Peirce on Abduction and the Fixation of Belief

In "The Fixation of Belief" (Popular Science Monthly, November 1877), the essay that opens the "Illustrations of the Logic of Science" series and precedes "How to Make Our Ideas Clear" by two months, Peirce lays out a psychological and normative account of inquiry itself. He begins from the observation that belief and doubt are functionally distinct states: belief is a calm, satisfactory state upon which we are prepared to act, while doubt is an uneasy, dissatisfied state that stimulates a struggle to attain belief, which Peirce calls inquiry. Crucially, Peirce insists that only genuine, "live" doubt — arising from a real, felt surprise or friction with experience — can properly initiate inquiry; merely paper or hypothetical doubt of the kind Descartes recommends in the Meditations is, for Peirce, no doubt at all, and cannot do the epistemic work Descartes assigns it.