Bibliography

A Brief Intellectual Autobiography by Charles Sanders Peirce

…he divided all reasoning into, 1st, the deductive, including all necessary inference together with all probable inference to which the calculus of probabilities is properly applicable (rejecting inverse probabilities not founded on positive information), 2nd, the inductive, including all experimental testing of hypotheses (for he considers a physical experiment to be in a general sense of the same nature as a geometrical reasoning, which is performed by internal experimentation) but excluding, 3rd, the “abductive,” or the process of forming and accepting on probation, a hypothesis by which to explain surprising facts.

In phenomenology, [Peirce] is of opinion that there are two sets of categories, a long list and a short one; and he admits that there may possibly be still others. Though he devoted two years to the study of the long list, he attained no satisfactory results. The shorter list is called by [the] easily remembered designation of the cenopythagorean categories. These are Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness.

As to phenomenology, [Peirce] is of opinion that there are at least two sets of categories. After devoting two years to the study of one of these, which corresponds with Hegel’s categories, he became discouraged by the difficulty of attaining any satisfactory approach to certainty, and abandoned the subject. On the other hand, he has found another set, corresponding to Hegel’s three stages, more easy to investigate and extremely useful. He calls these the cenopythagorean categories. They are three in number, Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness.

…philosophical esthetics (which becomes something very different from the study which the noun usually designates)[,] studies the characters which will belong to the phenomenon so far as it is controllable, that is, the characters of what is aimed at. Thus, the question, What is the summum bonum, is regarded as an esthetical question.

Ethics studies in the controllable phenomenon the act and process of controlling it. This study is the very heart of normative science, and emphasizes more strongly than the others that dichotomy which is the constitutive characteristic of normative science. For it is the study of the controlled and the uncontrolled as they appear in effort and resistance. This abstract ethics which can derive no principle from metaphysics or from psychology can plainly have little in common with ordinary ethics.

Firstness is the mode or element of being by which any subject is such as it is, positively and regardless of everything else; or rather, the category is not bound down to this particular conception but is the element which is characteristic and peculiar in this definition and is a prominent ingredient in the ideas of quality, qualitativeness, absoluteness, originality, variety, chance, possibility, form, essence, feeling, etc.

…Firstness, or the mode of being of that which is such as regardless of anything else, as exemplified by simple Qualities of feeling…

Idioscopy is occupied with the discovery and examination of phenomena, aided by mathematics and philosophy. It is extremely doubtful which of its two wings should be placed first.

Logic […] studies the relation of the phenomenon to the essential character of the phenomenon as controllable, that is, its reasonableness, or embodying an idea. That which embodies an idea is a sign, and it is best to make logic the science of the general properties of signs.

[Peirce] regards logic as the science of signs in general.

Mathematics merely traces out the consequences of hypotheses without caring whether they correspond to anything real or not. It is purely deductive, and all necessary inference is mathematics, pure or applied. Its hypotheses are suggested by any of the other sciences, but its assumption of them is not a scientific act.

…the principle he called pragmatism, that is, that every concept (in contrast to qualities of feeling, images, experiences, etc.) is definable in terms of a possible purpose of conduct under hypothetical general conditions, and that from this can be deduced the best rule for rendering ideas clear, namely, “Consider what effects that might conceivably have practical bearings we conceive the object of our conception to have: then, our concept of those effects is the whole concept in question.” But since P not only admits the difference between a commensurable and an incommensurable length, but has specially insisted upon abnumerable (abzählbar) multitudes […] it is evident that he understands “conceivably practical bearings” in a peculiarly wide sense.

Metaphysics is still more special [compared to normative science], only considering the phenomenon in so far as it is a sign of what is real. [—] [U]nder the head of metaphysics will be included, not merely ontology, but also whatever philosophy can determine respecting causation, the freedom of the will, the connection of mind and matter, optimism or pessimism, immortality, theology, time and space, etc.

Normative science considers the phenomenon only so far as it can be controlled, compares purpose with performance, and ascertains the general principles of the relation between them.

Phenomenology considers the phenomenon in general, whatever comes before the mind in any way, and without caring whether it be fact or fiction, discovers and describes the elements which will invariably be present in it, that is, the categories.

Philosophy merely analyzes the experience common to all men. The truth of this experience is not an object of an science because it cannot really be doubted.

…the doctrine he called Pragmatism, namely, that every concept (as distinguished from a generalized sensation, such as ‘red’) is equivalent to a conditional purpose, should one have certain desires and certain types of experience, to act in a certain general way.

…the principle he called pragmatism, that is, that every concept (in contrast to qualities of feeling, images, experiences, etc.) is definable in terms of a possible purpose of conduct under hypothetical general conditions, and that from this can be deduced the best rule for rendering ideas clear, namely, “Consider what effects that might conceivably have practical bearings we conceive the object of our conception to have: then, our concept of those effects is the whole concept in question.”

…the principle […] called pragmatism, namely that an intellectual concept is nothing but a concept of a purpose that might be entertained under conceivable circumstances.

…the doctrine of Pragmatism […] according to which every concept proper (as distinguished from a feeling, image, or percept) is fully interpretable in terms of conceivable conduct…

…Peirce regards a proposition, by which he means the substance of a judgment considered as abstracted from the assent to it or dissent from it, a symbol which has a part by which it separately indicates its object while it also signifies this object in another way. The genus is the dicisign…

Secondness is that mode or element of being by which any subject is such as it is in a second subject regardless of any third; or rather, the category is the leading and characteristic element in this definition, which is prominent in the ideas of dyadic relativity or relation, action, effort, existence, individuality, opposition, negation, dependence, blind force. Secondness has two grades, the genuine and the degenerate (just as a pair of rays is called a “degenerate” conic) and this is true in several ways. Every genuine secondness has two correlative aspects, of which one is more active or first, the other more passive or second; and these two together make a total secondness between two correlative subjects.

Logic is by P. made synonymous with semeiotic, the pure theory of signs, in general.

A sign is anything, A, in a relation, r, to something, B, its object, this relation, r, consisting in fitness to determine something so as to produce something, C, the interpretant of the sign, which shall be in the relation r to B, or at least in some analogous relation. Thus, the sign involves the idea of a possible endless series of interpretations. In what relation this entire series, taken as a whole, stands to the object, B, depends upon circumstances.

Every sign is in a triadic relation to an object and to an interpretant, which is brought by the sign into a relation to the object similar to the sign’s relation to the same object. But it is necessary to distinguish between the object as it is represented by the sign and the object as it is in itself. It is also necessary to distinguish between 1st, the interpretant as it is intended to be determined by the sign, 2nd, the interpretant as it is related to the object, and 3rd, the interpretant as it is irrespective of the peculiarities of the sign and the object.

…speculative grammar, corresponding to stecheology (Elementarlehre), classifies and describes signs.

…Synechism, or the principle of universal continuity, which does not mean that there is no discontinuity, which is involved in all existence.

Thirdness is that mode or element of being whereby a subject is such as it is to a second and for a third; or rather, it is the characteristic ingredient of this definition, which is prominent in the ideas of instrument, organon, method, means, mediation, betweenness, representation, communication, community, composition, generality, regularity, continuity, totality, system, understanding, cognition, abstraction, etc. [—] Thirdness is subject to two grades of degeneracy. All genuine thirdness has a mental character.

In 1891-3, in the ‘Monist’ […], he outlined a hypothesis capable of being Subjected to inductive tests, which hypothesis, called tychism, was that the laws of nature, although real. are results of a process of evolution, and as such are not yet and never will be exactly fulfilled by the facts, which depart from the laws in the same way, although vastly less than, observations do.