ONT Re: Just In Time Logic
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JITL. Note 8
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| Chapter 1 (Enlarged Abstract) [MS 182, Winter-Spring 1872]
|
| The very first of distinctions which logic supposes is between doubt and belief,
| a question and a proposition. Doubt and belief are two states of mind which
| feel different, so that we can distinguish them by immediate sensation.
| We almost always know without any experiment when we are in doubt and
| when we are convinced. This is such a difference as there is between
| red and blue, or pleasure & pain. Were this the whole distinction,
| it would be almost without significance. But in point of fact the
| mere sensible distinguishability is attended with an important
| practical difference. When we believe there is a proposition
| which according to some rule determines our actions, so that
| our belief being known, the way in which we shall behave
| may be surely deduced, but in the case of doubt we have
| such a proposition more or less distinctly in our minds
| but do not act from it. There is something further
| removed from belief than doubt, that is to say not
| to conceive the proposition at all. Nor is doubt
| wholly without effect upon our conduct. It makes
| us waver. Conviction determines us to act in a
| particular way while pure unconscious ignorance
| alone which is the true contrary of belief has
| no effect at all.
|
| Belief and doubt may be conceived to be distinguished only in degree.
|
| C.S. Peirce, CE 3, pp. 20-21.
|
| C.S. Peirce, MS 182, 1872, "Chapter 1 (Enlarged Abstract)", pages 20-21 in:
|'Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition, Volume 3, 1872-1878',
| Peirce Edition Project, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1986.
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