peircean metaphysics

as some of you know i'm writing my sr thesis on ideas found in pierce's writings. i'm not sure exactly what about him or his theories i'm going to write about just yet, but i might start a regular feature in the site which quotes him and analyzes it a bit. either way here's a quote:

from The Fixation of Belief (Section V Paragraph 9):

"[Science's] most fundamental hypothesis, restated in more familiar language, is this: There are real things, whose characters are entirely independent of our opinions about them; those realities affect our senses according to regular laws, and, though our sensations are as different as our relations to the objects, yet by taking advantage of the laws of perception, we can ascertain by reasoning how things really are, and any man, if he have sufficient experience and reason enough about it, will be led to the one true conclusion."

there's a lot being said here: science assumes many things. there is a real world. there are real generals, including kinds and laws. human cognition depends on our individual quirks, but that doesn't impede us from finding out what's what. but to find out, we need both inquiry into the external world and introspection. and knowledge about this real world will lead to true statements about it.