Charles Sanders Peirce

Charles Sanders Peirce (September 10th 1839 - April 19th 1914) is a semiologist and American philosopher . He is regarded as the founder of the current pragmatist with William James and, with Ferdinand de Saussure, one of the two fathers of the Sémiologie (or Sémiotique) modern. These last decades, its thought was the object of an renewed interest. He from now on is regarded as an innovator in many fields, in particular in the methodology of research and the philosophy of sciences.

Biography

Charles Sanders Peirce was born with Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is the son of Sarah and Benjamin Peirce. His/her father is professor of astronomy and mathematics at the university of Harvard. Although the Peirce young person obtained his diploma in chemistry in Harvard, it never succeeds in obtaining an established academic position. The academic ambitions of Peirce were slowed down by its difficult personality (undoubtedly maniaco-depressive) and by the scandal which surrounded its divorce of with Harriet Melusina Fay, immediately followed by a marriage with Juliette Froissy. It made career as scientist for “United States Coast Survey” (1859-1891), working in particular on the topics of determinations pendular and the Géodésie. Of 1879 with 1884, he was also part-time lecturer in Logique, at the University Johns Hopkins. In 1887, Peirce moves with his second wife with Milford (in Pennsylvania) where he will die into 1914 of a Cancer after 26 years of prolific writing. It did not have any child.

Peirce published a book, Recherches photometric (1878) and directed a collection of studies, Études in logic (1883), as well as a great number of studies in newspapers covering various research fields. Its manuscripts, including one great part remained not published, constitute a whole of more than 80.000 pages. Of 1931 with 1958, a selection of its writings was ordered thématiquement and thématiquement published in eight volumes under the title Collected Papers off Charles Sanders Peirce . Since 1982, other volumes are published within the framework of a chronological edition which will undoubtedly reach thirty volumes (6 published volumes).

William James, which introduced the term in philosophy (Philosophical designs and practical results, 1898), allots to Charles Peirce the foundation Pragmatisme. Contrary to other more recent pragmatists like James and John Dewey, Peirce conceives originally pragmatism like a method for the clarification of Idée S being based on the use of scientific methods to solve philosophical problems. Pragmatism was regarded as an American philosophy. Peirce is also regarded as the father of the Sémiotique (i.e. the study of the signs) modern. Moreover, its work, which was often particularly innovating, is also valid and relevant in many other disciplines like the Astronomie, the Métrologie, the Géodésie, the Mathématiques (algebra of logic), the Philosophie, the theory and the history of sciences, the Linguistique, the econometrics and the Psychologie. Its work and its ideas on these topics became the subject of a new interest and strong praises. This revival is inspired not only by intelligent anticipations of Peirce on the recent scientific developments, but also, and especially, by its demonstrations on the way in which philosophy can be applied in an intelligent way to the human problems. Bertrand Russell and Karl Popper admired and rented Peirce, regarding it as one of the largest philosophers having ever existed.

In a certain way, Peirce was a systematic philosopher in the traditional direction of the mot. But its work was also interested in the modern problems of science, the truth and the knowledge, on the basis of its own experience as logician and experimental researcher working in collaboration with an international community of scientists and thinkers. Peirce made important contributions in the field of deductive logic, but was at the origin interested by logic in sciences, and in particular in what it called the Abduction (in opposition to Déduction and induction). Abduction is a process during which an assumption is generated such as surprising facts can be explained. “There has more familiar name for it than abduction” wrote Peirce, “for it is neither more NOR less than guessing” ( There is a more familiar name for that than abduction (…) it is neither more nor less than to guess ). Indeed, Peirce regarded abduction as the heart not only of any scientific research, but also of all the ordinary human activities. Its pragmatism can be included/understood like a method of sorting of conceptual confusions by drawing up a relationship between the direction of the concepts and their practical consequences. This theory thus does not have absolutely any resemblance to the vulgar concept of pragmatism which is associated for example with research without regards with profits.

Born in 1839, Charles S. Peirce is regarded today as an important philosopher. It was however not the case of alive sound, since it carried out a life of excluded and never post of teacher in a university obtained. Initially logician, of course philosophizes, but also chemist and geologist, Peirce is regarded as the founder of the Sémiotique (study of the communication by signs). He is the creator of philosophy pragmatist and an innovator recognized in logic where he invented the logic of the relations and the Quantification (independently of Frege). How can one then explain his social misfortune?

It should initially be said that Peirce is an early genius: conscious of its talent, it treats top his colleagues less gifted and carries out a life savagely independent which is hardly appropriate for the prudish morals of this time. Its passion for the wine (it will go to France to study enology), its sexual behavior libertine, his legendary sudden changes of mood, its paranoia (partly justified) and its nonorthodoxe religious beliefs make of him undesirable in the university universe of the 19th American century. In spite of the friendship and the indéfectible support of William James, and in spite of its immense talents, he survived with difficulty while working as laboratory assistant and technician the geodetic Service of the United States during 30 years; he was also lecturer to Harvard during 6 years (of 1879 to 1884) but never obtained the coveted station there, because of his moral reputation and of the great difficulty of his courses. He lived the 26 last years of his life in poverty, in reclu with his second wife, an eccentric Frenchwoman, laying out to survive on his farm of the North-East of the Pennsylvania, only of thin royalties for some articles and rare public conferences organized by James.

