1The emergence of American pragmatism was accompanied by a philosophical exploration of belief and its meaning. Charles Sanders Peirce and William James, as the primary founders of pragmatism, both engaged in abundant elaboration and debates on the matter. Their notions concerning belief had a profound impact on later pragmatists and on Western ideas about belief more generally. In this article, I attempt to present Peirce’s and James’ ideas about belief and its meaning, their relationship, and their influence on later pragmatists, which contributes to further understanding the pragmatist conception of belief and draws on them to better develop contemporary belief theory.
2I start by analyzing Peirce’s classical definition of belief and his description of how the method of science fixes belief, and then in Section 3, I break Peirce’s principle of pragmatism down into three main steps. I argue that Peirce’s general normative formula for the meaning of belief is as follows: Obeying the pattern of scientific inquiry, if you perform operation R on the referenced object of the belief, you would then conceive effect E, which might conceivably have practical bearing P.
3In comparison to Peirce’s pragmatism, I explore James’ pragmatism more broadly in Section 4, suggesting that James’ ultimate formula for the meaning of belief can be summarized as follows: Obeying the pattern of scientific inquiry and having the right to take individual passive experience into account, if you perform operation R on the referenced object of the belief, then it produces practical particular consequence C; if there is no practical particular consequence C, then it is not the meaning of the belief. In Section 5, I argue that James’ will to believe is not what Peirce or other critical philosophers mistakenly understood it to be, but rather what an individual has the right to believe. I also focus on the differences between Peirce’s and James’ ideas of belief and their meanings in Sections 6 and 7, focusing on the diverse roles of intellect and will in fixing belief and various definitions of reality for inquiry into true belief. The last section concludes by reflecting on the similarities and the influence of Peirce’s and James’ ideas regarding belief and its meaning.
4Peirce’s discussion of belief endured throughout his entire life. In 1868, at the age of 29, he published two articles, “Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man” (1868/1982a) and “Some Consequences of Four Incapacities” (1868/1982b), which established his anti-fundationalist views. Ten years later, he thoroughly clarified the perceptibility of belief, the meaning of belief, and the method of fixing belief from a pragmatic perspective in the papers “The Fixation of Belief” (1877/1986a) and “How to Make Our Ideas Clear” (1878/1986b). In his later years, Peirce further expanded on his notion of belief, discussing such matters as the relationship between actions, habit, and belief and the transformation of belief and true beliefs, in such articles as “What Pragmatism Is” (1905/1978b), “Issues of Pragmaticism” (1905/1878c), and “Belief and Judgment” (1902/1978d).
5Peirce clarifies what belief is in the article “How to Make Our Idea Clear,” where he writes,
And what, then, is belief? It is the demi-cadence which closes a musical phrase in the symphony of our intellectual life. We have seen that it has just three properties: First, it is something that we are aware of; second, it appeases the irritation of doubt; and, third, it involves the establishment in our nature of a rule of action, or, say for a short, a habit. (Peirce 1878/1986b: 263)
6Peirce likens a belief to a judgment, proposition, or conclusion determined through a period of unremitting exploration of the endless spiritual life of humanity. On the basis of this definition, Peirce argues that beliefs that people possess have three notable properties.
7Regarding the first property, Peirce points out that belief is what people can be “aware of.” This means that belief is not a Kantian “thing in itself.” Rather, it is a state of mind by means of which people can detect and recognize objects. Peirce’s proposed second and third properties of belief allow him to analyze the question of how people can be aware of whether they are in a state of belief, with respect to sensation and behavior respectively.
8Specifically, in describing the second property of belief, Peirce holds that belief and its opposite, doubt, can induce different feelings in people, and that belief can ease doubt-driven anxiety. Peirce states, “Doubt is an uneasy and dissatisfied state from which we struggle to free ourselves and pass into the state of belief, while the latter is a calm and satisfactory state which we do not wish to avoid or to change to a belief in anything else” (Peirce 1877/1986a: 247). Through the different feelings and states brought about by doubt and belief, people can detect whether they are in a state of belief and attempt to attain the peaceful, satisfying, and non-anxious states that belief provides.
9Peirce’s explanation of the third property of belief illustrates the close relationship between belief, action, and habit. Peirce argues that belief determines our actions while doubt never has such an effect (ibid.). Belief is like a bridge connecting and revealing the disciplines of external actions and the inner mental habits. In Peirce’s view, habits are not only a stable representation of people’s external actions, but also a relatively stable way of thinking. Habits link people’s external actions with an internal thinking pattern and express beliefs in the mind through external actions. People can cognize belief through external actions and habits. Therefore, according to Peirce’s definition of belief, people can perceive and recognize beliefs at both the sensory and behavioral levels. This is a prerequisite for the in-depth study of belief.
