[Inquiry] Re: Kaina Stoicheia

[Jon Awbrey]

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KS.  Note 17

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| I have discussed the nature of belief
| in the 'Popular Science Monthly' for
| November 1877.  On the whole, we may
| set down the following definitions:
|
| A 'belief' in a proposition is a controlled and contented habit of
| acting in ways that will be productive of desired results only if
| the proposition is true.
|
| An 'affirmation' is an act of an utterer of a proposition to an interpreter,
| and consists, in the first place, in the deliberate exercise, in uttering
| the proposition, of a force tending to determine a belief in it in the
| mind of the interpreter.  Perhaps that is a sufficient definition of it;
| but it involves also a voluntary self-subjection to penalties in the
| event of the interpreter's mind (and still more the general mind of
| society) subsequently becoming decidedly determined to the belief
| at once in the falsity of the proposition and in the additional
| proposition that the utterer believed the proposition to be
| false at that time he uttered it.
|
| A 'judgment' is a mental act deliberately exercising a force tending to
| determine in the mind of the agent a belief in the proposition:  to which
| should perhaps be added that the agent must be aware of his being liable
| to inconvenience in the event of the proposition's proving false in any
| practical aspect.
|
| C.S. Peirce, ["Kaina Stoicheia"], NEM 4, 249-250
|
| C.S. Peirce, ["Kaina Stoicheia"], MS 517 (1904), pp. 235-263 in:
| Carolyn Eisele (ed.), 'The New Elements of Mathematics by
| Charles S. Peirce, Volume 4, Mathematical Philosophy',
| Mouton, The Hague, 1976.
|
| Cf. "New Elements", pp. 300-324 in 'The Essential Peirce, Volume 2 (1893-1913)',
| Peirce Edition Project (eds.), Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1998.

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