Inquiry is the way development of understanding is pursued. It is conducted in three stages:
- Perception: some understanding enters awareness.
- Perplexity: That understanding comes to be understood as incomplete, and a desire to complete it is created. This could be dissonant.
- Pursuit: understanding of that unknown is pursued as a result of the perplexity. This could be dissonant behavior.
Peirce calls the struggle from doubt to belief inquiry. We only inquire as a result of doubt, so belief will be a direct satisfaction of doubt. We want our beliefs to guide us well, however. We are able to cultivate such beneficial beliefs by means of doubting the ability/verisimilitude of our beliefs, launching another inquiry (10, Cf).
Knowledge which is necessarily true is not the result of inquiry, as all inquiry does is satisfy our desires; unless this is the mark of truth it is not attained (10-1).