In the twenty-four years since this book was first published, interest in the philosophy of Charles S. Peirce has grown considerably. He has been widely recognized as the father of pragmatism, a precursor of symbolic logic, and a worker in the field of the philosophy of science. Naturally enough, Mr. Feibleman devotes proper attention to these areas. Moreover, he details Peirce's less well-known contributions to metaphysics, ethics, and psychology. The book has two aims. The first is to offer an introduction to the general philosophy of Peirce. The second has to do with the system implicit in Peirce's work. His writings were certainly unorganized, even though his ideas were not. Because of the kind of man he was, or perhaps because of the restraining force of adverse circumstances, but probably due to a combination of both causes, Peirce himself never formulated his system, though more than once he made plans to do so. His fault was one of method of presentation, not one of thought. In other words, Peirce had a systematic philosophy which he set down unsystematically. His scattered papers make a convincing argument that their sole purpose is to perfect an implicit system of philosophy. Mr. Feibleman's purpose is to make the implicit explicit.

[Note: Picture of Peirce available] Charles S. Peirce's Philosophy of Signs Essays in Comparative Semiotics Gérard Deledalle Peirce's semiotics and metaphysics compared to the thought of other leading philosophers. "This is essential reading for anyone who wants to find common ground between the best of American semiotics and better-known European theories. Deledalle has done more than anyone else to introduce Peirce to European audiences, and now he sends Peirce home with some new flare." -- Nathan Houser, Director, Peirce Edition Project Charles S. Peirce's Philosophy of Signs examines Peirce's philosophy and semiotic thought from a European perspective, comparing the American's unique views with a wide variety of work by thinkers from the ancients to moderns. Parts I and II deal with the philosophical paradigms which are at the root of Peirce's new theory of signs, pragmatic and social. The main concepts analyzed are those of "sign" and "semiosis" and their respective trichotomies; formally in the case of "sign," in time in the case of semiosis. Part III is devoted to comparing Peirce's theory of semiotics as a form of logic to the work of other philosophers, including Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, Frege, Philodemus, Lady Welby, Saussure, Morris, Jakobson, and Marshall McLuhan. Part IV compares Peirce's "scientific metaphysics" with European metaphysics. Gérard Deledalle holds the Doctorate in Philosophy from the Sorbonne. A research scholar at Columbia University and Attaché at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, he has also been Professor of Philosophy and Head of the Philosophy Department of the universities of Tunis, Perpignan, and Libreville. In 1990 he received the Herbert W. Schneider Award "for distinguished contributions to the understanding and development of American philosophy. In 2001, he was appointed vice-president of the Charles S. Peirce Society. Contents Introduction -- Peirce Compared: Directions for Use Part I -- Semeiotic as Philosophy Peirce's New Philosophical Paradigms Peirce's Philosophy of Semeiotic Peirce's First Pragmatic Papers (1877-1878) The Postscriptum of 1893 Part II -- Semeiotic as Semiotics Sign: Semiosis and Representamen -- Semiosis and Time Sign: The Concept and Its Use -- Reading as Translation Part III -- Comparative Semiotics Semiotics and Logic: A Reply to Jerzy Pelc Semeiotic and Greek Logic: Peirce and Philodemus Semeiotic and Significs: Peirce and Lady Welby Semeiotic and Semiology: Peirce and Saussure Semeiotic and Semiotics: Peirce and Morris Semeiotic and Linguistics: Peirce and Jakobson Semeiotic and Communication: Peirce and McLuhan Semeiotic and Epistemology: Peirce, Frege, and Wittgenstein Part IV -- Comparative Metaphysics Gnoseology -- Perceiving and Knowing: Peirce, Wittgenstein, and Gestalttheorie Ontology -- Transcendentals "of" or "without" Being: Peirce versus Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas Cosmology -- Chaos and Chance within Order and Continuity: Peirce between Plato and Darwin Theology -- The Reality of God: Peirce's Triune God and the Church's Trinity Conclusion -- Peirce: A Lateral View

A collection of eleven essays on the moral philosophy of the American Polymath Charles S. Peirce (18391914). The essays cover the three normative sciences that Peirce distinguishes (esthetics, ethics, and logic), and their relation to metaphysics.

