EPISTEMOLOGY examination Processes of investigation, if pushed far enough, will give one certain solution to every question to which they can be applied Scientists may study a problem—e.g that of the velocity of light—by many different methods They may at first obtain different results, but as each perfects his method and his processes, the results will move steadily together towards a destined centre It is at that centre that truth is to be found Does this conflict with the thesis that reality is independent of thought? Peirce’s answer to this is complex and subtle On the one hand, reality is independent, not necessarily of thought in general, but only of what you or I or any finite number of men may think about it on the other hand, though the object of the final opinion depends on what that opinion is, yet what that opinion is does not depend on what you or I or any man thinks Our perversity and that of others may indefinitely postpone the settlement of opinion; it might even conceivably cause an arbitrary proposition to be universally accepted as long as the human race should last (EWP 155) It is possible, therefore, that p should be true even though every human being believes it to be false Peirce offers two ways of making room for this possibility On the one hand, he says, another race might succeed the extinction of ours, and the true opinion would be the one they ultimately came to But he also says that ‘the catholic consent that constitutes the truth is by no means to be limited to men in this earthly life or to the human race, but extends to the whole communion of minds to which we belong’ (EWP 60) It is important to be clear about the content of the beliefs that we attain in the course of this communal, unceasing pursuit of truth Belief, Peirce says, has three properties: first, it is something we are aware of; second, it appeases the irritation of doubt; third, it involves the establishment in our nature of a rule of action, that is to say, a habit Different beliefs are distinguished by the different modes of action to which they give rise ‘If beliefs not differ in this respect, if they appease the same doubt by producing the same rule of action, then no more differences in the manner of consciousness of them can make them different beliefs.’ To illustrate this point Peirce uses a religious example Protestants say that after the words of consecration have been said the offerings on the altar are bread and wine; Catholics say they are not But members of the two sects not differ from each other in the expectations they have of the sensible effects of the sacrament ‘We can mean nothing by wine but what has certain effects, direct or indirect, upon our senses; and to talk of 154