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The Fixation of Belief
Peirce's 1877 Popular Science Monthly essay presenting the four methods by which humans arrive at settled beliefs — and arguing that only one, the method of science, is self-correcting.
"The Fixation of Belief" is the first of six essays Peirce published in Popular Science Monthly in 1877–78 that collectively constitute the founding statement of American pragmatism. The essay identifies four methods of belief-fixation — tenacity, authority, the a priori method, and science — and argues that only the fourth is self-correcting because only it submits beliefs to the discipline of experience. The Peirce volume applies the framework to the AI moment, identifying a fifth method — the method of computation — that shares features with each of the original four while being reducible to none, and that lacks the self-correcting capacity of science.
In The You On AI Field Guide
Tenacity holds beliefs by refusing to consider alternatives. Authority accepts beliefs endorsed by powerful institutions. The a priori method accepts what seems reasonable according to prevailing cultural assumptions. Only the method of science tests beliefs against experience and revises them when the test fails. Peirce regarded the first three methods