10Peirce compares the method of science with three other methods of fixing belief: the method of tenacity, the method of authority, and the a priori (also known as agreeableness to reason) method. He believes that the method of science is the only way to present a distinction between a right way and a wrong way (ibid.: 254). The other three methods have their conveniences: the method of tenacity is strong, simple, and direct; the method of authority is conducive to governance, religion, and peace; and the a priori method allows one to draw satisfactory conclusions (ibid.: 255-6). However, these three methods cannot fix a belief that is objective, scientific, and conformable to reality due to the constraints of individual subjective factors and the failure to ground belief in reality.
11Peirce defines the method of science as follows:
And, though these affections are necessarily as various as are individual conditions, yet the method must be such that the ultimate conclusion of every man shall be the same. Such is the method of science. Its fundamental hypothesis, restated in more familiar language, is this: There are real things whose characters are entirely independent of our opinions about them; those realities affect our senses according to regular laws, and, though our sensations are as different as our relations to the objects. (Ibid.: 253-4)
12This means that the method of science involves two essentials: firstly, people should apply the method of science to fix a belief when they perceive the reality, and secondly, the fixation of belief should comply with the existence of real things (reality), with subjective factors such as individual sensory differences being excluded. However, Peirce’s emphasis on science obviously cannot be fully applied to many fields, including such non-cognitive fields as morality. Therefore, philosophers such as James and Dewey later began to consider factors such as individuality, subjective will, and experiential context when discussing the fixation of belief.
13The term “pragmatism” originates from Peirce’s argument concerning “the rule for attaining the third grade of clearness of apprehension” (Peirce 1878/1986b: 266) in 1878; he would reinterpret the rule and name it “the Principle of Pragmatism” in 1903 (Peirce 1903/1978a: 15) and 1905 (Peirce 1905/1978c: 293). In sensu stricto, Peirce’s pragmatism is mainly equivalent to this principle, and focuses on explicitly demonstrating the meaning of belief. Peirce’s 1878 definition of the principle of pragmatism is “the best known” (Hookway 2012: 168): “Consider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object” (Peirce 1878/1986b: 266). Belief is a prerequisite for the fixation of concepts (ibid.: 265). The principle of pragmatism aims to clarify “the third-grade clearness” of the belief by conceiving the effect of the object of the belief. Peirce’s principle of pragmatism tends to achieve this third-grade clearness of belief so as to clarify the meaning of the belief.
14The task of understanding Peirce’s notion of belief in light of his principle of pragmatism can be broken down into three main steps. The first is determining the object of reference, or as Misak (2004a: 12) describes it, the “objects the term refers to.” At the beginning of his definition of the principle of pragmatism, Peirce stresses the need to “conceive the object of our conception”; that is, before inquiring about the meaning of a certain conception or belief, people need to conceive an object from the conception or belief they seek to apprehend. Taking the conception of “hardness” as an example, Peirce argues that inquiring about the meaning of the conception of “hardness” first requires determining the object being referred to as “hard,” e.g. a hard thing such as a diamond. Only by determining the object referred to by a certain concept or belief can we then fix the meaning of the concept or belief through the effects and practical bearings produced by the referenced object.
15The second step is to conceive the effects produced by the referenced object. Peirce’s principle of pragmatism emphasizes connecting the referenced object and the effects produced using the word “mean.” Peirce takes the conception of “hardness” (e.g., referring to hard things such as diamonds) as an example and argues that inquiring about the conception of “hardness” means inquiring into “what we mean by calling a thing hard. Evidently that it will not be scratched by many other substances” (Peirce 1878/1986b: 266); that it will “not be scratched by many other substances” is the effect that hard things (diamonds) have. In Peirce’s view, the meaning of a conception or belief is the effects that the referenced object can produce.
16The third step is to conceive the practical bearings that the effects of the referred object can bring about. Peirce’s examination of the conception’s or belief’s clarity is ultimately rooted in these “practical bearings” (ibid.). Essentially, they are the real impacts or consequences the belief produces in practice. Combining multiple examples given by Peirce, practical bearings include the practical use of the effects produced by the referred object, the impact on people’s actions or habits, and other factual changes (ibid.: 266-79). Peirce’s examination of the meaning of a conception or belief is ultimately an inquiry into the practical bearings on the external world produced by the referenced objects related to the conception or belief.
