List: Speculating is easy and sometimes even fun, but I suggest that the best way to ascertain what Peirce means by "predestinate" is carefully studying how else he uses the word and its close cognates in his writings (all bold added).
CSP: Because the only purpose of inquiry is the settlement of opinion, we have seen that everyone who investigates, that is, pursues an inquiry by the fourth method [that of science] assumes that that process will, if carried far enough, lead him to a certain conclusion, he knows not what beforehand, but which no further investigation will change. No matter what his opinion at the outset may be, it is assumed that he will end in one *predestinated* belief. (CP 7.327, 1873) CSP: Different minds may set out with the most antagonistic views, but the progress of investigation carries them by a force outside of themselves to one and the same conclusion. This activity of thought by which we are carried, not where we wish, but to a fore-ordained goal, is like the operation of destiny. No modification of the point of view taken, no selection of other facts for study, no natural bent of mind even, can enable a man to escape the *predestinate *opinion. This great hope is embodied in the conception of truth and reality. The opinion which is fated* to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real. That is the way I would explain reality. *Fate means merely that which is sure to come true, and can nohow be avoided. It is a superstition to suppose that a certain sort of events are ever fated, and it is another to suppose that the word fate can never be freed from its superstitious taint. We are all fated to die. (CP 5.407, EP 1:138-139, 1878) CSP: At the same time that this process of inference, or the spontaneous development of belief, is continually going on within us, fresh peripheral excitations are also continually creating new belief-habits. Thus, belief is partly determined by old beliefs and partly by new experience. Is there any law about the mode of the peripheral excitations? The logician maintains that there is, namely, that they are all adapted to an end, that of carrying belief, in the long run, toward certain *predestinate *conclusions which are the same for all men. This is the faith of the logician. This is the matter of fact, upon which all maxims of reasoning repose. In virtue of this fact, what is to be believed at last is independent of what has been believed hitherto, and therefore has the character of *reality*. Hence, if a given habit, considered as determining an inference, is of such a sort as to tend toward the final result, it is correct; otherwise not. Thus, inferences become divisible into the valid and the invalid; and thus logic takes its reason of existence. (CP 3.161, 1880) CSP: [T]he only object to which inquiry seeks to make our opinion conform is itself something of the nature of thought; namely, it is the *predestined* ultimate idea, which is independent of what you, I, or any number of men may persist, for however long, in thinking, yet which remains thought, after all. (CP 8.101, c. 1900) CSP: In the light of what has been said, what are we to say to that logical fatalism whose stock in trade is the argument that I have already indicated? I mean the argument that science is *predestined *to reach the truth, and that it can therefore make no difference whether she observes carefully or carelessly nor what sort of formulae she treats as reasons. The answer to it is that the only kind of *predestination *of the attainment of truth by science is an eventual *predestination*,--a *predestination **aliquando denique*. Sooner or later it will attain the truth, nothing more. ... Let us remember, then, that the precise practical service of sound theory of logic is to abbreviate the time of waiting to know the truth, to expedite the *predestined *result. (CP 7.78, c. 1905-6) CSP: I hold that truth's independence of individual opinions is due (so far as there is any "truth") to its being the *predestined *result to which sufficient inquiry would ultimately lead. (CP 5.494, EP 2:419, 1907) It is not that reality *itself *is predestined, but that reality is the *object *of "the predestinate opinion," which is "the ultimate interpretant of every sign" (EP 2:304, 1904)--whatever *would *be believed by an infinite community after infinite inquiry. Brute 2ns and spontaneous 1ns ensure that the necessities of the future are *conditional*, rather than actual; as Vincent Colapietro has put it, "It means what *would *occur, not what will inevitably despite all else occur." There is no agency implied, immaterial or otherwise. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt >
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