The Fixation Of Belief Summary

Belief is accepting a given position or proposition as true even when one does not have enough evidence to back up his or her belief. While having doubt is a feeling of uncertainty or lack of conviction. In “The Fixation of Belief”, Charles Sanders Peirce discusses logic, reason, knowledge, and how one believes. Peirce explains what does it mean to believe or to doubt something and how one can distinguish between what is true and what is not. Peirce also explains four methods of establishing belief, which are the method of tenacity, authority, priori and science. Peirce believes that the method of science is the most sufficient out of the other methods. This is because Peirce believes that the method of science is able to fulfill ones doubts

The method of tenacity is when one tenaciously holds onto the beliefs he or she already believes in and rejects beliefs they already don’t believe in. Although many people look for contentment to the truth and avoid doubt as soon as they settle to a belief they are content to, according to Peirce, this belief is inadequate. Peirce says, “this method of fixing belief, which may be called the method of tenacity, will be unable to hold its ground in practice, the social impulse is against it. The man who adopts it will find that other men think differently from him, and it will be apt to occur to him, in some saner moment, that their opinions are quite as good as his own, and this will shake his confidence in his belief.” (7). Peirce prefers the method of science over tenacity because the method of science “ is the only one of the four methods which presents any distinction of a right and a wrong way if I adopt the method of tenacity, and shut myself out from all influences, whatever I think necessary to doing this is necessary according to that method.” (10) Pierce rejects the method of tenacity because “the man who adopts this method will not allow that its inconveniences are greater than its advantages.”(6) In the method of tenacity, social interaction will contradict false beliefs no matter how much one strongly holds to their beliefs. Therefore, the

The method of authority is when people decide what beliefs they are going to accept or reject by looking up to their authorities. According to Peirce, the scientific method is more superior to the priori method because it distinguishes between what is true and what is false. Unlike the scientific method, the method of authority is when “the state may try to put down heresy by means which, from a scientific point of view, seem very ill-calculated to accomplish its purpose; but the only test on that method is what the state thinks; so that it cannot pursue the method wrongly.” (10). However, institution cannot control opinions on everything. Therefore, the method of authority proves to be ineffectual in fixing