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CP 1.138 That we can be sure of nothing in science is an ancient truth. The Academy taught it. Yet science has been infested with overconfident assertion, especially on the part of the third-rate and fourth-rate men, who have been more concerned with teaching than with learning, at all times. No doubt some of the geometries still teach as a self-evident truth the proposition that if two straight lines in one plane meet a third straight line so as to make the sum of the internal angles on one side less than two right angles those two lines will meet on that side if sufficiently prolonged. Euclid, whose logic was more careful, only reckoned this proposition as a Postulate, or arbitrary Hypothesis. Yet even he places among his axioms the proposition that a part is less than its whole, and falls into several conflicts with our most modern geometry in consequence. But why need we stop to consider cases where some subtilty of thought is required to see that the assertion is not warranted when every book which applies philosophy to the conduct of life lays down as positive certainty propositions which it is quite as easy to doubt as to believe? END
Peirce was both a scientist and a general philosopher concerned with everything, Were he is observing that the general focus of everything is a bit myopic. Assertions of science and everything else are dubious at best.
How then can we read any words as true.
We can do so, I contend, by two means,
First, apply doubt to everything. Everything.
Second, consult your Inner Light. This is asking your Mind to join you in a small parley. Is this idea true or false or simply impossible to judge.
Many times the last answer will be the only answer. No candidate in any election can promise things that will necessarily be fulfilled.
No promise of success can be true until it is proved by whoever is acting on the belief that it will.
Your inner light is your higher self or even the one you regard as being Word. I regard Abba as being Word and talk with him at will 24 7. You can too.
Peirce understood the power of taking time every day to simply muse. No agenda. Let the inner voice have some space.
Are there evil spirits. There is whatever we believe there is. I do not believe there are. I believe that ultimately there is only love.
Peirce was not that far from the very same belief.
Peirce was both a scientist and a general philosopher concerned with everything, Were he is observing that the general focus of everything is a bit myopic. Assertions of science and everything else are dubious at best.
How then can we read any words as true.
We can do so, I contend, by two means,
First, apply doubt to everything. Everything.
Second, consult your Inner Light. This is asking your Mind to join you in a small parley. Is this idea true or false or simply impossible to judge.
Many times the last answer will be the only answer. No candidate in any election can promise things that will necessarily be fulfilled.
No promise of success can be true until it is proved by whoever is acting on the belief that it will.
Your inner light is your higher self or even the one you regard as being Word. I regard Abba as being Word and talk with him at will 24 7. You can too.
Peirce understood the power of taking time every day to simply muse. No agenda. Let the inner voice have some space.
Are there evil spirits. There is whatever we believe there is. I do not believe there are. I believe that ultimately there is only love.
Peirce was not that far from the very same belief.
