Charles Sanders Peirce Quotes
Truly, that reason upon which we plume ourselves, though it may answer for little things, yet for great decisions is hardly surer than a toss up.
Peirce, Charles Sanders. Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, Volume 1: Principles of Philosophy. Edited by Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss, Harvard University Press, 1931, p. 331.
This seemingly innocuous quotation became a cause celebre about freedom of speech and separation of church and state. Ms. Nootbaar, a brilliant, straight A student had a theme in her valedictory address of young people not being sure of their future aspirations. The audience laughed at the line and applauded her speech. However, her use of the word “hell” was considered a great sin by the school principle, David Smith. Smith refused to deliver Kaitlin’s diploma unless she apologized, which the young woman refused to do as it would be insincere and that lying would be a sin. Prague is in the middle of the “Bible Belt” where religious fundamentalists want the schools to enforce their view of acceptable behavior and using the word “hell” in that way was cursing and hence a sin. Nootbar was accepted at College anyway and the issue of her entitlement to the diploma went into the legal and political arena.
Charles Sanders Peirce was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism".
