Peirce's Work Research Articles

Charles Sanders Peirce and Effective Altruism

Abstract: When confronted with moral dilemmas, Charles S. Peirce would recommend that we trust our sentiments, not our reasoning. A scientific exploration of ethics may affect our daily conduct but should only do so gradually. Some modern approaches take the opposite stance and deny the significance of moral sentiments. Considering both Peirce and his opponents, I aim to contribute to the discussion of a radical moral theory: effective altruism. Stating that we should strive to do the most objective good we can, effective altruism regularly conflicts with our moral sentiments. In response, effective altruists claim that our sentiments are misguided and should be overcome. Which side is right? Using Peirce's work to answer this question reveals that effective altruism cannot clearly define how it aims to affect our daily conduct. In addition, it seeks to change our sentiments, but may alter them for the worse. Taking Peirce's insights seriously leads us to conclude that we should be cautious of how we adopt effective altruism in our lives—and that while we deliberate this, we should instead trust our sentiments.

Peirce and Archaeology: Recent Approaches

The philosophy of Charles S. Peirce, and in particular his theory of signs (semiotic), has seen increasing interest within archaeological theory over the past 20 years. This article reviews Peirce's most influential ideas within archaeology, directs readers to where in Peirce's voluminous works they can find these ideas, and discusses how each of them has been applied by archaeologists to a variety of different research topics. In addition to the semiotic, these ideas include Peirce's metaphysical doctrine of synechism; his methodological pragmatism; abductive logic; and the phenomenological concepts of firstness, secondness, and thirdness. Finally, I discuss two research areas—materiality and paleolithic archaeology—in which a combination of Peirce's ideas has led to important new insights.

How unexpected observations lead to new beliefs: A Peircean pathway.

People acquire new beliefs in various ways. One of the most important of these is that new beliefs are acquired as a response to experiencing events that one did not expect. This involves a form of inference distinct from both deductive and inductive inference: abductive inference. The concept of abduction is due to the American pragmatist philosopher C. S. Peirce. Davies and Coltheart (in press) elucidated what Peirce meant by abduction, and identified two problems in his otherwise promising account requiring solution if that account were to become fully workable. Here we propose solutions to these problems and offer an explicit cognitive model of how people derive new beliefs from observations of unexpected events, based on Peirce's work and Sokolov's ideas about prediction error triggering new beliefs. We consider that this model casts light not only upon normal processes of belief formation but also upon the formation of delusional beliefs.

NASLJEĐE METAFIZIČKOG KLUBA: PRAGMATIZAM ČARLSA SANDERSA PERSA

Pragmatizam kao filozofski pravac obično je na marginama interesovanja u okviru evropske kontinentalne filozofije. Najćešće se interpretira uopšteno imajući u vidu glavno načelo o korisnosti i posljedicama ideja, te se označava kao antimetafizičko i pojednostavljeno razumijevanje filozofije. Osim toga, za neke predstavnike, s obzirom na širinu njihovog obrazovanja i zanimanja, glavni naučni doprinos se vezuje za druge oblasti. Kod Vilijama Džejmsa to je psihologija, a kod Džona Djuija – pedagogija. U potpunosti na marginama ostaje djelo Čarlsa Sandersa Persa. Cilj ovog teksta je da pokaže da su razlozi zanemarivanja Persovog rada dobrim dijelom uslovljeni i kontekstom u kome nastaje njegova filozofija. Zato je neophodno fokus staviti na sljedeće teme: razvoj američke filozofije i nastanak pragmatizma, ključna određenja pragmatizma u Persovim spisima, osnovne razlike između radikalnog empirizma, pragmaticizma i instrumentalizma.

