I just wanted to add a few comments about Peirce's positions on related issues, but I don't want to get into a quotation war. First point, he said that science "walks on a bog," not "bedrock." "Indeed, out of a contrite fallibilism, combined with a high faith in the reality of knowledge, and an intense desire to find things out, all my philosophy has always seemed to me to grow . . . . [CP 1.14, fragment, c. 1897] "there is one thing even more vital to science than intelligent methods; and that is, the sincere desire to find out the truth, whatever it may be [CP 5.84, Lecture 3, Lectures on Pragmatism (1903)] "Philosophy ought to imitate the successful sciences in its methods, so far as to proceed only from tangible premisses which can be subjected to careful scrutiny, and to trust rather to the multitude and variety of its arguments than to the conclusiveness of any one. Its reasoning should not form a chain which is no stronger than its weakest link, but a cable whose fibers may be ever so slender, provided they are sufficiently numerous and intimately connected. [CP 5.265, "Some Consequences ..." c. 1868] "The method of modern science is social in respect to the solidarity of its efforts. The scientific world is like a colony of insects, in that the individual strives to produce that which he himself cannot hope to enjoy. One generation collects premises in order that a distant generation may discover what they mean." Peirce (1902) Note the emphasis on the social nature of science. Peirce was always writing for the future. He hoped that future generations would build on and extend his work, not preserve it as a collection of fossils in a museum. John
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