ONT Re: Inquiry Driven Systems
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CP 7.162-255. The Logic of Drawing History from Ancient Documents (1901)
CP 7.183-188. The Logic of Science
CP 7.185. [Big Pragma, Little Pragma]
| A practical belief is what a man proposes to go upon. A decision
| is more or less pressing. What ought it to be? That must depend
| upon what the purpose of his action is. What then, is the purpose
| of a man? That is the question of pure ethics, a very great question
| which must be disposed of before the logic of practical belief can be
| entered upon to any good effect. With science it is entirely different.
| A problem started today may not reach any scientific solution for generations.
| The man who begins the inquiry does not expect to learn, in this life, what
| conclusion it is to which his labors are tending. Strictly speaking, the
| inquiry never will be completely closed. Even without any logical method
| at all, the gradual accumulation of knowledge might probably ultimately
| bring a sufficient solution. Consequently the object of a logical method
| is to bring about more speedily and at less expense the result which is
| destined, in any case, utimately to be reached, but which, even with the
| best logic, will not probably come in our day. Really the word belief is
| out of place in the vocabulary of science. If an engineer or other practical
| man takes a scientific result, and makes it the basis for action, it is he who
| converts it into a belief. In pure science, it is merely the formula reached
| in the existing state of scientific progress. The question of what rules
| scientific inference ought to follow in order to accelerate the progress
| of science to the utmost is a comparatively simple one, and may be treated
| by itself. The question of how a given man, with not much time to give to
| the subject, had best proceed to form his hasty decision, involves other
| very serious difficulties, which make it a distinct inquiry.
|
| C.S. Peirce, 'Collected Papers', CP 7.185
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