Critique of zeroness: understanding Deleuze’s (mis)understanding of Peirce

This article aims to explore the relation between Deleuze and Peirce, from what seems to be the main point of confrontation between them: Deleuze's statement that there would be a zeroness before Peirce's firstness. Specifically, the aim is to criticize this statement in two ways: an exogenous one, based on the critique of Deleuze's understanding of Peirce's work; another endogenous, based on Deleuze's own concepts and comments. The hypothesis is that there is no a deep conceptual divergence. The key to understand this statement lies in how Deleuze’s limited knowledge on Peirce's theory led him to frame firstness into his own philosophical work and to disregard a Peircian concept that would be more adequate than zeroness.

Probability, risk, and pragmatism: an outlook on Peirce's insurance firm model

C. S. Peirce used to discuss the validity of synthetic inferences by comparison with the way that insurance companies predict the extent of their risks collectively, even though they cannot predict particular losses. This topic appears in at least three essays from different periods of Peirce's works, indicating that it involves an important issue during the development of pragmatism. By the way, it is important to note that Peirce’s view on this matter was gradually improved over the course of those works: initially, it is practically only mentioned, later it takes the form of a full argument, and finally it was presented as a mathematical model whose discussion is quite complex. I begin with Peirce’s puzzling assertion that “each of us is an insurance company”, trying to explain how his frequentist conception of probability implies the famous statement that logic is rooted in the social principle. Next, I intend to show how such an issue sheds light on the reformulation of the maxim of pragmatism, which was initially based on psychological considerations, but which became grounded in the field of logic. This shift may be better understood as one considers the relation between the validity of synthetic inferences and securitization procedures. I conclude that some obscurities of the first Harvard lecture of 1903 derived from Peirce´s expertise on a subject matter whose discussion was still incipient at his time.

“My Inordinate Reluctance to Repeat a Word.” A Lexicometric Report on Peirce's Collected Papers

In this report, we present the results of two lexicometric analyses performed on a digitalized version of Charles S. Peirce's Collected Papers. We calculated the most frequently cited terms in the corpus and its most overrepresented terms, as compared with a sample of the Corpus of Historical American. Combining both analyses allowed us to produce a shorter list of the "most important terms" of the Collected Papers, deemed to be distinctive of Peirce's philosophical interests. One of the most significant findings is the quantitative evidence that Peirce's work is primarily concerned with truth and propositions. We suggest that such statistical analyses offer an interesting overview of Peirce's philosophical interests in an unprecedented way.

El efecto Peirce. Sugestiones para una teoría de la comunicación

From a personal reading of Peirce's work, especially his semiotics, the author has chosen some ideas that can be developed in the context of a Communication Theory. Particularly he proposes semiosis to be considered as social circulation of meaning. Discussion about object and feelings in the field of communication studies is also introduced. Finally, the connection of Peirce's theories with others that equally adopt the interpretative perspective, such as hermeneutics, deconstruction and discourse analysis, is pointed out.

Expediting Inquiry: Peirce's Social Economy of Research

Haack begins with an exposition of Peirce's work on what he calls "the economy of research" (§1); then locates this work on the much larger map of his ideas about the factors that advance inquiry, and those that impede or block it (§2); suggests how all this relates to his ideas about the intergenerational community of inquirers (§3); and finally turns to the relevance of these ideas to the state of universities today (§4). Quoting Peirce's observation that his account of the economy of research "rests on the supposition that the object of investigation is the ascertainment of truth," but that "when an investigation is made [instead] for the purpose of attaining personal distinction, the economics of the problem are entirely different," Haack argues that this helps us understand why the present incentive structure of universities—which discourages serious intellectual work and encourages self-promotion—is so perverse.

The J-PAL's experimental approach in development economics: an epistemological turn?

