Critical Reflection On Method

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CROM.  Note 1

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| Two things here are all-important to assure oneself of
| and to remember.  The first is that a person is not
| absolutely an individual.  His thoughts are what
| he is "saying to himself", that is, is saying
| to that other self that is just coming into
| life in the flow of time.  When one reasons,
| it is that critical self that one is trying
| to persuade;  and all thought whatsoever is a
| sign, and is mostly of the nature of language.
| The second thing to remember is that the man's
| circle of society (however widely or narrowly
| this phrase may be understood), is a sort of
| loosely compacted person, in some respects of
| higher rank than the person of an individual
| organism.  It is these two things alone that
| render it possible for you -- but only in
| the abstract, and in a Pickwickian sense --
| to distinguish between absolute truth
| and what you do not doubt.
|
| C.S. Peirce, 'Collected Papers', CP 5.421.
|
| Charles Sanders Peirce, "What Pragmatism Is",
|'The Monist', Volume 15, 1905, pages 161-181,
| Also in the 'Collected Papers', CP 5.411-437.

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