Peirce’s Theory of Assent

This article investigates the role of assent in knowledge and belief by reconstructing a Peircean approach grounded in semiotics. After contrasting two influential accounts of assent—John Henry Newman’s realist view, which treats assent as compelled by direct apprehension of reality, and Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later conventionalist account, which explains belief in terms of language games and rules—the paper argues that both positions capture partial insights while remaining theoretically limited. Drawing on scattered remarks throughout Peirce’s writings, the author proposes that assent should be understood as a threefold phenomenon, involving psychological, ethical, and, most fundamentally, semiotic dimensions. From a semiotic standpoint, assent corresponds to the acceptance of a representation as true within a determinate context, a function carried out by the dynamic interpretant. This account situates assent within the process of belief fixation and clarifies how propositions become judgments. The article concludes that a Peircean theory of assent reconciles realism and fallibilism by grounding belief not in subjective certainty or mere convention, but in an ongoing, testable relation to reality.