The rise of experimental economics has changed the research agenda of economic science. Today economics is undergoing an turn, which entails an epistemological change in economics. The fact that contemporary economists consider tools as more reliable than theoretical ones reflects this turn. Based on the observation that works tend to take over most of the research activity of the discipline, authors like Joshua D. Angrist and Jon-Steffen Pischke have described this tendency as an empirical revolution. This revolution privileges questions that can be answered using an experimental approach, while relegating other questions to secondary place. The rise of randomization in development economics offers the perfect illustration of this tendency. Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo institutionalized the use of randomized experiments in development economics. Together with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), they created in 2003 the 'Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab' (J-PAL) with the aim of conducting experimental work that would give scientific insight to our understanding of poverty. These kinds of experiments, that randomly assign subjects to two groups, remove many statistical biases and produce results with strong internal validity, which has led some economists to consider such methodology as gold standard for research.The aim of my doctoral dissertation is to conduct an epistemological analysis of the J-PAL's approach within development economics from two dimensions: methodological and theoretical. The methodological dimension examines the randomization method promoted by J-PAL's researchers; two main interrogations guide this analysis: (1) the gold-standard character of randomization, and (2) the possible transposition of J-PAL's results in the political sphere. The theoretical dimension of the thesis investigates J-PAL's contributions to the theoretical debates of development economics during this last decade. Focusing on these two dimensions allows me examine the J-PAL's approach as whole and establish the extent to which it has led to a turn in economics. Thus, my thesis shows that the J-PAL's randomized experiments do not help producing precise (clear) policy recommendations aiming at the eradication of poverty. In fact, the focus on the internal validity of the experiments jeopardizes their external validity. Hence, I show that the two J-PAL's objectives, to produce evidence and guide decision makers, are antagonistic.The first part of my thesis seeks to define the method of randomization by focusing on one specific aspect: that of internal validity. For that reason, I redraw the history of randomization. I show that Charles Sanders Peirce first used this method in para-psychology to thwart Fechner's law. This method was widely used, after Peirce's work, to test the existence of telepathy. The statistician Ronald Fisher was the first to define precisely the experimental protocol of randomization. At first, Fisher designed this protocol for agriculture, but the method turned out to be most successful in medicine through clinical trials. The J-PAL's randomization borrows from medicine its experimental design. Furthermore, the J-PAL borrows another key dimension from another discipline, political science, where experiments are used to evaluate large-scale public policies. It is this dimension (policy evaluation) that the J-PAL borrows from political science. These two disciplinary borrowings define the J-PAL's approach and its objectives: (1) producing evidence through well-defined experimental design in order to (2) assess development policies. This first part of my thesis expresses the twofold J-PAL's objectives through the history of randomization and around the notion of internal validity.The second part of my thesis further analyzes the method of randomization, but focuses on the notion of external validity, which turns out to be weak with respect to the randomization method. …

