What is, according to Peirce, the method of science? Is it the only way to fix belief?
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In this paper, I explore Peirce's claim that the method of science is the only way to permanently fix, or settle belief. Peirce considers four different methods of forming beliefs: The method of tenacity, the method of authority, the a priori method, and the method of science. Peirce argues that the first three methods of forming beliefs cannot fix belief because they are inconsistent with what Peirce calls the hypothesis of reality- the hypothesis that there is an external world independent of human opinion. Peirce argues that methods that are inconsistent with this hypothesis form beliefs that are subject to doubt, and cannot therefore fix belief. The method of science is however consistent with the hypothesis of reality and therefore can fix belief. I argue that Peirce is correct that the method of science is the only way to fix belief if one accepts the pragmatist theory of belief. Whilst one could object to Peirce that the hypothesis of reality is not certainly true, Peirce would not be swayed by such sceptical doubts, and he gives us positive reasons to reject them.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.039 | 0.058 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.006 | 0.089 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.014 | 0.024 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.008 | 0.010 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.002 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".