and build and, as

is commonly perceived, converge upon truth. The problem is that if it does, we

have to account for the relation we have to truth here and now since what we

have now isn't the truth as it will be, but some incomplete subset of it. We could,

of course, suggest that we reach the ultimate truth through ever increasing

degrees of truth but this is fraught with difficulty.14 Quine highlights the problem

facing Peirce

22

[...] to define truth outright in terms of scientific method, as the ideal theory which

is approached as a limit when the (supposed) canons of scientific method are

used [...] is [a] faulty use of numerical analogy in speaking of a limit of theories,

since the notion of limit depends on that of 'nearer than' [.] (Quine, 1960: 23)

The problem is that it doesn't seem to make sense to say that one theory is

nearer to the truth than another in the linear sense - e.g. ‘eleven is nearer to

fifteen than ten’. Providing linear gradients for numbers is clear enough but how

we are to go about this for truth is not at all clear. However, if we are taking truth

to be making linear steps from one set of theories to another, getting closer to

the end of inquiry and ultimate truth each time, then there would seem to be

sense in which we are committed to this. Quine's objections are well placed,

defining verisimilitude is a problematic task and one that we would do best to

avoid, and as such, we should not conform to the interpretation he makes. We

would to better to avoid treating the process of science as convergence

towards a final theory.

The alternative view is suggested by Misak (1991) in direct opposition to

Quine's points and works with the notion of consensus. Misak's interpretation

comes from various comments made by Peirce that seem to suggest that

knowledge need not accumulate in a linear fashion or that any interim state of

belief is imbued with degrees of truthfulness.

The object of [...] individual opinion is whatever is thought at that time. [...] The

perversity or ignorance of mankind may make this thing or that to be held true, for

any number of generations, but it cannot affect what would be the result of

sufficient experience and reasoning (CE. 3, 79. 1873, my emphasis).

The point is that interim states are working theories, and although they may

have some beliefs in common with the theory at the end of inquiry this does not

make them subject to states of truthlikeness: they are merely held true.

23

Misak suggests that Peirce has something like consensus in mind

whereby everyone will eventually agree upon a belief. This is not to say that a

belief with some consent, but not universal, is more or less truthful than others.

Rather, if we follow the scientific method everyone must agree on their beliefs if

they aren't contradicted by experience with reality: uncontradicted beliefs are

stable, not the truth; uncontradictable beliefs are the truth and at the end of

inquiry everyone adopting scientific method will come to agree on these.

However, this notion of consensus seems to imply subjective truth and this is

where we have to question what kind of truth we get when we reach the end of

inquiry.

Objectivity

Peirce is Kantian by nature, however, he finds himself opposed to the Kantian

hope that truth can be given objectivity through correspondence. This is not say,

however, that Peirce does not hold hopes for objective truth and he believes he

gets there. As I suggested earlier, defining the move towards truth in terms of

communal consensus would seem to imply that we are getting something like

subjective truth where the community decides what is to count for the truth. What

is more it is our beliefs and doubts that go towards this reaching the truth so the

truth must surely depend on us. This, however, is not so. The community is fated

to believe the truth and even if we never reach the end of inquiry, the truth is still

constituted by what would be found there. An objection from Russell should

bring this point out more clearly.

Russell (1939) says that defining truth as the end of inquiry makes the

beliefs of the last man on earth the truth. For an ardent C.N.D campaigner like

Russell the threat of nuclear Armageddon was all too real and the point that a

premature end to human life means a premature end to inquiry and immature

account of truth is obvious, but mistaken. Russell's scenario would only damage

Peirce's claims for truth if he took it to be subjective: he doesn't. We only need

to define the notion of fated opinion and end of inquiry in terms of ceteris

paribus clauses or, as Peirce does (CP.5.403, 1878), subjunctive conditionals

24

to show that the actual obtaining of inquiry’s end is of little consequence to the

truth. This is because the status of truth does not depend on us. Truth depends

on what the scientific method would lead us to agree upon if we were to follow it

to its end.

