display all the ideas for this combination of texts
7 ideas
| 6940 | The feeling of belief shows a habit which will determine our actions [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The feeling of believing is a more or less sure indication of there being established in our nature some habit which will determine our actions. Doubt never has such an effect. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.10) | |
| A reaction: It is one thing to assert this fairly accurate observation, and another to assert that this is the essence or definition of a belief. Perhaps it is the purpose of belief, without being the phenomenological essence of it. We act in states of uncertainty. |
| 6941 | We are entirely satisfied with a firm belief, even if it is false [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: As soon as a firm belief is reached we are entirely satisfied, whether the belief be true or false. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.10) | |
| A reaction: This does not deny that the truth or falsehood of a belief is independent of whether we are satisfied with it. It is making a fair point, though, about why we believe things, and it can't be because of truth, because we don't know how to ensure that. |
| 6942 | We want true beliefs, but obviously we think our beliefs are true [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: We seek for a belief that we shall think to be true; but we think each one of our beliefs to be true, and, indeed, it is mere tautology to say so. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.11) | |
| A reaction: If, as I do, you like to define belief as 'commitment to truth', Peirce makes a rather startling observation. You are rendered unable to ask whether your beliefs are true, because you have defined them as true. Nice point… |
| 6943 | A mere question does not stimulate a struggle for belief; there must be a real doubt [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The mere putting of a proposition into the interrogative form does not stimulate the mind to any struggle after belief; there must be a real and living doubt. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.11) | |
| A reaction: This the attractive aspect of Peirce's pragmatism, that he is always focusing on real life rather than abstract theory or pure logic. |
| 23659 | If someone denies that he is thinking when he is conscious of it, we can only laugh [Reid] |
| Full Idea: If any man could be found so frantic as to deny that he thinks, while he is conscious of it, I may wonder, I may laugh, or I may pity him, but I cannot reason the matter with him. | |
| From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 6: Judgement [1785], 5) | |
| A reaction: An example of the influence of Descartes' Cogito running through all subsequent European philosophy. There remain the usual questions about personal identity which then arise, but Reid addresses those. |
| 23662 | The existence of ideas is no more obvious than the existence of external objects [Reid] |
| Full Idea: If external objects be perceived immediately, we have the same reason to believe their existence as philosophers have to believe the existence of ideas. | |
| From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 6: Judgement [1785], 5) | |
| A reaction: He doesn't pay much attention to mirages and delusions, but in difficult conditions of perception we are confident of our experiences but doubtful about the objects they represent. |
| 23661 | We are only aware of other beings through our senses; without that, we are alone in the universe [Reid] |
| Full Idea: We can have no communication, no correspondence or society with any created being, but by means of our senses. And, until we rely on their testimony, we must consider ourselves as being alone in the universe. | |
| From: Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 6: Judgement [1785], 5) | |
| A reaction: I'm not aware of any thinker before this so directly addressing solipsism. Even the champion of direct and common sense realism has to recognise the intermediary of our senses when accepting other minds. |