[3.1.6.] Inquiry as the Struggle to Escape Doubt and Fix Belief.

 

Many philosophers would define inquiry in something like the following way: “an attempt to discover truths about the world.”

 

But at this point in “The Fixation of Belief,” Peirce defines inquiry differently, as the struggle to escape doubt and attain a settled state of belief:

 

The irritation of doubt causes a struggle to attain a state of belief. I shall term this struggle inquiry, though it must be admitted that this is sometimes not a very apt designation. (EP 1:114, CP 5.374.)

 

For Peirce, doubt is unpleasant and is satisfied only when a given doubt is replaced with a new belief.[1] Once thrown into doubt, we are motivated to eliminate that doubt with a “fixed” belief, a belief that is settled and permanent. The goal of such a process is stable belief. The process itself is inquiry.[2]

 

Peirce considers an objection to this definition of inquiry:

 

Inquiry is the attempt to arrive at, not a merely fixed (permanently settled) belief, but a TRUE belief. As Peirce himself puts the objection:

 

We may fancy that this [namely, the settlement of belief] is not enough for us, and that we seek not merely an opinion, but a true opinion. (EP 1:115, CP 5.375)

 

The idea behind this objection is this: when we are engaged in the activity of eliminating doubt and settling belief, we don’t simply want to make any old set of beliefs permanent. If that were our goal, we’d be perfectly satisfied swallowing a belief-fixing pill, which would establish a belief once and for all, and we would be satisfied with that belief even if it were false. But (says this objection), we would not be satisfied in doing this. What we want to do is replace our doubts with accurate, true beliefs.

 

Peirce’s response to this objection:

 

The most that can be maintained is, that we seek for a belief that we shall think to be true. But we think each one of our beliefs to be true, and, indeed, it is mere tautology to say so. ... the settlement of opinion is the sole end of inquiry...  (EP 1:115, CP 5.375)

 

To understand his point, we need to know the following term:

 

tautology (df.): a logically true statement; a statement that is true and that cannot possibly be false, e.g., “all bachelors are unmarried,” “either I am taller than 5 feet or I am not,” any statement of the form “either it is the case that p or it is not the case that p.”

 

He does not think we should define inquiry as an attempt to arrive at true beliefs, for the following reason. As soon as we begin believing that p, we are “entirely satisfied” with that belief, and it does not matter whether it is actually true or false. In other words, the actual truth of a belief is irrelevant to whether we are satisfied with it—all that matters is that we believe that it is true. So it would be pointless to say “I now have a belief: the belief that p. I wonder whether p?”

 

Another way of putting this point: If you believe that p, then you also believe that it is true that p. (This is why Peirce says “We think each one of our beliefs to be true” is a tautology: to believe that p is to think that it is true that p.) As long as you have no actual reason to doubt your belief that p, you will think that your belief that p is true. Only when you pass from the satisfactory state of belief to the unsatisfactory state of doubt do you question whether it is true that p.

 

Peirce’s point seems to be methodological, i.e., it seems to be about the method that people use to establish beliefs. The method that says “seek to believe only that which is true” is a pointless method.

 

He concludes: “the settlement of opinion is the sole end of inquiry” (EP 1:115). And from this he infers three claims about inquiry and proof, the first two of which Descartes would have rejected:

1. “[T]he mere putting of a proposition into the interrogative form does not stimulate the mind to any struggle after belief. There must be a real and living doubt, and without this all discussion is idle.”
2. In order for the proof of a claim to be adequate, it need only begin with premises that are not actually doubted; proof does not require reasoning that begins with “ultimate and absolutely indubitable propositions.”
3. Inquiry cannot be advanced beyond the point at which belief is actually settled. “When doubt ceases, mental action on the subject comes to an end; and, if it did go on, it would be without a purpose.” (EP 1:115)

 

 

[3.1.7.] The Four Methods of Fixing Belief.

 

Peirce now turns to the question: What is the best method of inquiry?

 

But given the definition of inquiry he has just provided (the attempt to eliminate doubt and establish a fixed belief), this question becomes: how can we “fix” (establish, settle) a belief? In other words, what is the best way to establish permanent belief?

 

Peirce describes four methods of establishing belief about a given issue, methods by which doubt can be eliminated and replaced with “fixed” belief. And according to Peirce, one of them works much better than the others. The methods are:

 

1. the method of tenacity

2. the method of authority

3. the a priori method

4. the method of science

 

As we will see, the progression through these methods is in part a recapitulation of the history of scientific inquiry that Peirce recounted at the beginning of the article.