17Specifically, Peirce provides the “conditional indicative mood” in 1903 and 1905 when he elaborates on the principle of pragmatism, which, to some extent, forms a preliminary version of the normative formula for the meaning of belief. In 1903, he argued in his article “Pragmatism: The Normative Sciences” that the meaning of belief tends to be “expressible as a conditional sentence having its apodosis in the imperative mood” (Peirce 1903/1978a: 15). Two years later, Peirce further stated that the indicative mood should rely “conditionally upon all the possible different circumstances and desires” (Peirce 1905/1978c: 293) so as to eliminate unsuspected sources of perplexity. Morton White has defined the meaning of belief as “if operation O is performed on this, then E is experienced” (White 1955: 156). Similarly, Milton K. Munitz believes that “the Pragmatic formula for explicating the meaning of C is: C = (if R then E)” (Munitz 1981: 55), where C represents some general concept, R represents some operation (or set of operations, tests, or conditions of observation), and E represents a sensible effect (practical results). According to the elaboration of the first point of Peirce’s principle of pragmatism given above, before forming the specific formula for the meaning of belief we should clarify the referenced object of the belief. Therefore, based on the clarity of the referenced object of belief and the adoption of White’s and Munitz’s formulas for the meaning of belief from Peirce’s principle of pragmatism, I propose that the formula for the meaning of belief can be preliminarily defined as follows: If the performed operation for the referenced object of the belief is R, then the effect is E.
18Upon further analysis of the influence of Peirce’s principle of pragmatism on the meaning of belief, I believe that grasping the meaning of belief depends on “effect E,” which might conceivably have the “practical bearing P.” This practical bearing P might be the ultimate expression of the meaning of belief. In the formula, it would be better to talk of conceiving in conjunction with effect E and practical bearing P than to follow White in talking of experience (White 1955: 156), Munitz in talking of sensibility (Munitz 1981: 55), or Misak in talking of observing (Misak 2004b: 3). Peirce had been using the word “conceive” to define the principle of pragmatism since 1878, and when he mentioned the definition again in 1905, he emphasized “conceive” in italics. Undeniably, the word “conceive” not only connotes perceptibility but also emphasizes making judgments based on known experience. Therefore, I argue that the formula for the meaning of belief can be further improved as follows: If the performed operation for the referenced object of the belief is R, then one conceives effect E, which might conceivably have practical bearing P.
19Later in his life Peirce emphasized even more the role of the method of science in inquiring into the meaning of belief. In 1905, he changed “will” to “would” in the definition of the principle of pragmatism (Peirce 1905/1978b: 306). In 1907, he argued that the meaning of belief “so convey[s] more, not merely than any feeling, but more, too, than any existential fact, namely, the ‘would-acts,’ ‘would-dos’ of habitual behaviour; and no agglomeration of actual happenings can ever completely fill up the meaning of a ‘would-be’” (Peirce 1978d: 319). For the true meaning of belief, Peirce holds that people should obey the method of science and inquiry (we can term it the “pattern of scientific inquiry”). Peirce defines each inquiry as a process that begins with the irritation of doubt and ends with the fixation of belief (Peirce 1877/1986a: 247). The process resorts to the method of science, however, and the fixed belief is thus not immutable. On the contrary, new cognitions conflict with prior cognitions, and a new doubt arises; that is, a new inquiry begins. The former inquiry becomes the “previous cognitions” (Peirce 1868/1982a: 210) relative to the subsequent inquiry, and the ultimate goal of the inquiry is to attain a true belief. In 1905 Peirce modified the principle of pragmatism as it had been articulated in 1878 by “changing only the first person into the second” (Peirce 1905/1978b: 281), i.e. he replaced “we” with “you.” The new “you” not only included the “we” (referring to the generation of Peirce) proposed by Peirce in 1905 but also the innumerable generations of the future.
20In summary, based on Peirce’s illustrations of the principle of pragmatism, I argue that Peirce’s general normative formula for the meaning of belief is:
Obeying the pattern of scientific inquiry, if you perform operation R on the referenced object of the belief, you would then conceive effect E, which might conceivably have practical bearing P.
21On the one hand, James advocates Peirce’s principle of pragmatism on many occasions, acknowledging that beliefs are rules for action and that the meaning of a belief can be expressed by habits of action and practical consequences (James 1907/1975a: 259). On the other hand, James indicates that the principle of pragmatism “should be expressed more broadly than Mr. Peirce expresses it” (ibid.). In other words, James adheres to Peirce’s path of pragmatism and attempts to expand it further.
