Three Virtues of Inquiry

Faith, Hope and Love. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

By concentrating on the prerequisites of things, new fascinating and fruitful paths of inquiry open up. In other words, we are not examining what something is. Rather we explore how something could be. What kind of circumstances are required to give rise to the thing or phenomenon in question?

It is a more subtle way to ponder. Instead of rigid actualities we begin with vague possibilities. For example compare these two questions:

1. What is a tree?

2. What are the prerequisites of a tree?

The first question leads us to formulate some kind of a definition of a tree. In order to do this, we cut down a tree and observe it. We discover that the tree has roots, a trunk, branches and leaves. We may discover some insects living in that tree. We may notice some kind of cells in the leaves and so on. All in all, we discover many facts about the tree and leave behind a dead tree.

One the other hand, the second question directs our attention in a very different way. Instead of cutting down a tree, the best way to learn about the prerequisites of trees is to plant one. What kind of soil it requires? How much sunlight it needs? How often it needs watering? Does it need protection against some animals or insects? How long it takes to grow? We observe how the tree adapts to the environment and leave behind a living tree.

Now both questions are valuable, but notice how they are different. The former is about knowing what something is, the latter is about knowing how something can come to be.

The first one is static, the latter is processional. The first one is rigid and factual, because trees really have specific properties and parts. The latter is vague and potential, because the prerequisites can be tricky to discover.

We can't see the prerequisites simply by observing the object of inquiry. They are “hidden” so to say. For example, the amount of water required by the three cannot be seen simply by glancing at the three.

In addition, the prerequisites are blurry and can vary a great deal. The tree survives in a spectrum of different environments, even if the environment is not optimal.

I find that, we are inclined to think in the first manner. We like to gather facts and seldom do we stop to ponder the underlying conditions, which give rise to things.

We are impatient. We want to be great pianists, but we don't want to pay attention to the prerequisites: practicing scales, learning music theory, training our ear etc. We want a perfect relationship, but we don't want to listen, make compromises, become selfless, adjust our goals and dreams or talk about difficult things.

I hope you understand the point I'm trying to make, because, in this text, I want to approach the phenomenon of inquiry with this point in mind. In other words, what is needed in order to inquire?

What are the fundamental prerequisites and assumptions of inquiry, without which inquiry (or science for that matter) would not make sense at all?

I'll be relying on the American logician and philosopher Charles S. Peirce. My interpretation of the Peircean prerequisites for inquiry are the following:

1. Faith in truth

2. Hope for the attainability of truth

3. Love for the community of inquirers

Faith in Truth

First of all, in order to inquire, we must have faith that truth is real, that there is truth in our cosmos. This is quite self-explanatory. If there is no truth to be found, why waste any effort seeking it. Why seek something that doesn't exist?

In addition to the reality of truth, we must see truth as compulsive, i.e. being the same for all possible inquirers. The truth cannot be relative or subjective, as then we could make up our own truths.

In that case, discovering the truth would be synonymous with inventing the truth. Why struggle in seeking the truth, when we could just make up truths as we go? It would again be a waste of time and energy.

There is much more to be said about the nature of truth. It is a daunting topic. But we will leave it there for the time being, as the subject of this post is not truth per se, but the prerequisites of inquiry.

Hope for the Attainability of Truth

All of what I have previously mentioned flies straight into the trash, if we don't have the hope of reaching the truth. In order to inquire, we must have the sincere hope for the attainability of truth. It isn't enough for truth to be real, it has to be also achievable.

Now this hope has been quite slim in our modern times. I guess it is very fashionable to be cynical and search for stumbling blocks and problems everywhere. We surely like to be critical skeptics.

I guess dooming the scientific project with an ironic smirk gives some university students clout. However, those kind of claims are not as justified as the smirking skeptics may believe.

To begin with, the progress of science has been undeniable and unbelievable. We have advanced tremendously just in the last couple of centuries. Technology has developed at a faster pace than we find it comfortable.

We have thus at least some hope that we can know the truth. Airplanes do fly and computers do work (at least most of the time), so from where does this cynicism rise? It has more to do with philosophical assumptions than with the actuality of things. I wrote about this in my previous text, but I will now briefly recap the problem.

The problem is called solipsism. Our modern dualistic worldview understands the mind as a container in which thoughts, ideas and experiences are objects contained in this container.

We can conceptualize our minds as cookie jars that contain cookies (ideas). The problem is that these cookies are absolutely detached from the world outside of the cookie jar. There is no relation connecting the cookies to the external reality.

Therefore, we have no possibility of knowing or judging if our ideas are true or not, as there is no correspondence between our ides and reality.

This is obviously a false view. The experience we have is fundamentally connected to the reality as we are part of the universe. So, if we are not perceiving our internal ideas, then what do we perceive?

We perceive guesses. Our minds are constantly guessing what we could be perceiving. We are bombarded with various sensations and we try to guess what would cause such sensations. We are thus making inferences about the causes of our sensations.

