It was a groundbreaking insight—possibly the most important of the twentieth century.33 Scientific truth, Peirce had asserted, was no more a series of breakthroughs to intellectual certainty than predicting the weather. Instead, it is a series of constant laboratory experiments in which we test hypotheses, run the numbers or heat up the test tubes, and see what comes out.34 William James affirmed the same was true of life. We grope and feel our way along step by step, trying out and sticking to what works and dropping what doesn’t. Our knowledge grows in spots, James liked to say.35 It is from
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