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Single Idea 21494

[filed under theme 3. Truth / E. Pragmatic Truth / 1. Pragmatic Truth ]

Full Idea

Two related worries about Peirce's account of truth are (from Royce) what are we to make of truth if enquiry never reaches an end, and (from Russell) what are we to make of truth if enquiry ends prematurely?

Gist of Idea

If truth is the end of enquiry, what if it never ends, or ends prematurely?

Source

comment on Charles Sanders Peirce (works [1892]) by Albert Atkin - Peirce 3 'issues'

Book Ref

Atkin,Albert: 'Peirce' [Routledge 2016], p.116


A Reaction

The defence of Peirce must be that the theory is not holistic - referring to the whole Truth about absolutely everything. The discovery of the periodic table seems to me to support Peirce. In many areas basic enquiry has reached an end.

Related Idea

Idea 7661 Truth is the opinion fated to be ultimately agreed by all investigators [Peirce]


The 11 ideas from 'works'

Super-ordinate disciplines give laws or principles; subordinate disciplines give concrete cases [Peirce, by Atkin]
Pragmatic 'truth' is a term to cover the many varied aims of enquiry [Peirce, by Misak]
Peirce did not think a belief was true if it was useful [Peirce, by Misak]
If truth is the end of enquiry, what if it never ends, or ends prematurely? [Atkin on Peirce]
Bivalence is a regulative assumption of enquiry - not a law of logic [Peirce, by Misak]
The real is the idea in which the community ultimately settles down [Peirce]
Peirce's later realism about possibilities and generalities went beyond logical positivism [Peirce, by Atkin]
The possible can only be general, and the force of actuality is needed to produce a particular [Peirce]
Peirce and others began the mapping out of relations [Peirce, by Hart,WD]
Inquiry is not standing on bedrock facts, but standing in hope on a shifting bog [Peirce]
Pure mathematics deals only with hypotheses, of which the reality does not matter [Peirce]