In other words, we are interpreting signs (sensations) and guessing the possible objects (causes) of those signs (sensations). Perception is (semiotic) inference.

What you perceive are your best guesses. That is why in dark woods you may see something that does not exist. Your mind made a false guess. For this same reason optical illusions work. They trick your mind to guess wrong.

The circles are actually completely stationary. Your mind guesses wrong.

But if we guess wrong from time to time, how can we be hopeful of attaining the truth? Well, as we just saw, part of having faith in truth, is seeing truth as compulsive. If we guess wrong, the compulsiveness of the truth lets us know that sooner or later. Peirce says how…

(…) the objectivity of truth really consists in the fact that, in the end, every sincere inquirer will be lead to embrace it. (EP2: 419, 1907)¹

The monster you saw in the woods never actualized and with further inquiry you discovered that is was just a tree stump. Every sincere inquirer would have been led to draw the same conclusion.

Therefore, we must have hope, that in the long run inquiry leads to truth. Without that hope, inquiry becomes futile.

We can also make a straight-forward point: there is no reason to impose any limits to human knowing in advance. There might be an ultimate limit to knowing. There might be secrets that we can never comprehend, but for the time being, we simply don’t know. So why erect limits to our knowing beforehand?

I would even dare to say, that this kind of pessimism is against the scientific spirit, because it does not advance inquiry. Quote on the contrary — it hinders it. Remember, the first rule of reason is this: Do not block the way of inquiry.

We must have a hope that the truth is attainable and understandable by human inquirers. Having this hope opens the world up to be explored. All the mysteries of the universe wait and want to be discovered. Instead of limits and problems, we hear a call to adventure.

Why on earth limit this excitement and wonder? Why be cynical and demoralizing? Wasn’t it exactly this enthusiastic spirit which began the whole scientific project? Let us not loose the feeling of limitless possibility and boundless knowledge. Let us not loose hope.

Love for the Community of Inquirers

Lastly, we must have love for the community of inquirers. Love may seem like an odd word to use in this context, but let me explain. By love I mean one’s sincere wish for others to reach their full potential. It is the Golden Rule: “Sacrifice your own perfection to the perfectionment of your neighbor” (EP1: 352, 1893)

In the context of practical inquiry, love means open, truthful, selfless and humble communication, as we are letting ourselves be guided and carried by the Truth. Love means a calm, patient and understanding attitude towards other inquires and ideas:

Suppose, for example, that I have an idea that interests me. It is my creation. (…) I love it; and I will sink myself perfecting it. It is not by dealing out cold justice to the circle of my ideas that I can make them grow, but by cherishing and tending them as I would the flowers in my garden. (EP1: 354, 1893)

In addition, inquiry is not an individual pursuit. A single inquirer cannot attain truth, as individual experiences could be illusions or hallucinations. An individual inquirer may be psychotic or delusional.

For that reason, scientific inquiry requires a Community of Inquirers. An experience gains scientific and logical validity only trough the validation of the inquiring community. Only if both you, and I, and others see and experience something similarly, can we judge that object of experience to be real.

Unless truth be recognized as public, (…) then there will be nothing to prevent each one of us from adopting an utterly futile belief of his own which all the rest will disbelieve. Each one will set himself up as a little prophet; that is, a little “crank,” a half-witted victim of his own narrowness. (Letters to Lady Welby (1908) SS 73)

However, this does not mean that truth is something that the community itself decides. If the community adapts a false belief, the community would, at some point, because truth is compulsive, run into a surprise and conflict with reality.

That is why, truth is the belief that would be acquired by the inquiring community in the long run:

I call “truth” the predestinate opinion, (…) which would ultimately prevail if investigation were carried sufficiently far in that particular direction. (EP2: 457, 1909)

This idea of the “long run” means that the inquiring community may never recognize the endpoint of inquiry. The community may never know, if they have reached the ultimate truth. They can only hope to approach it.

The truth remains as an ideal limit, something for the future, for the upcoming generations. Therefore, inquirers must be charitable. They must see their collective inquiries as part of a larger multi-generational project.

That is why inquirers need to embody unconditional love. The growth of knowledge and new discoveries are not done for the sake of personal honor and glory, but for the indefinite inquiring community that stretches into the endless future. The Community of Inquirers can keep itself thriving only by living in love:

(…) logicality inexorably requires that our interests shall not be limited. They must not stop at our own fate, but must embrace the whole community. (…) He who would not sacrifice his own soul to save the whole world, is, as it seems to me, illogical in all his inferences, collectively. Logic is rooted in the social principle. (EP1: 149, 1878)

To wrap things up the three prerequisites for inquiry are (1) Faith in truth, (2) Hope for the attainability of truth and (3) Love for the community of inquirers. Faith, Hope, and Love. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

---

Thank you for reading. I appreciate it. You can help this publication to grow by sharing this post.

Sincerely,
Markus

1. EP1 = The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings Volume 1 (1992) Houser, N. & Kloesel, C. Indiana University Press.

EP2 = The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings Volume 2 (1998) the Peirce Edition Project. Indiana University Press.