Among the minor, yet striking characteristics of mathematics, may be mentioned the fleshless and skeletal build of its propositions; the peculiar difficulty, complication, and stress of its reasonings; the perfect exactitude of its results; their broad universality; their practical infallibility.

Charles Sanders Peirce

Categorized in : Math Perfect Stress

Every new concept first comes to the mind in a judgment.

Charles Sanders Peirce

judgment mind firsts

We do not really think, we are barely conscious, until something goes wrong.

Charles Sanders Peirce

conscious thinking

The entire universe is perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs.

Charles Sanders Peirce

universe ifs

It is not knowing, but the love of learning, that characterizes the scientific man.

Charles Sanders Peirce

men science knowledge

The essence of belief is the establishment of a habit; and different beliefs are distinguished by the different modes of action to which they give rise.

Charles Sanders Peirce

different essence giving

My language is the sum total of myself.

Charles Sanders Peirce

language

It is a common observation that those who dwell continually upon their expectations are apt to become oblivious to the requirements of their actual situation.

Charles Sanders Peirce

requirements acceptance expectations

It is... easy to be certain. One has only to be sufficiently vague.

Charles Sanders Peirce

certain uncertain easy

The pragmatist knows that doubt is an art which hs to be acquired with difficulty.

Charles Sanders Peirce

doubt math art

If man were immortal he could be perfectly sure of seeing the day when everything in which he had trusted should betray his trust, and, in short, of coming eventually to hopeless misery. He would break down, at last, as every good fortune, as every dynasty, as every civilization does. In place of this we have death.

Charles Sanders Peirce

men civilization death

In all the works on pedagogy that ever I read — and they have been many, big, and heavy — I don't remember that any one has advocated a system of teaching by practical jokes, mostly cruel. That, however, describes the method of our great teacher, Experience.

Charles Sanders Peirce

teaching remember teacher

If an opinion can eventually go to the determination of a practical belief, it, in so far, becomes itself a practical belief; and every proposition that is not pure metaphysical jargon and chatter must have some possible bearing upon practice.

Charles Sanders Peirce

jargon determination practice

The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real. That is the way I would explain reality.

Charles Sanders Peirce

fate real mean

The idea does not belong to the soul; it is the soul that belongs to the idea.

Charles Sanders Peirce

soul doe ideas

The definition of definition is at bottom just what the maxim of pragmatism expresses.

Charles Sanders Peirce

pragmatism bottom definitions

Looking out of my window this lovely spring morning I see an azalea in full bloom. No, no! I do not see that; though that is the only way I can describe what I see. That is a proposition, a sentence, a fact; but what I perceive is not proposition, sentence, fact, but only an image which I make intelligible in part by means of a statement of fact. This statement is abstract; but what I see is concrete.

Charles Sanders Peirce

spring morning mean

There is a kink in my damned brain that prevents me from thinking as other people think.

Charles Sanders Peirce

brain people thinking

We cannot begin with complete doubt. We must begin with all the prejudices which we actually have when we enter upon the study ofphilosophy. These prejudices are not to be dispelled by a maxim, for they are things which it does not occur to us can be questioned. A person may, it is true, in the course of his studies, find reason to doubt what he began by believing; but in that case he doubts because he has a positive reason for it, and not on account of the Cartesian maxim. Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts.

Charles Sanders Peirce

heart philosophy believe

I define a Sign as anything which is so determined by something else, called its Object, and so determines an effect upon a person, which effect I call its Interpretant, that the latter is thereby mediately determined by the former.

Charles Sanders Peirce

latter former determined

We cannot begin with complete doubt.

Charles Sanders Peirce

doubt