Abstract

This is an essay on Peirce's theory of truth and, at the same time, a general defense of the pragmatic conception of truth as Peirce proposed it. In chapter 1 the author contends that Peirce argued for the view that the truth is what the community of scientific inquirers would sooner or later agree upon were they to continue inquiring indefinitely long; or, It is a consequence of "H is true" that, if inquiry were to be pursued, H would be believed. In chapter 2 the author argues, along with Peirce, that beliefs in which inquiry would finally result deserve the title "true," although that is not to define truth rather than to characterize the concept "pragmatically." In chapter 3 we see why Peirce thought that "inquiry would deliver beliefs that we would want to call true." In chapter 4 the author seeks to identify the senses in which objectivity is preserved in the Peircean account of truth. Here the author asserts that, for Peirce, truth is a regulative assumption of inquiry: If belief would be fixed or permanently settled by inquiry, then it is true. After arguing that the whole of the pragmatic account of truth should be accepted, the author also points out what is unique and important about Peirce's theory of truth.