 

We will also see that his account of these methods is not just about the permanent settlement of belief. Perhaps surprisingly, it also has to do with truth. Peirce will argue that, for at least some people and some beliefs, each of the first three methods fail. And the failure of each of those three methods will bring us closer to an adequate conception of truth. The account he is about to give is something like a genealogy of the conception of truth, an account of how the conception of truth has developed and improved over the course of human inquiry.[3]

 

 

[3.1.7.1.] The Method of Tenacity.

 

Using this method, an individual:

(a)          chooses a belief that he or she likes and obstinately sticks to it, no matter what; and

(b)         intentionally avoids any evidence or reasons that might threaten that belief.

 

Why should we not attain the desired end, by taking as answer to a question any we may fancy, and constantly reiterating it to ourselves, dwelling on all which may conduce to that belief, and learning to turn with contempt and hatred from anything which might disturb it? (EP 1:115, CP 5.377)

 

Example: someone who (a) chooses a specific religious faith that she finds appealing and sticks to it dogmatically and (b) avoids reading or hearing any evidence or arguments that she thinks might threaten her religious faith. She feels comfortable in that faith and does not want anything to undermine it.

 

Why Peirce thinks it does not work as a method of “fixing” belief:

 

The social impulse is against it. The man who adopts it will find that other men think differently from him, and it will be apt to occur to him, in some saner moment, that their opinions are quite as good as his own, and this will shake his confidence in his belief. (EP 1:116, CP 5.378)

 

The fact that others do not share your belief will constantly undermine your confidence in that belief, thus letting doubt creep back in.

 

And when this method fails, a very important idea arises:

(I) “...another man’s thought or sentiment may be equivalent to one’s own” (EP 1:116, CP 5.378.). When it comes to belief, you are not privileged; others’ beliefs can be just as good as your own.

• This idea is the first step Peirce recounts towards an adequate conception of truth.

 

So Peirce says that, if the goal is a belief what we need is a way of fixing belief in the entire “community” of believers, not just in the individual.

 

 

[3.1.7.2.] The Method of Authority.

 

By “method of authority,” Peirce refers to what happens when some authority, such as a government or church, decides what people ought to believe and then enforces those beliefs through whatever means necessary. Such sources of authority sometimes go so far as to excommunicate or kill those who demand the right to think differently:

 

Let the will of the state act, then, instead of that of the individual. Let an institution be created which shall have for its object to keep correct doctrines before the attention of the people, to reiterate them perpetually, and to teach them to the young; having at the same time power to prevent contrary doctrines from being taught, advocated, or expressed. Let all possible causes of a change of mind be removed from men’s apprehensions. Let them be kept ignorant, lest they should learn of some reason to think otherwise than they do. Let their passions be enlisted, so that they may regard private and unusual opinions with hatred and horror. Then, let all men who reject the established belief be terrified into silence. Let the people turn out and tar-and-feather such men, or let inquisitions be made into the manner of thinking of suspected persons, and when they are found guilty of forbidden beliefs, let them be subjected to some signal punishment. When complete agreement could not otherwise be reached, a general massacre of all who have not thought in a certain way has proved a very effective means of settling opinion in a country. (EP 1:117)

 

Although the method is sometimes put into practice with the violent means described above, such force is not required. Communities have adopted this method as a voluntary means of segregating themselves from others:

 

If the power to do this be wanting, let a list of opinions be drawn up, to which no man of the least independence of thought can assent, and let the faithful be required to accept all these propositions, in order to segregate them as radically as possible from the influence of the rest of the world. (EP 1:117)

 

Example: Peirce hints that the doctrine of papal infallibility (the idea that the Pope is incapable of being wrong on matters of faith and morals) is one example of the method of authority. He refers to Pope Pius IX, who was Pope at the time Peirce wrote “The Fixation of Belief” and was instrumental in the adoption of the doctrine of papal infallibility.

 

This method is more successful than the method of tenacity—and in fact, it may be the best method for the majority of people:

 

For the mass of mankind ... there is perhaps no better method than this. (EP 1:118, CP 5.380)

 

But ultimately it will fail, because it won’t succeed in fixing beliefs about everything:

·         Even the most successful totalitarian system cannot control what people think about every single topic.

·         So on many topics, people will be left to themselves to form beliefs.

·         For most people, this freedom of thought will not undermine the beliefs fixed by the authority (these people “cannot put two and two together”).

·         But there will always be some individuals who (usually through exposure to alternative ways of thinking at other times and places) realize that they have their authority-fixed beliefs by accident—had they been born in a different place and time, they would have different beliefs; and this will cause them to doubt those authority-fixed beliefs.

 

And when this method fails, another important idea arises:

(II) beliefs that are arbitrary and accidental are not immune to doubt.

·         This is the second step toward an adequate conception of truth.

