ABSTRACT
In engaging in communication with another, a person is obliged to articulate his or her signifying gestures in ways that make his or her intentions interpretable with a minimum of doubt and confusion. Or, in the words of Peirce, the articulator must work at “how to make our ideas clear” and at presenting acts that speak for himself or herself (1958: 183). Dismissing arguments given in what he calls modern treatises on “logic of the common sort,” differentiating between clear and obscure conceptions, and between distinct and confused conceptions, Peirce suggested that clarity of thought is achieved “when thought is excited by the irritation of doubt and ceases when belief is attained, so that production of belief is the sole function of thought” (1958: 118-119). The doubts that are entertained stimulate a mind to activity in which “Images pass rapidly through consciousness, one incessantly melting into another, until at last, when all is over—it may be a fraction of a second, an hour, or after long years—we find ourselves decided as to how we should act under such circumstances as those which occasioned our hesitation. In other words, we have attained belief” (1958: 119). Belief is described by Peirce with the help of a musical analogy: “It is the demi-cadence which closes a musical phrase in the symphony of our intellectual life.... [I]t has just three properties: first it is something we are aware of; second, it appeases the irritation of doubt; and third, it involves the establishment in our nature of a rule of action or, say for short, a habit” (1958: 121; italics in original). These procedures provide the initial basis for achieving a “clearness of apprehension” (Peirce 1958: 114) of our ideas.