Its immense work (of the hundreds of thousands of manuscript pages) was little published of sound living and remained ignored a long time. It never succeeds in supplementing the synthesis of its philosophy which it wanted to write. He died in the almost general indifference with Milford, in 1914.

Work

Pragmatism

Let us enter the sharp one of the subject. The maxim pragmatist is formulated as follows: “To consider which are the practical effects which we think of being able to be produced by the object of our design. The design of all these effects is the complete design of the object” . (" How to return our ideas claires" , #15) the Pragmatisme is initially a Philosophie of the Signification. An unspecified design is defined by the whole of its practical effects. If two designs with the different names comprise the same practical effects, then they form only one and even design. On the other hand, if two designs share the same name, but imply different effects, we have two different designs.

A design rises from a Croyance. A belief is a mental practice which guides the action. It clarifies this position in its text “How the belief” sets.

If I believe that a thing is hard, I believe that in a certain arrangement of facts, this thing will behave of such and such manner. A design is a belief which indicates in connection with a certain object, which will be its behavior in all the possible circumstances. It is the same rule which applies to define abstract terms or metaphysics. All the significances are brought back to practical effects in such or such circumstances. He regards this maxim as an essential share of his philosophical methodology.

One clearly sees the influence of the scientific formation of Peirce on his philosophy. This last is always impresses spirit of laboratory. He refuses the Byzantine distinctions of the traditional Métaphysique and believes capacity to show that many philosophical problems are in fact of non-problems, by analyzing them in practical terms of consequences. One notices also the influence of the philosophers of the common Sens. Peirce names sometimes its philosophical position a “critical common direction”.

In addition, the maxim pragmatist can be used to define the truth of a proposal. For Peirce, the truth is a business of long-term convergence of the scientific research. The opinion which survives the tests and which joined the agreement of the community of the researchers after being largely discussed and being screened from criticism, this opinion can be regarded as true and real.

When William James popularizes his own philosophy pragmatist, for good to be distinguished Peirce from it will re-elect its design the “Pragmaticisme”.

Metaphysics

Peirce refuses, of course, the metaphysical “ontological” of the past, which claims to describe the world independently of any experiment and any empirical intelligence. It however preserves a place for a Métaphysique scientist, primarily descriptive and generalizing. This discipline makes it possible to describe the three aspects of any daily reality: its pure possibility (or primeity, firstness ); its effective realization (or secondeity, secondness ); and regulates it which controls it (or tierceity, thirdness ). Any existence is dual, because it implies action and reaction. But it presupposes its formal possibility: the primeity is thus inaccessible in itself, it can be seized only through what exists. However, the existence does not explain an object completely, because any object exists only according to one series to which it belongs: this watch exists only under the terms of the principle of the measurement of the duration, incarnated in all the watches. A law, a rule, an abstracted principle, a symbol, a general idea or, in short, a tierceity must always be considered when it is a question of describing or to explain what is an unspecified object.

Peirce defends also a Cosmologie évolutionnaire, generalizing the lesson of Darwin, where its realism appears compatible with some Idéalisme. In fact, for him, any process is the simultaneous result of a regulating thought and a matter. The matter represents the existence, but the thought of the “quasi-spirit” of the world represents the finality and the significance of the processes. Thus the universe is an immense continuum, where separations are only temporary abstractions. However the laws which govern the universe are not deterministic. The Hasard is real and is reflected in the use of the probabilities in science. The universe is an unspecified process, although governed by laws. The universe is évolutionnaire. It names this design, the Tychisme.

The semiotics or theory of the direction

Very thought is carried out using signs. A sign is a triad: a Représentamen (material sign) indicates a Objet (an object of thought) thanks to a Interpreting (a mental representation of the relation between the représentamen and the object). The représentamen is first (a pure possibility of meaning), the object is second (what exists and whose one speaks), but this process is carried out under the terms of one interpreting (a third which instigates the relation of significance). Interpreting is also a sign likely to be again interpreted, thus indefinitely. I speak to you about a dog. The word “dog” is the représentamen, the object is what is indicated by this word, and the interpreting first is the definition which we share of this word: the concept of dog. This first report/ratio, Peirce names it the base (ground) of the sign. But the semiotic process continuous, because starting from this sign it is possible that I mentally represent myself a certain dog, about which I speak to you then, giving birth to in your spirit from others interpreting and this until real exhaustion from the process of exchange (or of the thought, which is a dialog with oneself). To think and mean are thus the same process seen under two different angles. This process names the Sémiosis.

