Sextus, Descartes, Hume, and Peirce: On Securing Settled Doxastic States

Abstract

Sextus Empiricus and Peirce are famously philosophers for whom the objective of inquiry or investigation is characterized in psychological terms-for Sextus, as quietude or tranquility, and for Peirce, as the settlement or fixation of belief. I maintain that Descartes and Hume also characterize the goal of inquiry psychologically, in terms of such notions as unshakability and equilibrium in belief, and that their approaches to assessing belief-forming methods with reference to psychological notions have affinities with those in Sextus and Peirce. Methods of forming doxastic states are assessed by each of the four figures with reference to effectiveness in achieving a settled condition in those states. My argument depends on identifying important lines of thought in Descartes and Hume, tendencies in their thinking that are present and not dismissed, that place a premium on settled doxastic states. In this paper, I seek to bring to light these lines of thought. In the interest of presenting an overview of Descartes and Hume, against the backdrop of Sextus and Peirce, I provide a partial defense of admittedly contentious interpretive claims, ones I attempt to defend more fully elsewhere. I locate in Hume the claim that one ought to seek doxastic states that are settled. I locate in Descartes the claim that one ought to seek beliefs that are not only settled, but also incapable of being shaken or unsettled. Achieving a settled condition is necessary, but not sufficient, for achieving a settled condition that cannot be unsettled. The Cartesian objective is more ambitious, and the Humean more modest. I maintain that the value placed on settled doxastic states has a naturalistic foundation in three of the figures; we find in Peirce, Hume, and Sextus, though not in Descartes, the claim that unsettled states are unpleasant, and hence to be avoided. It is Hume, however, who is odd man out in a different