Doubt: Possible, The Reality And Potential

This thesis intends to examine the metaphysical foundation of Peirce's fallibilism. We can define the construction of this foundation as the development from Peirce's theory of categories to his conception of doubt, and again to his fallibilism. Concretely, the theory of categories furnishes the metaphysical foundation of his fallibilism by dint of the doubt conception.By analyzing "On a New List of Categories" and "The Categories in Detail", we interpret the materialness and formalness of Peirce's category, give an account for the extremenesses in his thoughts: realness and idealness. Peirce equates the Firstness with "Quality of Feeling". Quality is an experiential reflection on the basis of realism, is the revelation of Firstness's materialness, homoplastically the feeling as immediate consciousness. Furthermore, the feeling is a quality, which is not conscious: it is a mere possibility. This possibility is the formalness of Firstness. Action is the Secondness's materialness as the emergence of realty; perception is the formalness of Secondness as the potential order. Thirdness as the appearance of phenomenon exhibits its materialness; as the medium or connecting bond between Firstness and Secondness, be its formalness.The genesis of Peirce doubt is the rejection of Cartesianism. Peirce's doubt is neither Cartesian complete doubt, nor Hume's skepticism, but is "a real and living doubt", which on the basis of critical common-sense. Peirce establishes fallibilismical fundamentalism in virtue of this conception of doubt. But in scientific inquiry, the real doubt is a process of fixing a new belief, a dynamical mechanism. Reality and truth are the ideal limits of inquiry, doubt exists potentially in the exploring reality and truth.According to Margolis, Peirce's fallibilism has at least three serially nested themes: fallibility, self-corrective inquiry and metaphysics of inquiry. Fallibility is a essential element in fallibilism. The science is not standing upon the bedrock of fact, but walking on a bog, this ground seems to hold for the present. And there are three things to which we can never hope to attain by reasoning, namely, absolute certainty, absolute exactitude, absolute universality. Even mathematics is not absolute certain. So the knowledge is full of fallibility. But in scientific inquiry, we still achieve some certain knowledge momentarily. According to synechism, we can generally progress towards reality and truth.Concretely, the firstness of doubt gives foundation to fallibility in virtue of quale, the secondness of doubt affords guarantee for self-correction by dynamical mechanism, the thirdness of doubt is the foundation of metaphysics of inquiry. These three characters are respectively the degenerate form of Secondness, genuine form of Secondness, and the first degree of degeneracy of Thirdness, which is likely to the genuine form of Secondness. So, doubt is a Secondness. Peirce's fallibilism erects upon his theory of categories.