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12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 3. Inspiration

[knowledge without evidence or reason]

3 ideas
If we decide an idea is inspired, we still can't be sure we have got the idea right [Peirce]
     Full Idea: Even if we decide that an idea really is inspired, we cannot be sure, or nearly sure, that the statement is true. We know one of the commandments of the Bible was printed without a 'not' in it.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism [1899], II)
Only reason can establish whether some deliverance of revelation really is inspired [Peirce]
     Full Idea: We never can be absolutely certain that any given deliverance [of revelation] really is inspired; for that can only be established by reasoning.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism [1899], II)
A truth is hard for us to understand if it rests on nothing but inspiration [Peirce]
     Full Idea: A truth which rests on the authority of inspiration only is of a somewhat incomprehensible nature; and we can never be sure that we rightly comprehend it.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Scientific Attitude and Fallibilism [1899], II)