The scientific method depends upon experiential reality which is clearly

independent (in Peirce's view) of what anyone thinks about it. Scientific method

develops reality accordant beliefs that create a truth, which (like our beliefs) can

only hold if it falls in line with reality: an objective reality independent of us. That

reaching the end of inquiry would mean that certain beliefs would be held does

not entail that we have to reach inquiries end for those beliefs to be true. Those

final beliefs are the truth in virtue of their accordance with an objective reality,

not our being there to believe in them; not our believing in them at all. Truth then

is objective in Peirce's system, it does not depend upon us. If it is to be realised

then we must follow scientific method and fix beliefs into a final state where they

cannot meet recalcitrance, but our achieving this or not does not alter what

those final beliefs must be. We might never take up the scientific method but

that scientifically settled, unimprovable beliefs, are what the truth is will not

change.

Peirce takes truth to be constituted by belief in a final settled state but, as

we have seen this, does not mean that truth is subjective. Truth (as a final state

of settled belief) is hemmed in on all sides by reality, which is independent of us,

and the content of those final settled beliefs is fixed by it. Is this what we require

of truth though?

Concerns

Consider how we have truth defined here in Peirce's system. If a belief is fixed

in a state where it cannot meet contradiction, it is the truth. It has faced the test

of experience and passed and cannot be improved upon; inquiry has been

pushed to its limit. However, what if we have two beliefs that accord with all the

experiential evidence and when inquiry is pushed as far as it will go, neither will

show as fallacious, what do we do?

25

This scenario is actually at play (to an extent) in much of quantum

physics. Einstein and Nils Bohr both offered competing explanations about the

same body of evidence. In fact, interpretations of quantum physics are far more

plentiful than just these two with standard wave-particle duality expressed in

terms of wave-packets, pilot-waves and many others. The point is that all seem

to provide equally good explanations of the same observations, they are all

equally borne out by the evidence. A further example would be that of cladistic

re-classification of species. Willi Hennig, the founder of this approach, grouped,

for example, crocodiles with birds (rather than other reptiles) since their hearts

and ankle joints bear a closer similarity to those of birds than reptiles.

Traditionally this would not be the case.

Of course, Peirce would say that inquiry has not been taken to its limit

and if it were, such cases as these would be settled. This however is conjectural

and quantum physics particularly does not need a settled answer to proceed.

The implication in cases like these is that inquiry need not result in the truth. It is

quite conceivable that we could push inquiry in quantum physics to its limits and

still find no way of settling on one quantum theory. This, as far as I could tell,

would not mean that quantum theories were offering us no truth, just that the truth

would appear to lie beyond inquiry. Peirce would probably be unconcerned with

points such as these, since they too are just conjecture or "paper doubts" which

he has no time for. Of course Peirce’s idea that sufficient pursuit of inquiry

would exhaust truth might be conceived as a ‘paper proof’, since we have no

way of knowing that inquiry’s end lays the whole of truth open for us to see.

Concluding Remarks

This article has illustrated how Peirce takes the notion of belief and doubt and,

through it, scientific inquiry, to be central to the concept of truth. For Peirce,

when our beliefs reach a state where they cannot face recalcitrance they are so

stable as to produce an unalterable habit in us. This state deserves to be called

the truth. The question really becomes whether we are satisfied to accept this

as our view of truth. Ultimately, if we believe that there are areas of knowledge

26

and truth that scientific inquiry cannot open up for us then we are going to have

some doubts about the system for truth that Peirce offers us.

Furthermore, if we feel uncomfortable with the notion that inquiry has

anything to do with truth at all, we will doubt Peirce's theory of truth. What Peirce

would take himself to have done is to show us how inquiry and truth are

intimately linked and why we would adopt scientific inquiry in order to reach

truth. Our wanting to do this depends on how seriously we take his claim that

scientific inquiry will end doubt and settle on truth. We have no idea if science is

a completable task (even theoretically) and much depends on this. Peirce has

created an impressive system and theory of scientific structure but our

commitment to science as the provider of all and only true knowledge is what

will decide how seriously we take him. If we believe that scientific inquiry does

not or might not exhaust the truth, or that it may not settle on a true belief, we will

doubt whether Peirce's system can provide us with a satisfactory account of

truth.

Notes

1 References from the works of Peirce are referred throughout as:

CP. n, m: Collected Papers with n as volume number and m as paragraph number.

