Charles Sanders Peirce Quotes on Truth
Peirce's pragmatic theory of truth, articulated across How to Make Our Ideas Clear (1878) and the later articles on the metaphysics of truth, identifies the true with the opinion that is fated to be agreed to by all who investigate, in the long run of inquiry rigorously pursued. The framework distinguishes Peirce's pragmaticism from James's more individualistic version: truth is not what works for any individual investigator at any given time but the limit toward which a community of suitably qualified inquirers will, in the long run, converge in their stable beliefs. The framework integrates with Peirce's evolutionary cosmology and the philosophy of signs to ground the realism about laws and natural kinds that distinguishes Peirce from later pragmatists who would rather dispense with metaphysics altogether.
Quotes
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“Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.”
Vol. V, par. 438 -
Attributed to Charles Sanders Peirce:
“We must not begin by talking of pure ideas, vagabond thoughts that tramp the public roads without any human habitation, but must begin with men and their conversation.”
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Attributed to Charles Sanders Peirce:
“It seems a strange thing that a sign should leave its interpreter to supply a part of its meaning.”
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Attributed to Charles Sanders Peirce:
“The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth.”
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Attributed to Charles Sanders Peirce:
“Cherish your doubts, for doubt is the attendant of truth.”
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Attributed to Charles Sanders Peirce:
“There is no greater stupidity than to deny what is supported by overwhelming evidence.”
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“True science is distinctively the study of useless things. For the useful things will get studied without the aid of scientific men.”
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