  Perhaps the single most important fact to keep in mind in trying to understand Peirce’s philosophy concerning clarity and the proper method of fixing belief is that all his life Peirce was a practicing physical scientist: already mentioned is the fact that he worked as a physical scientist for 32 years in his job with the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. As Peirce understood the topics of philosophy and logic, philosophy and logic were themselves also sciences, although not physical sciences.  Moreover, he understood philosophy to be the philosophy of science, and he understood logic to be the logic of science (where the word “science” has a sense that is best captured by the German word Wissenschaft).