In this book, T. L. Short corrects widespread misconceptions of Peirce's theory of signs and demonstrates its relevance to contemporary analytic philosophy of language, mind and science. Peirce's theory of mind, naturalistic but nonreductive, bears on debates of Fodor and Millikan, among others. His theory of inquiry avoids foundationalism and subjectivism, while his account of reference anticipated views of Kripke and Putnam. Peirce's realism falls between 'internal' and 'metaphysical' realism and is more satisfactory than either. His pragmatism is not verificationism; rather, it identifies meaning with potential growth of knowledge. Short distinguishes Peirce's mature theory of signs from his better-known but paradoxical early theory. He develops the mature theory systematically on the basis of Peirce's phenomenological categories and concept of final causation. The latter is distinguished from recent and similar views, such as Brandon's, and is shown to be grounded in forms of explanation adopted in modern science.

Charles Peirce, the founder of pragmatism, was a thinker of extraordinary depth and range - he wrote on philosophy, mathematics, psychology, physics, logic, phenomenology, semiotics, religion and ethics - but his writings are difficult and fragmentary. This book provides a clear and comprehensive explanation of Peirce's thought. His philosophy is presented as a systematic response to 'nominalism', the philosophy which he most despised and which he regarded as the underpinning of the dominant philosophical worldview of his time. The book explains Peirce's challenge to nominalism as a theory of meaning and shows its implications for his views of knowledge, truth, the nature of reality, and ethics. It will be essential reading both for Peirce scholars and for those new to his work.

Physicist, mathematician, and logician Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914) was America's first internationally recognized philosopher, the man who created the concept of "pragmatism," later popularized by William James. Charles S. Peirce: The Essential Writings is a comprehensive collection of the philosopher's writings, including: "Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man" (1868), which outlines his theory of knowledge; a review of the works of George Berkeley; papers from between 1877 and 1905 developing the ground of pragmatism and Peirce's theory of scientific inquiry; his basic concept of metaphysics (1891-93); and the important 1902 articles in Baldwin's dictionary on his later pragmatism (or pragmaticism), uniformity, and synechism. Included are Peirce's well-known essays: "The Fixation of Belief" and "How to Make Our Ideas Clear." Book jacket.

"This definitive text is the single best work on Peirce's semeiotic (as Peirce would have spelled it) allowing scholars to extrapolate beyond Peirce or to apply him to new areas..." -- Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy Newsletter "... indispensable introduction to Peirce's semiotics." -- Teaching Philosophy "Both for students new to Peirce and for the advanced student, this is an excellent and unique reference book. It should be available in libraries at all... colleges and universities." -- Choice "The best and most balanced full account of Peirce's semiotic which contributes not only to semiotics but to philosophy. Liszka's book is the sourcebook for scholars in general." -- Nathan Houser Although 19th-century philosopher and scientist Charles Sanders Peirce was a prolific writer, he never published his work on signs in any organized fashion, making it difficult to grasp the scope of his thought. In this book, Liszka presents a systematic and comprehensive acount of Peirce's theory, including the role of semiotic in the system of sciences, with a detailed analysis of its three main branches -- grammar, critical logic, and universal rhetoric.

" . . . a first-rate edition, which supersedes all other portable Peirces. . . . all the Peirce most people will ever need." —Louis Menand, The New York Review of Books "The Monist essays are included in the first volume of the compact and welcome Essential Peirce; they are by Peirce's standards quite accessible and splendid in their cosmic scope and assertiveness." —London Review of Books A convenient two-volume reader's edition makes accessible to students and scholars the most important philosophical papers of the brilliant American thinker Charles Sanders Peirce. This first volume presents twenty-five key texts from the first quarter century of his writing, with a clear introduction and informative headnotes. Volume 2 will highlight the development of Peirce's system of signs and his mature pragmatism.

A reprint of the Harvard University Press edition of 1961. Includes a new preface and a new appendix with footnotes keyed to the manuscript classifications by Max Fisch.