CE. n, m: Chronological Edition with n as volumn number and m as page number. 2 There is, however, no mention of Bain's work in the early papers. 3 say "clear" and I would suggest that it is clear but this has not stopped certain

misconstruals and misunderstandings of Peirce's system taking place. I shall point

these out at appropriate junctures. 4 I rely heavily on the interpretations of C.F. Delaney (1993) C.J Misak (1991) and N.

Rescher (1978) to detail Peirce's system in the following sections. 5 Although he doesn't grasp the entirety of its role in the scientific method. 6 Misak (1991 p101) points out that Peirce often appears to endorse a propensity

theory of probability rather than a frequentialist. Given that both are objective about

27

probability I am happy to leave the question of Peirce's real view of probability to

others and take him to be frequentialist. 7 It should be noted that Peirce's view of probability does not range over single cases

or events. 8 Peirce takes induction and inductive reasoning to be one form of inference from

probability. 9 The difference between an event and hypotheses here is that the event would be

the having of fowl pest whereas our hypothesis is a conjecture about the likelihood or

range of this event. The difference is subtle and often unimportant but worth making,

particularly here. 10 Rescher also takes this to be a viable alternative to Popper's system of trial and

error since he holds that Popper cannot account for the rate and success of science

with that system. 11 Misak (1991, Ch 3, section 6) gives a particularly good account of the

misinterpretation of Peirce's self correcting thesis and its relation to that of Hans

Reichenbach. 12 This actually requires other virtues like the love of truth and an over riding

confidence in the ultimate success of the scientific method (see again CP. 7.87 and

CP. 2. 655) which Peirce thinks are central not just to science but also to logic, I omit

any detail of this here. 13 Not meeting recalcitrance is not the same as ignoring and persisting in the face of

it. The later could be seen as the approach of the specious methods. 14 See Popper's (1963) Conjectures and Refutations for his attempt at providing a

definition of verisimilitude and the objections that it gives rise to.

References

Peirce, C.S. Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (Cambridge Mass.:

Belknap Press), I-VI C.Hartshorne and P.Weiss (Ed.) (1931-35); VII & VIII,

A.Burks (Ed.) (1958).

Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition, Vol. 3.

C. Kloesel (Ed.) (1986) Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press

28

Bain, A. (1859) Emotion and the Will. New York: Longmans Green.

Delaney, C.F. (1993) Science Knowledge and Mind: A Study in the

Philosophy of C. S. Peirce. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

Descartes, R. (1988) Fourth Meditation, in Selected Philosophical Writings

trans. J. Cottingham, R. Stoothoff, D. Murdoch (1988) Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

Hacking, I. (1983) Representing and Intervening: Introductory Topics in the

Philosophy of Natural Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Laudan, L. (1974) Peirce and the Trivialisation of the Self-Correcting Thesis, in

R. Griere and R. Westfall (Eds.) Foundations of Scientific Method: The

Nineteenth Century. Bloomington Indiana: Indiana University Press.

Misak, C.J. (1991) Truth and the End of Inquiry: A Peircian Account of Truth.

Oxford: Clarandon Press.

Neurath, O. (1959) Protocol Sentences, in A.J Ayer (Ed.) Logical Positivism.

New York: The Free Press.

Popper, K. (1963) Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific

Knowledge. New York: Harper and Row.

Quine, W.V.O. (1960) Word and Object. Cambridge Mass.: M.I.T. Press.

Rescher, N. (1978) Peirce's Philosophy of Science: Critical Studies in his

Theory of Induction and Scientific Method. Notre Dame: Notre Dame

University Press.

Russell, B. (1939) Dewey's New Logic, in P.A. Schlipp (Ed.) The Philosophy of

John Dewey. New York: Tudor.

Albert Atkin is a PhD Research Student in the Department of Philosophy at the

University of Sheffield. He completed his first degree and Masters at the

University of Nottingham where he researched Wittgenstinian Meaning

29

Irrealism. His current research involves attempting to address key problems in

the theory of reference by adopting and adapting the sign theory of C.S. Peirce.

He also has peripheral research interests in, Epistemology, The Philosophy of

Law, Aesthetics, and Game Theoretic Semantics.

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