This work is the intellectual biography of the greatest of American philosophers. Peirce was not only a pioneer in logic and the creator of a philosophical movement pragmatism he also proposed a phenomenological theory, quite different from that of Husserl, but equal in profundity; and long before Saussure, and in a totally different spirit, a semiotic theory whose present interest owes nothing to passing fashion and everything to its fecundity. Throughout his life Peirce wrote continually about sign and phenomenon (or phaneron). Consequently his writings must be studied chronologically if they are not to appear incomprehensible or contradictory. One of the merits of this book is to clarify Peirce's thought by analysing its development chronologically. We follow the evolution of Peirce's thought from his critique of Kantian logic and Cartesianism (Chap. I, “Leaving the Cave”: 1851-1870) to his discovery of modern logic and pragmatism (Chap. II, “The Eclipse of the Sun”: 1870-1887) and finally to a semiotic founded on a phenomenology the base of which is the logic of relations and the crowning-point scientific metaphysics (Chap. III, “The Sun Set Free”: 1887-1914). The book includes a detailed chronology, a general bibliography, and an index.

Le présent ouvrage est la première introduction française à une lecture systématique de Peirce. Par une reconstruction chronologique qui tente à supprimer quelques-uns des pseudo-problèmes que l'édition thématique des écrits de Peirce ont soulevés, cet ouvrage tente à donner une idée aussi exacte et complète que possible de la pensée de l'un des philosophes le plus original et universel de l'Amérique.

Le centre Semiotic and Cognitive Studies (semiotique et etudes cognitives) de l'universite de San Marino (dirige par Umberto Eco et Patrizia Violi) veut promouvoir la recherche et les echanges interdisciplinaires dans le domaine des sciences cognitives, de la semiotique, de la psychologie, de la psycholinguistique, de la philosophie de la pensee, de l'intelligence artificielle, dans le but de comparer les traditions philosophique, semiotique et linguistique europeennes aux derniers resultats des sciences cognitives americaines. Numero 2 de la serie Semiotic and Cognitive Studies: G. Manetti, Preface, Introduction: The Concept of the Sign from Ancient to Modern Semiotics, W. Leszl, I messagi degli dei e i segni della natura, D. Sedley, Aristotle's De interpretatione and ancient semantics, A.A. Long, Stoic Psychology and the Elucidation of Language, G. Verbeke, Meaning and Role of the Expressible in Stoic Logic, E. Asmis, Epicurean Semiotics, D. Glidden, Sextus and the Erotetic Fallacy, M. Bettetini, Agostino d'Ippona: i segni, il linguaggio, M. Bettini, A proposito di Argumentum, G. Pucci, Terminus. Per una semiotica dei confini nel mondo romano, D. Maggi, Il segno creatore. Aspetti dell'integrazione del segno nella mitologia vedica, U. Eco, Jerusalem and the Temple as Signs in Medieval Culture.