Editing Charles Sanders Peirce (section)

====Rival methods of inquiry====
In "[[s:The Fixation of Belief|The Fixation of Belief]]" (1877), Peirce described inquiry in general not as the pursuit of truth ''per se'' but as the struggle to move from irritating, inhibitory doubt born of surprise, disagreement, and the like, and to reach a secure belief, belief being that on which one is prepared to act. That let Peirce frame scientific inquiry as part of a broader spectrum and as spurred, like inquiry generally, by actual doubt, not mere verbal, quarrelsome, or [[hyperbolic doubt]], which he held to be fruitless. Peirce sketched four methods of settling opinion, ordered from least to most successful:

# The method of {{em|tenacity}} (policy of sticking to initial belief) – which brings comforts and decisiveness but leads to trying to ignore contrary information and others' views as if truth were intrinsically private, not public. The method goes against the social impulse and easily falters since one may well notice when another's opinion seems as good as one's own initial opinion. Its successes can be brilliant but tend to be transitory.
# The method of {{em|authority}} – which overcomes disagreements but sometimes brutally. Its successes can be majestic and long-lasting, but it cannot regulate people thoroughly enough to withstand doubts indefinitely, especially when people learn about other societies present and past.
# The method of the {{em|a priori}} – which promotes conformity less brutally but fosters opinions as something like tastes, arising in conversation and comparisons of perspectives in terms of "what is agreeable to reason". Thereby it depends on fashion in [[paradigm]]s and goes in circles over time. It is more intellectual and respectable but, like the first two methods, sustains accidental and capricious beliefs, destining some minds to doubt it.
# The method of {{em|science}} – wherein inquiry supposes that the real is discoverable but independent of particular opinion, such that, unlike in the other methods, inquiry can, by its own account, go wrong ([[fallibilism]]), not only right, and thus purposely tests itself and criticizes, corrects, and improves itself.

Peirce held that, in practical affairs, slow and stumbling ratiocination is often dangerously inferior to instinct and traditional sentiment, and that the scientific method is best suited to theoretical research,<ref>Peirce, "Philosophy and the Conduct of Life", Lecture 1 of the 1898 Cambridge (MA) Conferences Lectures, ''Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce'', 1.616–648 in part and ''[[#RLT|Reasoning and the Logic of Things]]'', 105–122, reprinted in ''The Essential Peirce'', 2:27–41.</ref> which in turn should not be trammeled by the other methods and practical ends; reason's "first rule"<ref name="FRL" /> is that, in order to learn, one must desire to learn and, as a corollary, must not block the way of inquiry. [[Scientific method]] excels over the others finally by being deliberately designed to arrive—eventually—at the most secure beliefs, upon which the most successful practices can be based. Starting from the idea that people seek not truth ''per se'' but instead to subdue irritating, inhibitory doubt, Peirce showed how, through the struggle, some can come to submit to truth for the sake of belief's integrity, seek as truth the guidance of potential conduct correctly to its given goal, and wed themselves to the scientific method.