22Specifically, compared to Peirce’s conditional indicative mood for fixing the meaning of belief, James takes pragmatism as a comprehensive method. He uses Papini’s metaphor of the corridor to argue that pragmatism “lies in the midst of our theories, like a corridor in a hotel” (ibid.: 32). Different beliefs can represent different rooms of this corridor of pragmatism; no matter which belief you want to fix or clarify, you must walk the road of pragmatism. Philosophers of any stripe are included in this metaphor, whether they are atheists, theists, scientists, metaphysicians, or anti-metaphysicians, etc. “The only thing they have in common is the corridor: that is, a practical way of getting into or out of their rooms” (Seigfried 2013: 31). James applies pragmatism more widely than Peirce, except in the field of science, in which he includes fields that might today be deemed non-scientific like religion and morality. James distinguishes each room more clearly to demonstrate that different beliefs possess different meanings. This means that James not only adopts Peirce’s principle of pragmatism as a way to seek the meaning of a belief but also normalizes the corresponding meaning of any belief.
23James believes that each belief has its corresponding and unique meaning that sets it apart from other beliefs. By exploring the full meaning of a belief, people can distinguish it from other beliefs, which can be expressed as “if there is no effect E, it is not the meaning of the belief,” added to James’ formula for the meaning of belief above. Therefore, based on Peirce’s conditional indicative mood and the supplementary of normalizing the corresponding meaning of any belief, we preliminarily render James’ formula as follows: If you would perform operation R on the referenced object of the belief, and then conceive effect E, it might conceivably have practical bearing P; if there is no effect E, it is not the meaning of the belief.
24A second feature of James’ broad pragmatism emphasizes Peirce’s “conceiving of an effect” and further rests on the idea of producing “practical particular consequences” to clarify the corresponding meaning of each belief. As early as 1898, James explained and extended Peirce’s effective meaning of position onwards to practical particular consequences when interpreting the principle of pragmatism (James 1907/1975a: 259). Here James emphasizes each circumstance’s effect, and relies on the practical particular consequence to examine and confirm the meaning of belief. In 1907, James further defined pragmatism as a method that “in such cases is to try to interpret each notion by tracing its respective practical consequences” (ibid.: 28). Regarding his famous elucidation of the question whether people run around the squirrel or not (ibid.: 27), James points out that “whenever you meet a contradiction you must make a distinction” (ibid.), “if no practical difference whatever can be traced, then the alternatives mean practically the same thing” (ibid.: 28). In order to differentiate one belief from another, it is necessary to examine the practical particular consequences that each belief produces. James believes that the unique meaning of each belief can be clarified. Accordingly, James’ normative formula for determining the meaning of belief can be further improved and expressed as: If you would perform operation R on the referenced object of the belief, then it produces the practical particular consequence C; if there is no practical particular consequence C, then it is not the meaning of the belief.
25Thirdly, James affirms Peirce’s scientific inquiry and adds to it by stating that “those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify” (ibid.: 97) are true beliefs. James insists on Peirce’s fallibilism and calls for “a minimum of jolt, a maximum of continuity” (ibid.: 35) to normalize a belief change. James believes each belief inquiring about the truth should be an improvement process “in spots” (ibid.: 82). He also suggests basing the scientific inquiry pattern on a community (“you”) as well as intellect. However, under certain circumstances, an individual has the right to use the will to fix belief or to cover some circumstance “which the intellect of the individual cannot by itself resolve” (James 1896/1979: 32). James not only values the active scientific experience emphasized by Peirce but also thinks highly of the passive experience acquired through the subjective will, which is emblematic of his pragmatism regarding “practical particular consequences.”
26In 1898, James elaborated upon Peirce’s principle of pragmatism by focusing on practical particular consequences. James here points out that “whether active or passive; the point [lies] rather in the fact that the experience must be particular, than in the fact that it must be active” (James 1907/1975a: 259). This so-called “particular” experience refers to the experience that corresponds to a specific problem and that is dependent upon producing the practical consequence. Compared to Peirce’s emphasis on active experience, James believes that, whether active or passive, that experience which can solve the problem and help people fix their beliefs and achieve the particular practical consequence is the experience which is required. James provided a more detailed explanation in 1907:
Pragmatism is willing to take anything to follow either logic or the senses, and to count the humblest and most personal experiences. She will count mystical experiences if they have practical consequences. She will take a God who lives in the very dirt of private fact – if that should seem a likely place to find him. (Ibid.: 44)
27So James believes that even mystical experiences should be taken into account if they have practical consequences. On the one hand, James adheres to the standard of measuring experience based on particular practical consequences. On the other hand, he places supplementary emphasis on the passive experience of individuals. In James’ view, if the passive experience can produce practical particular consequences, it should be considered equal to active experience. Therefore, James not only follows Peirce’s scientific inquiry pattern but also supplements it by considering the importance of “having the right to take individual passive experience into account.” Therefore, James’ ultimate formula for the meaning of belief can be defined as follows: Obeying the pattern of scientific inquiry and having the right to take individual passive experience into account, if you perform operation R on the referenced object of the belief, then it produces practical particular consequence C; if there is no practical particular consequence C, then it is not the meaning of the belief.
