A critical sketch of Charles Sanders Peirce’s beliefs on the origin of the universe and its evolutionary development. Charles Sanders Peirce was a nineteenth-century American philosopher and logician known as the father of pragmatism. He devoted much attention to the subject of cosmology, or the origin and development of the universe, but he did not produce substantial work on the subject. In this text, Peter T. Turley collects and analyzes Peirce’s writings on what he called “physical metaphysics.” Peirce’s Cosmology offers a view of nature that may seem commonplace today, but in his time, it represented a break with traditional theories of philosophy and science. His trailblazing writings and Turley’s analysis are sure to be of interest to readers of many schools of thought.
Bertrand Russell famously quipped that he didn’t believe in God for the same reason that he didn’t believe in a teapot in orbit between the earth and Mars: it is a bizarre assertion for which no evidence can be provided. Is belief in God really like belief in Russell’s teapot? Kenneth L. Pearce argues that God is no teapot. God is a real answer to the deepest question of all: why is there something rather than nothing? Graham Oppy argues that we should believe that there are none but natural causal entities with none but natural causal properties—and hence should believe that there are no gods. Beginning from this basic disagreement, the authors proceed to discuss and debate a wide range of philosophical questions, including questions about explanation, necessity, rationality, religious experience, mathematical objects, the foundations of ethics, and the methodology of philosophy. Each author first presents his own side, and then they interact through two rounds of objections and replies. Pedagogical features include standard form arguments, section summaries, bolded key terms and principles, a glossary, and annotated reading lists. In the volume foreword, Helen De Cruz calls the debate "both edifying and a joy," and sums up what’s at stake: "Here you have two carefully formulated positive proposals for worldviews that explain all that is: classical theism, or naturalistic atheism. You can follow along with the authors and deliberate: which one do you find more plausible?" Though written with beginning students in mind, this debate will be of interest to philosophers at all levels and to anyone who values careful, rational thought about the nature of reality and our place in it.
"Sheriff's text moves the "guess" to a new level of understanding, while integrating much of Peirce's philosophy, and provokes many questions." -- Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy Newletter "The purpose of Sheriff's work is to expound Peirce's unified theory of the universe -- from cosmology to semiotic -- and to discuss its ramifications for how we should live. He concludes that Peirce has given us a theory we can live with. The book makes an important contribution to philosophy of life and to the humanities in general."Â -- Nathan Houser "In clear and concise prose, Sheriff describes Peirce's 'theory of everything,' a vision of cosmic and human meaning that offers a positive alternative to popular pessimistic and relativistic approaches to life and meaning." -- Peirce Project Newsletter
Volume 8 of this landmark edition follows Peirce from May 1890 through July 1892—a period of turmoil as his career unraveled at the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. The loss of his principal source of income meant the beginning of permanent penury and a lifelong struggle to find gainful employment. His key achievement during these years is his celebrated Monist metaphysical project, which consists of five classic articles on evolutionary cosmology. Also included are reviews and essays from The Nation in which Peirce critiques Paul Carus, William James, Auguste Comte, Cesare Lombroso, and Karl Pearson, and takes part in a famous dispute between Francis E. Abbot and Josiah Royce. Peirce's short philosophical essays, studies in non-Euclidean geometry and number theory, and his only known experiment in prose fiction complete his production during these years. Peirce's 1883-1909 contributions to the Century Dictionary form the content of volume 7 which is forthcoming.
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) is generally regarded as the founder of pragmatism, and one of the greatest ever American philosophers. Peirce is also widely known for his work on truth, his foundational work in mathematical logic, and an influential theory of signs, or semiotics. Albert Atkin introduces the full spectrum of Peirce’s thought for those coming to his work for the first time. The book begins with an overview of Peirce’s life and work, considering his early and long-standing interest in logic and science, and highlighting important views on the structure of philosophical thought. Atkin then explains Peirce’s accounts of pragmatism and truth examining important later developments to these theories. He then introduces Peirce’s full accounts of semiotics, examines his foundational work on formal and graphical logic, and introduces Peirce’s account of metaphysics, the least understood aspect of his philosophy. The final chapter considers Peirce’s legacy and influence on the thought of philosophers such as John Dewey and Richard Rorty, as well as highlighting areas where Peirce’s ideas could still provide important insights for contemporary philosophers. Including chapter summaries, suggestions for further reading and a glossary, this invaluable introduction and guide to Peirce’s philosophy is essential reading for those new to his work.
In The Continuity of Peirce's Thought, Kelly Parker shows how the principle of continuity functions in phenomenology and semeiotic, the two most novel and important of Peirce's philosophical sciences, which mediate between mathematics and metaphysics. Parker argues that Peirce's concept of continuity is the central organizing theme of the entire Peircean philosophical corpus. He explains how Peirce's unique conception of the mathematical continuum shapes the broad sweep of his thought, extending from mathematics to metaphysics and in religion. This new book should appeal to all who seek a fuller, unified understanding of the career and overarching contributions of Peirce, one of the key figures in the American philosophical tradition.
This work runs counter to the traditional interpretations of Peirce's philosophy by eliciting an inherent strand of pragmatic pluralism that is embedded in the very core of his thought and that weaves his various doctrines into a systematic pattern of pluralism. Rosenthal gives a new design to the seeming bedrock of Peirce's position: convergence toward the final ultimate opinion of the community of interpreters in the idealized long run. Focusing frequently on passages from Peirce's writings which have been virtually ignored in the more traditional interpretations of his work, this book shows the way in which Peirce's position, far from lying in opposition to the Kuhnian interpretation of science, provides strong and much needed metaphysical and epistemic underpinnings for it in a way which avoids the pitfalls of false alternatives offered by the philosophical tradition. The book examines in depth the various features of Peirce's position that enter into these underpinnings. Among the topics explored are meaning, truth, perception, world, sign relations, realism, categorical inquiry, phenomenology, temporality, and speculative metaphysics.
This volume discusses the importance of Peirce ́s philosophy and theory of signs to the development of Biosemiotics, the science that studies the deep interrelation between meaning and life. Peirce considered semeiotic as a general logic part of a complex architectonic philosophy that includes mathematics, phenomenology and a theory of reality. The authors are Peirce scholars, biologists, philosophers and semioticians united by an interdisciplinary endeavor to understand the mysteries of the origin of life and its related phenomena such as consciousness, perception, representation and communication.
In 2014, Peirce will have been dead for one hundred years. The book will celebrate this extraordinary, prolific thinker and the relevance of his idea for semiotics, communication, and cognitive studies. More importantly, however, it will provide a major statement of the current status of Peirce's work within semiotics. The volume will be a contribution to both semiotics and Peirce studies.