On Cheryl Misak’s Modest Pragmatism

1. IntroductionDisagreement about meaning of pragmatism has characterised it from its earliest years. Peirce hoped that his work would aid natural sciences by clarifying concepts scientists use in course of their investigations. In contrast, James focused on role pragmatism might play in all areas of human life, seeing it in particular as a way of reconciling science with religious belief. James was excited by what he saw as radical potential of his philosophy, going so far as to express hope that pragmatism might become a movement with consequences comparable in signifycance to those of Protestant Reformation.1 For his part, Peirce was sceptical of radical aspirations of some pragmatists, and regarded versions such as that of James to have fallen away from sober insights of his own position.In 1908, Arthur Lovejoy was able to discriminate thirteen versions of pragmatism, and a century later its diversity appears considerably greater.2 In light of number of philosophers who either identify as pragmatists or have been associated with pragmatism, it is natural that attempts have been made to take account of this diversity. These attempts often follow Peirce by contrasting his formulations of pragmatism with apparent deficiencies of Jamesian and Deweyan varieties.3 This is approach adopted by Cheryl Misak. Misak draws on elements in Peirce's work in order to develop what she describes as a desirably form of pragmatism.4 This she sets against problems of Jurgen Habermas' Kantian pragmatism on one hand, and of what she thinks radicalism of writers such as Richard Rorty on other.5 She claims that pragmatists should have no truck with aspiration to justify beliefs and practices by means of transcendental argument, yet at same time thinks that we might draw upon resources present within our social practices in order to move beyond kind of ethnocentrism proposed by Rorty. Specifically, these practices are said to provide for a substantive account of truth. Misak rejects transcendental and metaphysical theories of truth but also argues that if we inspect our practices, we nevertheless find robust standards of truth and objectivity operating there. As she remarks, trail of human serpent is over everything (to use James' phrase), but (as James himself may or may not have seen) this does not toss us into a sea of arbitrariness, where there is no truth or where truth varies from person to person or culture to culture.6I argue that Misak is unsuccessful in identifying a position which is modest in sense she claims. I begin by examining her most important contribution to pragmatism, her reworking of Peirce's account of truth into an understanding of truth as indefeasibility. Contrary to what Misak claims, I argue that idea of indefeasibility does not take us further than general pragmatist commitment to fallibilism and open-mindedness. I then suggest that Misak's occasionally expressed willingness to side with Rorty's wholehearted acceptance of contingency is correct insight to take from pragmatism, and that it should not be thought threatening once it is seen that apparent dangers of radical pragmatism are not in fact present.2. Misak's account of truth as indefeasibilityIn The American Pragmatists and other important work, Misak takes pragmatists to be in broad agreement in giving up on many of assumptions of modern philosophy. Pragmatists accept that there is no bedrock upon which to anchor belief; they set aside the idea that we might find a foundation for our principles of right belief and of right action in some infallible source - from God, from some special faculty of intuition, or from what is given to us with certainty by experience. Once this step is taken, however, a danger threatens, which is that the source for, and status of, our judgements, theories, and principles is altogether human and therefore arbitrary. …

Fotografia documental e início do fotojornalismo

A question of the realism on photography from new theorie reflexions as Philippe Dubois, that based on Peirce's work about signs (icon, index and simbol), shows the index character of the photo, before know it as a icon or simbol. The Documentary Photography, intense discussed at 20's on America by the photographers from Farm Security Administration (FSA), that produced the "Author's Photography" and the influence of it on the early Photojomalism around the work, all these themes are part of this work.

Handbook of the History of Logic, volume 3: The Rise of Modern Logic from Leibniz to Frege By Dov M. Gabbay and John Woods (Eds.)

Reviewed by: Handbook of the History of Logic, volume 3: The Rise of Modern Logic from Leibniz to Frege Irving H. Anellis Dov M. Gabbay and John Woods (Editors). Handbook of the History of Logic, volume 3: The Rise of Modern Logic from Leibniz to Frege. Amsterdam, etc.: Elsevier, 2004. 750pp. plus index. The Handbook of the History of Logic, under the general editorship of Dov Gabbay and John Woods, is intended as an extensive and encyclopedic survey of the entire history of logic from earliest times to the present. Every contribution to the Handbook is written by a specialist in a particular era or topic, and most of the articles run well over fifty pages, in many cases twice that much. Because of the range of inclusion and the diversity of contributors, the styles vary greatly from essay to essay. So also does the perspective from which the contributors work. Thus, some essays are largely philosophical, others are mathematically technical, ranging from exposition to critical analysis to rational reconstruction, and even to unadulterated speculation. (For example, in an earlier volume, covering ancient Greek, Indian, and Buddhist logics, there is an effort to rewrite Buddhist logic in Aristotelian terms.) This kind of diversity does not necessarily depend upon the specialized topic or upon the logician whose work is being considered, but rather upon the interests and focus of the authors of the essays. Additionally, the editors have allowed "logic" to be defined quite broadly, to include what many would doubtlessly consider more properly to be philosophical logic, or even philosophy of logic; and while there is little, in the volumes published thus far, to satisfy readers who would be interested in non-deductive logics—Hilpinen alone gives any attention to abduction or induction, and only in a most cursory manner—nonclassical deductive logics are represented, both within the context of specific logicians and chronological frameworks, or in [End Page 456] distinct volumes of the series devoted specifically to the history of non-classical logics. This expansive definition of logic coincides in many respects with Peirce's own, which takes within its compass the methodology of the sciences and critical thinking, and includes abduction and induction along with deduction. There are three essays in the volume under review that impinge to a significant extent upon the work in logic of Charles Peirce, each by well-known contributors. They are: • Theodore Hailperin, "Algebraical Logic 1685–1900," pp. 323–88; • Victor Sánchez Valencia, "The Algebra of Logic," pp. 389–544; • Risto Hilpinen, "Peirce's Logic," 611–58. The first two essays include significant discussions of Peirce's work in logic against the broader historical context in which that work was carried out. The third essay is not a complete account of Peirce's work in logic, but carefully avoids duplicating those aspects of the Peircean corpus that have been discussed by the other two authors. Thus it is absolutely essential to work through all three essays in order to gain a comprehensive overview of the full extent of Peirce's work in deductive logic. There is a wealth of technical detail in the surveys of Hailperin, Sánchez Valencia, and Hilpinen, and much of their treatment may be daunting for readers without a solid background in algebraic logic. The incorporation of criticisms along with exposition makes the task the more difficult for those not already acquainted with the technical aspects of the work being discussed. Because many of the readers of this review will not necessarily be either historians of logic or trained as logicians, as well as constraints imposed by limitation of space in this journal as compared with the length of the contributions being reviewed, I will provide merely a sketch of a survey of the scope of the contents of the contributions and a general overview of the character of the essays. Hailperin (p. 323) defines "algebraic logic" as "a style of doing logic, a style in which concepts and relations are expressed by mathematical symbols." He provides a general survey of the evolution of algebraic logic, beginning with Leibniz and ending with Whitehead's Treatise. The most prominent figures in his account are Leibniz, De Morgan, Boole, and...