28The individual’s passive experience is derived from his use of subjective will. Opposing Clifford’s perspective that belief should only be fixed based on sufficient scientific evidence, James argues that facing genuine options – that is, living, forced, and momentous options (James 1896/1979: 14) – people have the right to use their individual subjective wills to fix belief through passive experience. As long as the experience can impact and influence practical particular consequences, it must be considered. Moreover, in James’ view, in many circumstances, people do not have and cannot have sufficient evidence or scientific evidence to prove it, but they have to make a decision and fix a belief. Therefore, based on Peirce’s emphasis on the scientific inquiry pattern for fixing belief, James proposes and demonstrates the rationality and necessity of his view on the will to believe in religion and morality.
29James’ work “The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy” did not receive recognition from contemporary philosophers when it was published. Instead, philosophers criticized and misunderstood it, among them Peirce, who focused on the title “The Will to Believe.” Peirce deemed James’ will to believe “apt to believe” (James 1895-1899/1992a: 243), and Dickson Sergeant Miller (1899: 172) and John Hick (1957: 56-7) further regarded it as “wishful thinking,” meaning that people could fix their beliefs solely through individual subjective wills and desires. Alexis Dianda concludes that “such a critique is often framed in terms of the degree to which James could, in light of this thesis, be seen to advocate an irresponsible wantonness of belief that would license irresponsible or dangerous prejudices, blindnesses, or ignorance” (Dianda 2018: 648). In other words, critics often interpret James’ “will to believe” as an individual’s subjective desire to believe any viewpoint they wish to believe. Exaggeratedly, Bertrand Russell (1945/2008: 818) refers to James’ “will to believe” as “subjectivistic madness,” while Richard M. Gale (1999: 11) believes it “justifies our believing without adequate evidence when doing so will help to maximize desire-satisfaction.” Misak (2013: 160) attributes James’ characteristic of fixing belief to “individual’s needs and wants.” In summary, according to Peirce and the other critics, James’ fixation of belief is solely based on an individual’s subjective will, without consideration for intellect or sufficient evidence.
30Confronted with such criticisms and accusations, James wrote a letter to Leonard Trelawney Hobhouse in 1904 in which he conceded he had “unfortunately called [it] the Will to Believe (it should have been the right to believe)” (James 1902-1905/1992b: 449), marking the first time James wanted to change “the will to believe” to “the right to believe.” Later, in his 1907 book Pragmatism, James mentioned and clarified his intention to rename the aforementioned essay. He wrote
I once wrote an essay on our right to believe, which I unluckily called the Will to Believe. All the critics, neglecting the essay, pounced upon the title. Psychologically it was impossible, morally it was iniquitous. The “will to deceive,” and the “will to make-believe,” were wittily proposed as substitutes for it. (James 1907/1975a: 124)
31James’ “will to believe” does not emphasize the omnipotence of will in the fixation of belief or the notion that an individual can arbitrarily or subjectively fix a belief. Rather, James underlines that, only when facing genuine options, an individual has the right to use will to fix a belief. Dewey also refers to this right as “a privilege” (Dewey 1908/1977: 114). Dewey explains the privilege as that “which might be exercised in special cases, in religion, for example, though not in science” (ibid.) and “the right of a man to choose his beliefs not only in the presence of proofs or conclusive facts, but also in the absence of all such proof” (Dewey 1925/1984: 10). Critics often fail to consider the standards or conditions for which James allows individuals to have the right to use will, or the scope of the privilege of using will. As Stephen T. Davis (1972: 236) also states, “neither Miller nor Hick seem particularly careful in attending to the criteria of genuineness. As for Miller, he does not even mention the criteria in the 1899 article or in the 1927 review.” These critics mistakenly think that James’ will to believe means that an individual can fix belief by subjective will, regardless of the conditions or circumstances.
32I want to add three points regarding the right of an individual to use will to fix a belief. Firstly, faced with the genuine options, an individual has the right to use subjective will to fix belief in non-cognitive fields. However, this does not mean that an individual does not need to use intellect when he uses will. Instead, an individual’s subjective will must be established based on intellect, so that the subjective will cooperates with the intellect to solve the problem and fix belief. Moreover, each belief fixed by will must be examined by the intellect. Therefore, criticisms concerning “wishful thinking,” “subjectivistic madness,” or “apt[ness] to believe” misunderstand James’ will to believe, as an individual has the right to fix belief only by will.