The signs are distinguished initially in qualisigne (the pure possibility of the sign), sinsigne (this sign) and légisigne (the law which governs the grammar of the sign). Then, in the plan of the significance there will be the icon (a sign by resemblance to the object), the Indice (a sign connected like a symptom to its object) and the symbol (a sign equipped with an abstract significance). Lastly, in the practical plan, there will be the Rhème (a name, a verb, an adjective), the dicisigne (a proposal verbal or visual, for example) and the Argument (a rule of inference). Very thought or significance thus leads to a Inférence, with a elementary Raisonnement.

Returning to the Logical theory , Peirce distinguishes the Abduction S (abduction: inference which leads to discovered of a plausible assumption), the inductions (induction: statistical reasoning) and the Deduction S (deduction: perfectly logical reasoning where true premises one draws an unquestionable conclusion). The three forms of the inference play a big role in the discovery and the scientific justification. It is by the inference that the symbol acquires its full force while leading to a judgment.

The stated S of the first type establish only the existence of a subject of Relation: “X” exists (primeity). The statements of the second type establish a relation in the two terms: “Claude loves Louis” (" x" maintains the relation “to like” with “there”; secondeity). But it is also necessary to consider the relations in the three terms, as in “Julie wine glass to Claudine” (" gives; x" maintains the relation “to give…” “Z” “to…” “there”; tierceity). Thus, Peirce reproaches it Kant for being stopped with the only categories and for having neglected the most important element of the thought: establishment of the judgment through the inférences.

This Formalisme makes it possible to think a multitude of phenomena of thought and significance, artistic expression with the demonstration of a theorem, analysis of a data-processing circuit to the daily communication, establishment of a medical diagnosis to the esthetic or ethical experiment. Its logical formalism is the guaranteeing one of its general information. The position of mediator of interpreting makes it possible to exceed the static and dualistic designs of empiricism, but the place of the object firmly anchors its concept in the practical experiment, the practice of thought and especially in the process of change of the beliefs, which are anything else only practices of thought.

The philosophy of Peirce finds its greater completion in its Sémiotique, because “the man is a sign” writes it at the end of his life. Insofar as there is no thought without sign, insofar as “the intelligence is a finalized action”, the semiotic theory makes it possible to answer the great question Kant ienne, or at least to indicate a direction for the answer to this question: “what the man? ” For Peirce, before much of others, the human being is an animal symbolic system. Its particular characteristic is the intelligence, i.e. the reflective action, where it makes work of itself in Meaning. By giving a direction to its life through various universes symbolic systems, the human being achieves and exceeds its form of subject while becoming creator and interprets his signs and signs which he discovers in the world. It can do that only insofar as it is congenitally a social and historical being. Because the thought as the significance are Community processes and not processes that the alleged thinker would only achieve “in his head”.

Logical work

Peirce contributed an important share to the advance of logic. The philosophers H. Putnam and Quine recognized this importance very often. One regards Peirce as one of the pioneers of the logic of the relations, with equality with Frege. One owes him also an original attempt at graphic logic, whose idea is related to its semiotic philosophy. Its base was to pose graphic rules which, even if they weighed down the construction of the graph, would facilitate on the other hand the inference. Its work was resumed by various logicians (Shin currently).

Influences and criticisms

One saw in Peirce a precursor of Karl Popper. It directly inspired works of William James and John Dewey. More close to us, his influence is outstanding on Quine and especially on Hilary Putnam. In semiotics, its influence is enormous, in particular on thinkers like Umberto Eco and John Deely. On the other hand, the relativistic pragmatist, Richard Rorty, reject his metaphysics and his Scientisme.

Peirce was recognized only well after its death. Its works have been easily accessible only for a few decades, and not entirely. Its sometimes obscure language, its many neologisms and its short cuts on various questions of logic make its thought difficult of access. The absence of integrating work and the dynamism of its step (of the nominalism of its youth to the Community realism of its maturity) return the comprehension of its very difficult thought. Only one very small portion of its writings was translated into French.

That which one sometimes calls the “American Aristote” because of his step Analytique and his encyclopedism, did not finish surprising us. Certain a long time ignored manuscripts now enable us to better include/understand its innovative philosophy, which will remain the first great contribution to the history of enracinée philosophy, in its letter and its spirit, on the American continent.

Sources

The original version of this article was written by Raymond Robert Tremblay and was published in Encéphi :

See too

Fixing of the belief according to Peirce
Law of Peirce
Henry Mr. Sheffer for his work on the formulation of Boolean logic with only one operator.

External bonds

Peirce Project Edition: site of the project of edition of complete works by a group of Indiana University. One finds in free access some new manuscripts there, as well as the catalog Robin, very useful.
Burch R., article “C.S. Peirce”, on Stanford Encyclopedia off Philosophy
Hammer E. Mr., article “Peirce' S logic” in Stanford Encyclopedia off Philosophy.
Shin S. - J. and Lemon O., article “Diagrams” of Stanford Encyclopedia off Philosophy

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