Judgment vs Fixation of Belief

What is real? ... The biggest reason that I am a Phaneroscopist is because I understand that Charles Peirce's goal was to explain what he knew would be, well, as he put it, a "beneficent" science. One that anyone could become proficient in, and one that is uniformly applicable and shared alike with everyone. It is true that his writing is difficult for most to follow, but once you 'get' that 'key' to what he wants us to understand, the beauty and love that underlies the scientific and philosophical terminology that he felt was necessary in his academic environment to challenge the veins of thought that keep us from reaching our full potential, shines so brilliantly through. It often saddens and frustrates me that his words are reduced and dissected, and then pieces pulled out and used to support some particularly dogmatic, cultural system. ...... It's such a 'cluster' (ORIGIN: Old English clyster; probably related to clot). .... This morning I opened my old book of his 'essential writings', and the first thing I saw was my handwritten note in black marker that said this; "REAL: That which is not affected by what we think of it." .... This is the kind of statement that is so riveting that some might even think it worthy of tatooing on one's arm, or at least wearing the t-shirt. ;-) .... I do constantly refer back to this one statement as I read and scrutinize not only the written books and papers of other thinkers, but also in my interactions with the general public each day. There are so many fixed beliefs in our dealings with others. Nominalism and ontological individualism have taken their tolls on humanity, and cemented those individual and cult-like beliefs, wearing down and often severing the biological neccessity of Secondness that encourages dialogue and is required for healthy identity. .... Since my blog theme of recent days also considers comparisons of Charles S. Peirce to Maurice Merleau-Ponty, what is Merleau-Ponty's perspective on this topic? In Phenomenology of Perception he wrote, "But intellectualism defines sensing as the action of a real(?) stimulus upon my body. Since there is no real(?) stimulus here (hmm... but isn't there? according to the mental cognition of Secondness?), it will thus be neccessary to say that the box is not sensed (I disagree!), but judged to be heavier, and this example that appeared ready-made for showing the sensible appearance of the illustration serves, on the contrary, to show that there is no sensible knowledge and that one senses insofar as one judges." .. Again, there is much to discover from Merleau-Ponty's perspective toward classical science, materialism, and intellectualism, but he just doesn't seem to understand the sensing involved in Secondness! Once again, I am in my little mental bumper car, traveling the path between analytical and continental philosophies! Peirce's science points directly at this issue. In Illustrations of the Logic of Science he wrote this, "Our external permanency would not be external, in our sense if it was restricted in its influence to one individual. It must be something which affects, or might effect every man. And, though these affections are necessarily as various as are individual conditions, yet the method must be such that the ultimate conclusion of every man shall be the same. Such is the method of science. Its fundamental hypothesis, restated in more familiar language, is this: There are real things, whose characters are entirely independent of our opinions about them; those realities affect our senses according to regular laws, and, though our sensations are as different as our relations to the objects, yet, by taking advantage of the laws of perception, we can ascertain by reasoning, how things really are, and any man (or woman ;-) ), if he has sufficient experience and reason enough about it, will be led to the one true conclusion." ... Peirce's science is not phenomenology. Peirce's science is the science of Phaneroscopy.