33Secondly, an individual’s right to use will to fix belief is itself also a process of inquiry. Alexis Dianda observes that the reason James does not fall into outright subjectivism is that James insists on “coherently acknowledg[ing]”; he writes (2018: 654), “As in ‘The Will to Believe,’ then, belief is set on a background of prior attitudes, beliefs, and circumstances that are both individual and social, and pluralism underlies the discussion.” For James, each belief originates from previous cognitive gains, and he insists on being coherent with prior beliefs. He argues that “they (beliefs) bring into sight or into existence new facts which re-determine the beliefs accordingly” (James 1907/1975a: 108), and that truths also roll up with facts, that is, “they (truths) dip forward into facts again and add to them; which facts again create or reveal new truth (the word is indifferent) and so on indefinitely” (ibid.). Facts contain the experience of reality with intellect and will, which means an individual should not apply subjective “wishful thinking” to fix beliefs. Additionally, an individual’s subjective will to fix a belief should be based on prior cognitive foundations and serve the subsequent fixation of belief. Thus, the individual’s right to use will should follow the cognitive scientific inquiry pattern.
34Thirdly, an individual has the right to use the will to believe, which takes verification of practical particular consequences and supreme good as its target. This means James’ fixation of belief is not without direction. In response to Leslie Stephen’s view that “the ‘will to believe’ may lead equally to either conviction” (Stephen 1898; James 1895-1899/1992a: 344), James emphasizes the existence of differences among individuals. The criterion for determining what belief an individual has the right to use his will to fix should be the practical particular consequences the belief can produce. As for verification, the belief fixed through an individual subjective will is not “apt[ness] to believe” or to engage in “wishful thinking.” At the same time, using our will to believe operates according to deontological principles, wherein the long-term goal is “better” (James 1909/1975b: 141) and “supreme good” (James 1902/1985: 51). Robert J. O’Connell (2018: 829-30) argues, “it was this deontological streak which saved James’s ‘Will to Believe’ from becoming a justification for wishful thinking.” Believing based on practical particular consequences has utilitarian and teleological implications, while aiming for the “good,” “better,” and “supreme good” ensures a more spiritual and normative approach to belief. Therefore, fixing a belief with will is an individual’s right, which is regulated by spiritual deontology.
35The main conflict between Peirce and James is whether people should use intellect or will to fix belief. Peirce is against using individual subjective will to fix belief. He argues that “to make single individuals absolute judges of truth is most pernicious” (Peirce 1868/1982b: 212), and that the fixation of belief is “caused by nothing human” (Peirce 1877/1986a: 253). Peirce deems that the fixation of belief should eliminate all the influences of subjective factors and apply the method of science to fix the belief. This ensures that “the ultimate conclusion of every man shall be the same” (ibid.: 254). Peirce strongly disagrees with James’ emphasis on the right of individuals to use subjective will to fix belief in non-scientific fields such as morality and religion. Peirce indicates that “The Philosopher is considerably emancipated from morality” (James 1895-1899/1992a: 245), and “Religion per se seems to me a barbaric superstition” (ibid.). For Peirce, philosophers should only inquire into the fixation of belief in fields that can be confirmed by the method of science, and not in non-cognitive areas such as religion and morality. Individual subjective will should not influence any fixation of belief.
36James believes that applying the method of science and inquiry is essential for fixing a belief in the cognitive field. However, he also emphasizes the importance of exploring and fixing a belief in non-cognitive fields such as morality and religion. According to James (1902/1985: 105), “Science says things are; morality says some things are better than other things; and religion says essentially two things.” For the fixation of belief, there is the single non-cognitive field that consists of the domain of religion (and associated domains such as morality) and there is the single cognitive field that consists of the sciences, and both the non-cognitive field and the cognitive field are equally important. The world we live in consists of both cognitive and non-cognitive fields. People cannot avoid answering questions and fixing a belief in non-cognitive areas of life. Therefore, the scope of the belief that needs to be fixed should not only include the cognitive field, which Peirce emphasizes only using intellect, but also the non-cognitive field involving religion and morality, which James focuses on and wherein he mainly uses subjective will to fix a belief.
37However, is it possible for individuals to distinguish between intellect and will to fix a belief in the cognitive or non-cognitive fields? Where is the boundary that separates intellect and will in the mind? Is this boundary eternal and unchanging? In 1896, James responded to Miller regarding “the ‘sharp’ distinction between beliefs based on ‘inner evidence’ and beliefs based on ‘craving’” (James 1895-1899/1992a: 194), stating that he “can find nothing sharp” (ibid.), which means it is difficult to clearly draw the boundary between intellect and will. Dianda also states James’ view that one should “avoid a sharp dualism of the passional and rational” (Dianda 2018: 651), and that “epistemic concerns and our so-called ‘intellectual nature’ cannot be neatly divorced from our ‘passional natures’ and practical concerns. Blurring the line between these two ‘natures’ is precisely the aim of ‘The Will to Believe’” (ibid.: 650).
