中年裴爾士的兩個「實在」觀念︰裴爾士論科學方法、「真理」與「實在」之關聯

本文首先解釋為何裴爾士之「最終意見表徵實在」的「實在」觀無法抵擋「埋藏祕密問題」的挑戰；我們因此需要從中搶救不受此問題威脅之關於「實在」的有價值主張。接著分析他在一八六八至一八八五年間著作中有關「實在」的想法，組合出「史考特－裴爾士的『實在』觀念」；此「實在」觀不受「埋藏祕密問題」所威脅，且與他對科學方法及真理的想法緊密連結。

關鍵字

裴爾士；實用主義；實在；科學方法；真理

並列摘要

In the first part of this paper, it is explained why Charles Peirce's notion of reality as the object of the final opinion fails to resolve the problem of buried secrets, which was proposed by Peirce himself; it is then suggested that we do damage control to rescue valuable claims of Peirce's concerning the notions of reality and truth. In the second part of this paper, two main points are argued for. First, 〞the Scotus-Peirce conception of reality〞 (〞SPR〞 for short)-the real is independent of how any inquirer in particular thinks about it, but is cognizable by an indefinite number of inquirers- can be seen in Peirce's papers from 1868 to 1885, especially 〞The Fixation of Belief〞 and 〞How to Make Our Ideas Clear.〞 Second, SPR is not only free from the challenge of the problem of buried secrets, but is also interwoven with two important claims of Peirce's: that the fundamental hypothesis of the scientific method is that there are real things in the sense of SPR, and that the notion of truth accompanying both SPR and the scientific method, is that truth is not determined by the consensus of any finite number of inquirers, but is knowable by an indefinite number of inquirers.