Thinking and acting. The logical background of Peirce's pragmatism

1996

This paper * has two separate aims, with obvious links between them. First, to present Charles S. Peirce and the pragmatist movement in a historical framework which stresses the close connections of pragmatism with the mainstream of philosophy; second, to deal with a particular controversial issue, that of the supposed logicistic orientation of Peirce's work.

Peirce saw the universe as an evolving generality. If the universe is observed to be an evolving generality, then semeiosis and thirdness (as part of this universe) are also evolutionary.

Semiotica, 1983

But first, what is its purpose? It is expected to bring to an end those prolonged disputes of philosophers which no observations of facts could settle, and yet in which each side Claims to prove that the other side is in the wrong. Pragmatism maintains that the disputants must be of cross-purposes. They either attach different meanings to words, or eise one side of the other (or both) uses a word without any definite meaning. What is wanted, therefore, is a method for ascertaining the real meaning of any concept, doctrine, proposition, word, or other sign. The object of a sign is one thing; its meaning is another. (5.6, 1905(7); cf. 5.33) This program in regard to the specific meaning of a specific kind of sign is to some extent similar to Kant's program in CPR (1787) with regard to truth, and to Wittgenstein's program in the Tractatus in regard to the meaning of linguistic expressions: to demarcate the explainable from the unexplainable and to give it a philosophical account. There is, however, quite a difference between the ways in which Peirce and Wittgenstein try to achieve their programs. Wittgenstein uses the 'analytical method' in order to eliminate all nonsense from the descriptive language; Peirce uses the 'experimental method', by which all 'successful sciences' have reached a degree of certainty (5.465), in order to develop and clarify further the meanings of all intellectual concepts (cf. 6.490, 6.481, 1908; and Wennerberg 1962: 132). 2 This 'experimental method' used by pragmatism is a double-edged sword, and has therefore two functions: (1) 'in the first place, to give us an expeditious riddance of all ideas essentially unclear', and (2) 'in the second place, ... to lend support, and help to render distinct, ideas essentially clear, but more or less difficult of apprehension; and in particular, it ought to take a satisfactory attitude toward the element of a thirdness'. These two functions are fulfilled by abduction and induction respectively (5.197). (On the notion of 'experimental' in Peirce's use cf. MS 283, 1905: ll;cf. 5.168). Now it may be asked, can this program's aim to eliminate all philosophical (and scientific) disputes be achieved at all? I do not believe that the purpose of this program is to solve or settle all philosophical

Signs, 2008

In order to gain the highest grade of clarity of his concepts, the polyhistor Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914) put forth a pragmatic maxim. We get a glimpse of a maxim which is to serve the self-controlled scientific drive for growth in the concrete reasonableness. It follows that the maxim is endowed with a special normative function; the maxim renders the meaning of clearly understood concepts as general normative rules of action, i.e. the meaning of a concept is directly assessed in the light of its contribution with which reactions it causes provides for the realization of the highest purpose of reasoning. These conditions always involve certain goals for action - goals which are founded on the general way in which actions contribute to the universal process of rationalization. Mankind can and should try to contribute to the aforesaid growth, and this e.g. by using the pragmatic maxim. But this requires that mankind relentlessly tries to cultivate not only his thinking and acting habits but also his habits of feeling in accordance with the highest purpose; these efforts of cultivation fall precisely within the three normative sciences: esthetics, ethics and logic. Key words: CSP, pragmaticism, the pragmatic maxim, summum bonum, the growth in the concrete reasonableness and the three normative sciences esthetics, ethics and logic.

Special Issue on Robert Brandom, 2015

This essay discusses two edges of the pragmatistic tradition in philosophy in its broad and strict versions. On the one hand the operationalist edge explains that the pragmatic maxim has a particular interpretation of the concept of " practical bearing ". On the other hand the inferentialist edge discloses the importance of our commitments to inferences derived from our inferential practices. Both aspects of pragmatism are explored in key representatives such as the founder Charles Peirce and the contemporary philosopher Robert Brandom. The author proposes a detailed study of the maxim as a strategy to find the right balance between the two aforementioned edges of pragmatism.

2016

Abstract: This paper argues that the tendency in contemporary discussion to overlook the logical roots of pragmatistic philosophy is a symptom of taking language as a universal medium of expression. My thesis is that the two presuppositions concerning the role of logic in pragmatism, universalism and its denial of calculism, delineate two kinds of pragmatisms, pragmatism and pragmaticism. I conclude that the latter, which was Peirce’s original formulation, is methodologically the more tolerant of the two and hence embraces pluralism over and above pragmatism.

2008

This paper argues that the tendency in contemporary discussion to neglect the logical roots of pragmatistic philosophy is a symptom of taking language as a universal medium of expression. My thesis is that the two presuppositions concerning the role of logic in pragmatism, universalism and its denial of calculism, delineate two kinds of pragmatisms, pragmatism and pragmaticism. I conclude that the latter, which was Peirce's original formulation, is methodologically the more tolerant of the two and hence embraces pluralism over and above pragmatism.

Inquiry has a central place in Charles Peirce’s pragmaticism, his philosophy in general, and his whole concept of science. For Peirce, philosophy is a special branch of theoretical science, and science in general ¬–its scientificity– is identified in its actions of inquiry, not in its results. Peirce’s whole semeiotic and his concept of sign was developed as a logic of scientific inquiry (independently on what other applications and purposes it may have). Pragmati(ci)sm was defined as a doctrine of this logic/semeiotic – Peirce’s maxim of pragmatism explicates a concept of meaning for ‘intellectual concepts’ that are the kind of signs in terms of which the hypotheses of scientific inquiries are formulated. Sciences that Peirce called theoretical have truth as their ultimate purpose of inquiry, as their ultimate criterion of success. Truth alone is nevertheless not enough, but truths sought should also increase our knowledge. During the course of inquiry, inquirer’s understanding about the phenomenon should grow, resulting eventually in a maximally informative conception, the full meaning of which would be clear. This is the motivation for the pragmatist concept of meaning, to make our ideas clear. In the maxim of pragmatism, the meaning of a conception is quite famously defined in terms of possible future events. From such a definition, it results that the origin of a conception has no relevance to its meaning and gives no guarantee for its applicability. The ‘foundation’ of a conception cannot justify it. In the light of this enlightenment, the full blown pragmatist may neglect the fact that the knowing the origin of the concepts is far from useless. The essential part of Peirce’s logic is the doctrine that we adopt cognitively all our concepts through perception. Without the awareness about the perceptual origin of the defined concept and the derivation of it from this origin, some hidden elements may become unconsciously smuggled in the structure of the concept. Without the proper exposition of the perceptual rootedness of our scientific ideas, they cannot become really clear to us.

This report is a summary of and commentary on (a) the seven lectures that C. S. Peirce presented in 1903 on pragmatism and (b) a commentary by P. A. Turrisi, both of which are included in Pragmatism as a Principle and Method of Right Thinking: The 1903 Harvard Lectures on Pragmatism, edited by Turrisi [13].