38I agree with Dianda’s perspective and would like to add that regardless of whether one is considering cognitive or non-cognitive fields, fixing any belief involves a constant interaction between intellect and will (as shown in Figure 1). However, the degree to which intellect and will are used may vary depending on the level of cognitive and non-cognitive content. As the non-cognitive level increases, the proportion of will (represented in white in Figure 1) keeps increasing. In a non-cognitive field, the will plays a crucial role in fixing a belief, while intellect and the method of science are less effective. Nevertheless, even if the intellect appears unable to play a decisive role in fixing a belief in a non-cognitive field, it does not mean that the intellect does not affect the process of fixing a belief. James also suggests that “this moral mystery intertwines and combines with the intellectual mystery in all mystical writings” (James 1902/1985: 331). The power of intellect is always influential, even outside the cognitive field. Therefore, even in a non-cognitive field, where the will dominates the fixation of belief, the intellect (the darker end of the color gradient in Figure 1) still plays a role.
Figure 1. Intellect and Will
Source : author.
39Similarly, in a cognitive field, fixing a belief is not solely based on the intellect but is also influenced by the will. James also writes that “will factors co-operate from first to last in determining what hypotheses shall be believed” (James 1908-1910/1992c: 242). Even in scientific experiments, people cannot avoid using individual subjective wills to establish hypotheses of which they may not be aware. Although scientists attempt to eliminate such human factors’ influence, it is undeniable that these factors cannot be entirely removed. Ultimately, the collective will of the community promotes the fixation of belief. As shown in Figure 1, as the cognitive content of a field increases, the impact of the will in fixing a belief decreases while the influence of the intellect increases. It can also be observed that a belief that is less influenced by the will and more influenced by the intellect is more stable. However, even here, the will still wields some influence which cannot be completely eliminated.
40What’s more, the boundary of cognitive and non-cognitive fields has changed since James’ time. As science and technology continue to develop and people’s cognitive abilities expand, our perception of the world has grown (as shown by the horizontally oriented growth of perceptive scope in Figure 1), and some non-cognitive fields have been gradually recognized as or transformed into cognitive fields through the use of intellect and scientific inquiry (as indicated by the rising dashed line L1 in Figure 1). At the same time, a given cognitive field will continue to expand, while the perceived boundary of some other non-cognitive field will continue to increase and thus expand it (as shown by the rising dashed line L2 in Figure 1), and the non-cognitive field will continue to expand.
41However, regardless of whether the belief is fixed mainly by the will in a non-cognitive field or mainly by the intellect in a cognitive field, both intellect and will are involved in fixing a belief. Additionally, a belief can be fixed in a cognitive or non-cognitive field.
42Peirce and James have different definitions of reality that influence their respective understandings of true belief. Peirce candidly affirms “true belief (or belief in the real)” (Peirce 1878/1986b: 272), in which the true belief is the belief that uncovers objective reality. Peirce believes,
Those thoughts, however, have been caused by sensations, and those sensations are constrained by something out of the mind. This thing out of the mind, which directly influences sensation, and through sensation thought, because it is out of the mind, is independent of how we think it, and is, in short, the real. (Peirce 1871/1982c: 468)
43The real is external to the mind and individual thinking, but it leads to people’s sensations and to other things that can be perceived. The independence of real ideas is from any particular mind; however, Peirce freely acknowledged that conceiving God can be in mind in a vague sense and that God is a creator of all (Anderson 1992: 185-6). It seems that Peirce’s realism also mediates idealism. Not only an external reality but also a God in mind can be taken as a criterion and reveal true belief. Peirce’s late writings confirm and deepen the scientific attitude and method of science is the way to perceive reality and modify knowledge of reality (Maddalena 2017: 411-2).
44James also acknowledges that true belief is consistent with reality and can be verified. James writes, “True ideas are those that we can assimilate, validate, corroborate and verify. False ideas are those that we cannot” (James 1907/1975a: 97; James 1909/1975b: 3), and “Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its veri-fication. Its validity is the process of its valid-action” (ibid.). In James’ view, a fixed true belief is inevitably a belief which must be experienced through the process of verification and have practical particular consequences. This is similar to Peirce’s idea, but James is more focused on verifying the experience that connects the internal subjective mind with the external objective reality, rather than on the external reality emphasized by Peirce.