THE CONSEQUENCES OF METAPHYSICS: OR, CAN CHARLES PEIRCE'S CONTINUITY THEORY MODEL STUART KAUFFMAN'S BIOLOGY?

Abstract.At the heart of the most radical proposals in Stuart Kauffman's Investigations is his attempt to show that we find in evolutionary biology some configuration spaces—the sets of possible developments for any given system—that (unlike those in traditional physics of Newtonian, relativistic, and quantum stripes) cannot be completely described in advance. We bring Charles Peirce's work on the philosophy of continuity to bear on the problem and discover, first, that Kauffman's arguments do not succeed; second, that Peirce's metaphysics provide new and sounder arguments for the same propositions; third, that Peirce's rigorous but nonstandard treatment of mathematical continuity shows great promise for modeling the unpredictability and growth we find in evolutionary biology; fourth, that it also strengthens a development only hinted at by biologists thus far—the inevitable involvement of the observer's mind in constituting the objects of science. We close with a logical argument for the surprising relevance of metaphysical hypotheses in the natural sciences and with suggestions for future work that will connect these questions to what Kauffman terms the “narrative stance” in biology.

Semiosis as an educational instrument: The irrelevance of mediation and the relevance of social capital

This paper explores semiosis as an instrument to be used in the classroom in the development of democratic education and a democratic society. In doing so we show the important links between Peirce's later semiotic theory and Dewey's theory of education. The argument is made that later Peirce's works on semiotics should be understood within its Pragmatic context. Semiotics' major contribution to the human condition is as a process and not as a definition. Therefore, even though Peirce wrote far less about the more process-oriented semiosis, this is the aspect of Peirce's theory that is most complementary to Dewey, especially his concept of inquiry, and has the most to offer education. What should be emphasized most are the democratic processes leading to meaningful object-sign-interpretant relationships - active inquiry engendering solutions to relevant community problems. We see two important aspects in using semiosis as a progressive instrument in the classroom. The first is the need to dispense with a concept of mediation that can be isolated from the process of semiosis as a whole. Considering mediation as an isolated phenomenon serves no useful purpose and might actually be deleterious to the community as a whole. The second aspect, dependent on the first, is the recognition that social capital plays in the process of semiosis. Trust between participants is the key ingredient in communication.

