This work runs counter to the traditional interpretations of Peirce's philosophy by eliciting an inherent strand of pragmatic pluralism that is embedded in the very core of his thought and that weaves his various doctrines into a systematic pattern of pluralism. Rosenthal gives a new design to the seeming bedrock of Peirce's position: convergence toward the final ultimate opinion of the community of interpreters in the idealized long run. Focusing frequently on passages from Peirce's writings which have been virtually ignored in the more traditional interpretations of his work, this book shows the way in which Peirce's position, far from lying in opposition to the Kuhnian interpretation of science, provides strong and much needed metaphysical and epistemic underpinnings for it in a way which avoids the pitfalls of false alternatives offered by the philosophical tradition. The book examines in depth the various features of Peirce's position that enter into these underpinnings. Among the topics explored are meaning, truth, perception, world, sign relations, realism, categorical inquiry, phenomenology, temporality, and speculative metaphysics. -- Back cover.

This is a study edition of Charles Sanders Peirce's manuscripts for lectures on pragmatism given in spring 1903 at Harvard University. Excerpts from these writings have been published elsewhere but in abbreviated form. Turrisi has edited the manuscripts for publication and has written a series of notes that illuminate the historical, scientific, and philosophical contexts of Peirce's references in the lectures. She has also written a Preface that describes the manner in which the lectures came to be given, including an account of Peirce's life and career pertinent to understanding the philosopher himself. Turrisi's introduction interprets Peirce's brand of pragmatism within his system of logic and philosophy of science as well as within general philosophical principles.

Christopher Hookway presents a series of essays on the work of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1913), the 'founder of pragmatism' and one of the most important and original American philosophers. He illuminates how Peirce's writings on truth, science, and the nature of meaning contribute to philosophical understanding in ongoing debates.

In recent years, Charles Sanders Peirce has emerged, in the eyes of philosophers both in America and abroad, as one of America’s major philosophical thinkers. His work has forced us back to philosophical reflection about those basic issues that inevitably confront us as human beings, especially in an age of science. Peirce’s concern for experience, for what is actually encountered, means that his philosophy, even in its most technical aspects, forms a reflective commentary on actual life and on the world in which it is lived. In Charles S. Peirce: On Norms and Ideals, Potter argues that Peirce’s doctrine of the normative sciences is essential to his pragmatism. No part of Peirce’s philosophy is bolder than his attempt to establish esthetics, ethics, and logic as the three normative sciences and to argue for the priority of esthetics among the trio. Logic, Potter cites, is normative because it governs thought and aims at truth; ethics is normative because it analyzes the ends to which thought should be directed; esthetics is normative and fundamental because it considers what it means to be an end of something good in itself. This study shows that pierce took seriously the trinity of normative sciences and demonstrates that these categories apply both to the conduct of man and to the workings of the cosmos. Professor Potter combines sympathetic and informed exposition with straightforward criticism and he deals in a sensible manner with the gaps and inconsistencies in Peirce’s thought. His study shows that Peirce was above all a cosmological and ontological thinker, one who combined science both as a method and as result with a conception of reasonable actions to form a comprehensive theory of reality. Peirce’s pragmatism, although it has to do with "action and the achievement of results, is not a glorification of action but rather a theory of the dynamic nature of things in which the "ideal" dimension of reality – laws, nature of things, tendencies, and ends – has genuine power for directing the cosmic order, including man, toward reasonable goals.

Scientist, mathematician, thinker, the father of pragmatism, the inspiration for William James and John Dewey, Charles Peirce has remained until recently a philosopher's philosopher. Peirce trod a fine line between the extremes of nominalism and realism, tough-minded pragmatism and metaphysical speculation. As Peter Skagestad makes clear, Peirce's system of thought was fragmented, incomplete, and sometimes inconsistent. But one overriding concern gives unity to the whole: the road of inquiry must never be blocked.

Reflecting a revival of Peirce studies and the rediscovery of the pragmatist tradition in American philosophical thinking, this study articulates a contemporary and relevant interpretation that may offer a challenge to neo-pragmatists.

For the past fifteen years, Aikin and Talisse have been working collaboratively on a new vision of American pragmatism, one which sees pragmatism as a living and developing philosophical idiom that originates in the work of the "classical" pragmatisms of Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, uninterruptedly develops through the later 20th Century pragmatists (C. I. Lewis, Wilfrid Sellars, Nelson Goodman, W. V. O. Quine), and continues through the present day. According to Aikin and Talisse, pragmatism is fundamentally a metaphilosophical proposal – a methodological suggestion for carrying inquiry forward amidst ongoing deep disagreement over the aims, limitations, and possibilities of philosophy. This conception of pragmatism not only runs contrary to the dominant self-understanding among cotemporary philosophers who identify with the classical pragmatists, it also holds important implications for pragmatist philosophy. In particular, Aikin and Talisse show that their version of pragmatism involves distinctive claims about epistemic justification, moral disagreement, democratic citizenship, and the conduct of inquiry. The chapters combine detailed engagements with the history and development of pragmatism with original argumentation aimed at a philosophical audience beyond pragmatism.

This is the first study of Charles Peirce's philosophy as a form of writing and the first study of his pragmatic writings as a critique of the modern attempt to change society by writing philosophy. According to Ochs, Peirce concluded that his own pragmatism displayed the errors of modernity, attempting to recreate rather than repair modern philosophy. His self-critique - which he called pragmaticism - refashions pragmatism as what Ochs calls a 'pragmatic method of reading': a method of, first, uncovering the conflicting beliefs that generate modern philosophies and, second, recommending ways of repairing these conflicts. Redescribing Peirce's pragmatism as 'the logic of scripture', Ochs suggests that Christians and Jews may in fact re-read pragmatism as a logic of Scripture: that is, as a modern philosopher's way of diagramming the Bible's rules for repairing broken lives and healing societal suffering.

Arranged and integrated to reveal epistemology, phenomenology, theory of signs, other major topics. Includes "The Fixation of Beliefs," "How to Make Our Ideas Clear," and "The Criterion of Validity in Reasoning."