45James argues in his book Essays in Radical Empiricism that thought and reality are composed of the same material, the material of general experience (James 1905/1978: 110). This means that thought and reality are of the same material as experience. Essentially, James’ definition of “reality” is equivalent to “experience” and can be perceived through experience. For James, Peirce’s definition of reality is “very hard to find” (James 1907/1975a: 119). External reality is eternally different from what people perceive or experience in reality. James believes that “What we say about reality thus depends on the perspective into which we throw it. The that of it is its own; but the what depends on the which; and the which depends on us” (ibid.: 118). So, James’ reality is “only our belief about reality” (ibid.: 120), which includes human factors and, to be precise, is the reality experienced by individuals.
46It seems reasonable to conclude that external reality exists independently of any individual, but any individual perceives reality through his experience stream, which is shaped by interactions with the experience streams of others, including those of older generations and one’s own generation. Each individual’s experience is formed by his or her intellect and will, based on previous experience and enhanced by new experience. The communication, verification, and enrichment of experience within the community are essential for individuals to access reality and achieve true belief. By sharing and obtaining different ideas of how one might perceive reality within the community, individuals can correct, enhance, and renew their experience. Moreover, the community’s experience is to some extent a valuable tool in judging whether it can be a true belief. Therefore, people’s understanding and cognition of reality should depend on the experience formed by the collaboration between individuals and communities. And if a cognitive experience can reveal or verify the corresponding reality completely and thoroughly, it is a true belief. This idea integrates the different definitions of Peirce and James on reality, and proposes a way for people to further acquire a true belief from the perspective of consequentialism.
47James builds upon and goes beyond Peirce’s notion of belief. Peirce focuses on a cognitive field and uses the method of science to fix belief, while James broadens its scope to encompass both cognitive and non-cognitive fields, using both intellect and will to fix belief. Peirce defines reality as the external reality that exists independently of human factors. For him, the standard of true belief is whether it corresponds thoroughly to this external reality. On the other hand, James understands reality as the experience of reality, which includes both active and passive experience. According to James, the standard of true belief is whether experience can be verified and have practical particular consequences. Later pragmatists further considered the belief in cognitive and non-cognitive fields, such as Dewey and Rorty focused on cultural politics. They also take the practical consequences as the criterion for fixing beliefs.
48According to the definitions of pragmatism proposed by Peirce and James, I have suggested two general normative formulas for the meaning of belief. Although these formulas differ slightly, they both reveal the meaning of a belief by verifying the effects or practical particular consequences of holding that belief. In other words, Peirce and James emphasize that a belief is clarified through its outward expression of its practical meaning. Later classical pragmatists, such as Dewey, would build on this idea by proposing a connection between sign, significance, symbol, and meaning (Dewey 1938/1986: 58). Neo-pragmatists, like Quine and Davidson, expounded upon and proved that language and communication clarify the meaning of beliefs (Quine 1960: 25; Davidson 1984: 141).
49Peirce’s and James’s pragmatism emphasize inquiring into the fixing of belief, true belief, and the meaning of belief. They both hold that fixed beliefs will change, undergo renewal, and foreclose upon the truth due to individuals’ limitations, evolving understandings of reality, and varying realities. Peirce’s and James’s thoughts on pragmatic inquiry also profoundly impacted later pragmatists. In the book Logic: The Theory of Inquiry, Dewey demonstrated that the fixation of belief and even knowledge itself is an ongoing inquiry (Dewey 1938/1986: 16). Neo-pragmatists such as Clarence Irving Lewis and Willard Van Orman Quine placed a greater emphasis on empirical verification so as to prove whether a proposition is true or not or to increase or decrease its probability, and held that a conflict with experience at the periphery occasions readjustments in the interior of the field (Lewis 1936/1970: 279-80; Quine 1953: 42). Later pragmatists like Donald Davidson and Richard Rorty relied on experience and language to expose the fallibility of belief more thoroughly, and believed that inquiry is an inevitable path towards the fixation of belief. Davidson proposed “relativized truth” and held that it is within the bounds of intelligible error (Davidson 1984: 35). Rorty brought up and supported ironists’ aim of changing the final vocabulary due to doubt, holding that people should renounce and change or redescribe the final vocabulary (Rorty 1999: 73). Voparil also argued that both James and Rorty authorize a space of freedom that rejects determinism and the philosophically necessary and demands active choice and self-created commitment, combining their fallibilism and pluralism with an account of commitment and responsibility (Voparil, 2016). Peirce and James definitely significantly influenced the ideas of later pragmatists on the nature of belief.