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Full Idea
Your problems would be greatly simplified, if, instead of saying that you want to know the Truth, you were simply to say that you want to attain a state of belief unassailable beyond doubt.
Gist of Idea
Instead of seeking Truth, we should seek belief that is beyond doubt
Source
Charles Sanders Peirce (Essentials of Pragmatism [1905], I)
Book Ref
Peirce,Charles Sanders: 'Philosophical Writings of Peirce', ed/tr. Buchler,Justus [Dover 1940], p.257
A Reaction
This is not the same as saying that belief beyond doubt IS truth. He is merely offering a strategy for scientists to side-step the sort of scepticism raised by Descartes and radical empiricists.
| 1890 | We distinguish ambiguities by seeing what is useful [Sext.Empiricus] |
| 14794 | Instead of seeking Truth, we should seek belief that is beyond doubt [Peirce] |
| 14795 | Pragmatism is a way of establishing meanings, not a theory of metaphysics or a set of truths [Peirce] |
| 18989 | Pragmatism accepts any hypothesis which has useful consequences [James] |
| 6441 | Pragmatism judges by effects, but I judge truth by causes [Russell] |
| 13937 | New linguistic claims about entities are not true or false, but just expedient, fruitful or successful [Carnap] |
| 12625 | Pragmatism is the worst idea ever [Fodor] |
| 4746 | Pragmatism is better understood as a theory of belief than as a theory of truth [Engel] |