CHARLES SANDER PEIRCE’S NOTION OF TRUTH
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the study
In the present society, people need truth about the world in order to thrive because what we believe guide our desire and shape our action. Believing what is not true is likely to destroy a person’s plan or even his life. Telling what is not true may result in legal or social penalties. A man’s action depends on his belief. For instance, An intelligent officer will never accept any explanation without a satisfied investigation to give the actual facts to the problem.  With this the question is, Is every belief through experience true? How do we know if what we belief are true? Is doubt an actual fact to attain belief? What is the relationship between belief and truth? These questions raised constitute the thrust of this work.
The concept of truth has become a problematic issue in Epistemology. In this respect Charles Sanders Pierce formulated his idea on truth as a pragmatic method in philosophy as a whole. For Pierce, the concept of truth is true belief, inquiry, and deliberation, the practice lead to the seeking of truth. And with this, the meaning of proposition or intellectual conception lies in practical consequence for the purpose of attaining belief.
In attempts to understand if all belief are true, this work set out to study Charles Sander Pierce’s notion of truth. According to him “belief is true if it brings about a satisfactory result in a particular inquiry or investigation“. Truth is the aim of belief. Hence, the purpose of this research is to examine the notion of truth by Charles Sander Pierce
1.2 Statement of the problem
It is worthy of note that Charles Sander Pierce notion of truth is centered on inquiry as a process of attaining belief. For him, truth is the end of inquiry, belief appease the irritation of doubt. Therefore, Truth is the aim of belief and the achievement of truth is through the process of inquiry. For Pierce, the method of inquiry in achieving truth is scientific method which constitutes fact, experience, consequence, test ability and investigation. Then the question is, is scientific method a sufficient method of inquiry? How can we distinguish between a true belief and a false belief? Can the theory of Charles Sander Pierce notion of truth be acceptable to Philosophy? These problems are what the study are set to solve.
CHARLES SANDER PEIRCE’S NOTION OF TRUTH
