Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-25wd4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T05:17:53.158Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Peirce, Levi, and the Aims of Inquiry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

Cheryl Misak*
Affiliation:
Balliol College, University of Oxford

Abstract

Isaac Levi uses C. S. Peirce's fallibilism as a foil for his own “epistemological infallibilism“. I argue that Levi's criticisms of Peirce do not hit their target, and that the two pragmatists agree on the fundamental issues concerning background knowledge, certainty, revision of belief, and the aims of inquiry.

Type
Discussion
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I would like to thank Isaac Levi for many helpful and critical discussions. L. Jonathan Cohen, Michael Kubara, Susan Haack, Christopher Hookway, and Don Roberts also commented on earlier drafts.

References

REFERENCES

Haack, S. (1979), “Fallibilism and Necessity”, Synthese 41: 3763.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacking, I. (1980), “The Theory of Probable Inference: Neyman, Peirce and Braithwaite”, in Mellor, D. H. (ed.), Science, Belief and Behavior. Essays in Honour of R. B. Braithwaite. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 141–160.Google Scholar
Hookway, C. (1985), Peirce. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Levi, I. (1980a), The Enterprise of Knowledge. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Levi, I. (1980b), “Induction as Self-Correcting According to Peirce”, in Mellor, D. H. (ed.), Science, Belief and Behavior: Essays in Honour of R. B. Braithwaite. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 127–140.Google Scholar
Levi, I. (1983), “Truth, Fallibility, and the Growth of Knowledge”, in Cohen, R. S. and Wartofsky, M. (eds.), Language, Logic, and Method. Dordrecht: Reidel, pp. 153–174.Google Scholar
Levi, I. (1984), “Messianic vs. Myopic Realism”, in Asquith, P. D. and Kitcher, P. (eds.), PSA 1984: Proceedings of the 1984 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, vol. 2. East Lansing, Michigan: Philosophy of Science Association, pp. 617–636.Google Scholar
Peirce, C. S. (1931), Collected Papers. Edited by Hartshorn, C. and Weiss, P. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Peirce, C. S. (1984), Writings of Charles S. Peirce, vol. 2. Edited by Moore, E. C. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar