About the lecture

In this module we look at Charles Sanders Peirce’s methods of fixing belief. We look at two methods which Peirce believed do not enable one to arrive at truth, and a third which does. These methods are (i) tenacity, whereby one stumbles upon a belief and refuses to engage with challenges to it (ii) authority, whereby one acquires a belief from the authority of another and the belief is enforced by norms or coercion, and (iii) science, whereby beliefs are hypothesised and tested by empirical investigation.

About the lecturer

Simon Blackburn FBA is an academic philosopher known for his many appearances in the British media such as BBC Radio 4’s The Moral Maze, the documentary series Closer to Truth, and his many publications spanning popular and academic philosophy. During his long career, he has taught at Oxford University, Cambridge University, and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Blackburn has held several visiting appointments including the University of Melbourne University of British Columbia Oberlin College Princeton University Ohio State University and Universidad Autonomia da Mexico. For ten years he was adjunct professor at the Research School of Social Sciences Australian National University Canberra. Among his many principal works are His principal works are Spreading the Word: Groundings in the Philosophy of Language (1984); The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (1996); Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy (2001); Being Good: A Short Introduction to Ethics (2002); Truth: A Guide for the Perplexed (2005); Plato's Republic: A Biography (2006); How to Read Hume (2008); Ethics: A Very Short Introduction (2001); Mirror, Mirror: The Uses and Abuses of Self-Love (2014); and On Truth (2018)