[MD] humpty dumpty

[david buchanan]

Arlo said:
The essay is larger than belief/doubt, but about 'conflicting' ways of fixing belief (Peirce orders them hierarchically). Do we 'fix' our beliefs on the basis of what we are told (authority), by reason (a priori), to satisfy a need that overrides alternate options (tenacity), by inquiry and alignment with experience (science). 

dmb says:
The overarching idea here, I think, is that doubt is a bad place to be. As Dewey construed it, doubt is to the mental as danger is to the physical. One might say that uncertainty and insecurity are different species of the NOT good, analogous forms of wrongness. I think Pierce is saying that the desire to rid one's self of doubt is only natural or normal BUT he's saying that some ways of solving this problem are much better than others. It very much matters HOW we banish doubt, uncertainty, confusion, etc. and HOW we settle on a belief. As I'm sure you know, this is where the hierarchy comes in...

Arlo provided a comparative map:
Inquiry - intellectual level (MOQ)Reason - intellectual level (S/O)Authority - social levelTenacity - biological level(ish)



dmb says:

That seems about right. I think his preference for "inquiry" over "reason" is more or less a preference for empiricism over rationalism. But he's considered to be a pretty complicated dude so I might be over-simplifying that point. Check out the Stanford Encyclopedia article on Pierce. I think you'll be astonished and amused.