It has been many years since I waded through that text, and perhaps this is an example of something I said before about the difficulty of understanding what philosophers have said rivaling the difficulty of scientific theories. Though I frankly think this is one of the easier example by far. Nevertheless, perhaps such tasks are best left to when we are young and the neurology of our brains considerably more adaptable. So I shall summarize his argument for you…
It is in three parts, 1) the experience of person who comes to believe, 2) the observation of how many people have this experience, 3) a comparison of similarities between this experience and the scientific method.
- A person who entertains idea of God and follows their fascination with the idea to try it out in the living of their life often experiences a transforming effect of this belief upon their life.
- We can certainly observe this is hardly a rare experience but actually rather widespread. The numbers of people having such a transforming experience makes it rather difficult to dismiss.
- Pierce thought that it was in many ways like a use of the scientific method where we have an hypothesis and then we test it to see whether it works.
Does this argument have objective validity? Certainly not. But then it doesn’t particularly pretend to much objectivity. As I review it today, I would particularly criticize the last part where it attempts to compare this with the scientific methodology. What it particularly lacks is the foundation of objectivity in science where there is a written procedure which gives the same results no matter what one believes. The procedure here actually requires you to believe and thus throws objectivity right out the window.