 

So Peirce says that what we need is a method of fixing non-arbitrary beliefs...

·         a method that does not rest with a belief that you yourself happen to like;

·         a method that does not rest with a belief that some authority happens to like;

·         instead, a method that determines, in a non-accidental, non-arbitrary way, what is to be believed.

 

 

[3.1.7.3.] The A Priori Method (a.k.a. the Method of Natural Preferences).

 

The third method is the a priori method.

 

a priori (df.): an a priori belief, statement, proposition, etc. is one that can be known to be true or false independently of (i.e., prior to) sense experience. E.g., “All bachelors are unmarried” is a priori—you can come to know it just by thinking about the meanings of the words.

 

The opposite concept is:

 

a posteriori (df.): an a posteriori belief, statement, proposition, etc. is one that can be known to be true or false only by way of (i.e., posterior to) sense experience. E.g., “Lane is a philosopher.” To know that Lane is a philosopher, you would need to have some experience of the world.

 

On this method, each individual accepts whatever beliefs he or she finds to be “agreeable to reason.”

 

This is different than the method of tenacity. Using the a priori method, you do not simply pick a belief that you like and stick with it, come what may. You reflect on and reason about a given issue and then accept the beliefs that seem to you to be true after this process of reflection. So this method bases belief on reason alone, not on experience.

 

In the “lowest and least developed form” of this method, the social impulse is not yet at work,  and what a given individual finds herself inclined to believe is not affected by what she knows other individuals are inclined to believe (Peirce cites as an example disagreements among philosophers about metaphysical claims).

 

But in a more developed form, “the shock of opinions will soon lead men to rest on preferences of a far more universal nature.” (EP 1:119, CP 5.382.) That is, what an individual is inclined to believe will be affected by what she knows other people tend to believe, and so she will judge a belief to be more reasonable if she knows that it is accepted by others. Peirce gives as an example the widespread belief in psychological egoism (df.: people always do whatever they believe will be in their own best interest[4]), which Peirce says “rests on no fact in the world, but ... has had a wide acceptance as being the only reasonable theory.” (EP 1:119, CP 5.382.)

 

Peirce thinks the a priori method fails for the same reason that the method of authority failed: it results in beliefs that are accidental, arbitrary.

·         The method of authority resulted in beliefs that happen to have been chosen by the authority; it attempted to “fix” whatever beliefs the authority wanted to impose.

·         The a priori method also results in beliefs that are accidental, but the “capriciousness” of these beliefs has another source: taste (which is “always more or less a matter of fashion”) and sentiments or emotions (which are “greatly determined by accidental causes”). (EP 1:119, CP 5.383.)

 

In other words, whether a belief strikes you as being “agreeable to reason” has a lot to do with your own personal tastes and feelings but not very much to do with anything permanent. So beliefs fixed by this method are just as accidental as those determined by the method of authority.

 

Some people will come to realize this; and in this realization, there arises a third important conception:

(III) beliefs that are determined by something other than the facts are not to be trusted.

 

...there are some people ... who, when they see that any belief of theirs is determined by any circumstance extraneous to the facts, will from that moment ... experience a real doubt of it, so that it ceases to be a belief. (EP 119-120, CP 5.383.)[5]

 

·         This is the third idea to arise in the development of the concept of truth.

 

 

[3.1.7.4.] The Method of Science.

 

The failure of the first three methods indicates that a successful method of “fixing” belief will have the following traits:

 

1.       It will involve our beliefs being fixed by an “external permanency”—something that is external to our own minds and “upon which our thinking has no effect”. In other words, it attempts to make our beliefs depend on something independent of what anyone thinks.

 

2.       It will involve our beliefs being fixed by something “public,” i.e., available to everyone, capable of affecting anyone. It will not rely on beliefs being fixed by anything specific to me, or you, or any other individual, or any specific group of individuals. E.g., it will not be like a private “inspiration from on high” like that claimed by some mystics, or like the “internal illumination” accepted by Roger Bacon as a form of experience.

 

3.      It will involve everyone’s beliefs being fixed, at least potentially, in the same way; i.e., the method will be capable of eventually fixing the same belief for everyone. In this way, it will not be undermined by the social impulse. In other words, it is possible that it will eventually result in everyone believing the same thing, so that you will not be caused to doubt your own beliefs by the fact that other people believe differently.

 

These requirements suggest a fourth method of fixing belief:

 

The Method of Science: the method of experience and reasoning: We pay attention to our experience of the world, and then apply our reasoning in an attempt to figure out how things really are.

 

According to Peirce, the method of science is the best at permanently fixing belief.

 

 

Stopping point for Wednesday Sept. 5. For next time, finish reading “Fixation of Belief” (EP 1:120-23).