Charles Sanders Peirce

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Charles Sanders Peirce (1839 – 1914)[1] was an American logician, mathematician, philosopher, and scientist. William James and other pragmatists credited Peirce as Pragmatism's founder. Peirce eventually distinguished his own version as "Pragmaticism". He held that a conception's meaning is general and does not boil down to its actual consequences (or "cash value") but consists in the conceived object's conceivable practical consequences. He disagreed with other Pragmatists over what he called their "angry hatred of strict logic" and their views that, among other things, "truth is mutable" and "infinity is unreal".[2]. For a while he was a professor at the new graduate university, Johns Hopkins. There he taught logic to John Dewey. who became a leader of the liberal wing of pragmatism. Peirce himself was quite conservative when it came to social and economic issues.[3]

His erratic behavior meant that he was unable to obtain academic appointments. He and his second wife Juliette lived in a remote area near Milford, Pennsylvania. He was considered a Polymath for his broad knowledge.

Pragmatism

Pragmatism allows ideas to have any origin; what matters is not where we got an idea from but where we can go with it. In the case of science the usefulness of an idea includes reliability and fruitfulness. "Fruitfulness" does not mean practical utility but, rather, the opening up of original lines of successful research.As reliability is to truth, so fruitfulness is to depth and breadth of understanding. The test of truth and fruitfulness lies in the future. Truth, for the pragmatist, depends on our developing the implications of ideas so that we can find ways of applying them experimentally.[4]

Further reading

  • Brent, Joseph. Charles Sanders Peirce: A Life (1998) excerpt and text search
  • Houser, Nathan. "Charles S. Peirce", the Peirce Edition Project, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianopolis online edition.
  • Peirce Edition Project editors, "Chronology" (of Peirce's life), Indiana University-Purdue University Indianopolis, online edition.
  • Short, Thomas. "The Conservative Pragmatism of Charles Peirce," Modern Age Volume 43, Number 4; Fall 2001 online edition pdf. Non-pdf online edition at First Principles.

Primary sources


Notes

  1. ↑ pronounced "purse"
  2. ↑ Peirce, C.S. (1908), "A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God", Hibbert Journal vol. 7, pp. 90-112. Reprinted in Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce vol. 6, paragraphs 452-485 and The Essential Peirce vol. 2, pp.434-450.
  3. ↑ See Short (2001)
  4. ↑ See Short (2001)
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