Single Idea 19107

[catalogued under 11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 3. Fallibilism]

Full Idea

Inquiry is not standing upon a bedrock of fact. It is walking up a bog, and can only say, this ground seems to hold for the present. Here I will stay until it begins to give way.

Gist of Idea

Inquiry is not standing on bedrock facts, but standing in hope on a shifting bog

Source

Charles Sanders Peirce (works [1892], CP 5.589), quoted by Gottfried Leibniz - Letter to Newton 4

Book Reference

'New Pragmatists', ed/tr. Misak,Cheryl [OUP 2009], p.83


A Reaction

[I don't know which article this lovely quote comes from]