Belief, Doubt and Reason: C. S. Peirce on education

In this paper, we explore Peirce's work for insights into a theory of learning and cognition for education. Our focus for this exploration is Peirce's paper The Fixation of Belief (FOB), originally published in 1877 in Popular Science Monthly. We begin by examining Peirce's assertion that the study of logic is essential for understanding thought and reasoning. We explicate Peirce's view of the nature of reasoning itself—the characteristic guiding principles or ‘habits of mind’ that underlie acts of inference, the dimensions of and interaction between doubt and belief, and his four methods of resolving or ‘fixing’ belief (i.e., tenacity, authority, a priori, and experimentation). The four methods are then juxtaposed against current models of teaching and learning such as constructivism, schema theory, situated cognition, and inquiry learning. Finally, we discuss Peirce's modes of inference as they relate educationally to the resolution of doubt and beliefs and offer an example of belief resolution from an experienced teacher in a professional development environment.

Dewey, Peirce, and the Learning Paradox

This article deals with a problem that has vexed educators and learning theorists for years—the so-called learning paradox. Attempts to explain how it is that new and better knowledge is fashioned out of prior, less complex knowledge typically rely on processes of deduction or induction or, as a third alternative, equate the generation of new knowledge with the development of new moves in the language game. A fourth promising solution to the learning paradox is advanced in this article. In this approach, based on Dewey and Peirce's work, ideas as opposed to schemas or postmodernist discourse are viewed as the real carriers of meaning. Ideas are thought to be generated through a metaphoric process known as abduction. Abduction offers the best chance of coming to terms with the learning paradox.

Dewey, Peirce, and the Learning Paradox

This article deals with a problem that has vexed educators and learning theorists for years—the so-called learning paradox. Attempts to explain how it is that new and better knowledge is fashioned out of prior, less complex knowledge typically rely on processes of deduction or induction or, as a third alternative, equate the generation of new knowledge with the development of new moves in the language game. A fourth promising solution to the learning paradox is advanced in this article. In this approach, based on Dewey and Peirce's work, ideas as opposed to schemas or postmodernist discourse are viewed as the real carriers of meaning. Ideas are thought to be generated through a metaphoric process known as abduction. Abduction offers the best chance of coming to terms with the learning paradox.

The Rule of reason: the philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), the founder of Pragmatism, was an American philosopher, logician, physicist, and mathematician. Since the publication of his collected papers in 1931, interest in Peirce has grown dramatically. His work has found audiences in such disciplines as philosophy, computer science, logic, film studies, semiotics, and literary criticism. While Peirce scholarship has advanced considerably since its earliest days, many controversies of interpretation persist, and several of the more obscure aspects of his work remain poorly understood. The Rule of Reason is a collection of original essays examining Peirce's thought by some of the best-known scholars in the field. The contributors investigate outstanding issues and difficulties in his philosophy and situate his views in both their historical and their contemporary contexts. Some of the essays clarify aspects of Peirce's philosophy, some defend its contemporary significance, and some do both. The essays explore Peirce's work from various perspectives, considering the philosophical significance of his contributions to logic; the foundations of his philosophical system; his metaphysics and cosmology; his theories of inquiry and truth; and his theories of mind, agency, and selfhood.

Peirce's evolutionary pragmatic idealism

In this paper I synthesize a unified system out of Peirce's life work, and name it “Peirce's Evolutionary Pragmatic Idealism”. Peirce developed this philosophy in four stages: (I) His 1868–69 theory that cognition is a continuous and infinite social semiotic process, in which Man is a sign. (II) His Popular Science Monthly pragmatism and frequency theory of probabilistic induction. (III) His 1891–93 cosmic evolutionism of Tychism, Synechism, and Agapism. (IV) Pragmaticism: The doctrine of real potentialities (“would-be's”), and Peirce's pragmatic program for developing concrete reasonableness.