Abstract

A comparative study of Charles S. Peirce’s and Ernst Cassirer’s triadic phenomenological theories of categories. Both Peirce and Cassirer developed, in a mature stage of their philosophical reflection, phenomenological theories on three fundamental categories: Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness are the names of Peirce’s categories,while Cassirer’s ‚basis phenomena‘ are denominated with the personal pronouns Ich, Du and Es. Prompted by John Michael Krois’s suggestion of an indirect similarity between the two phenomenological theories of categories, this essay aims to find a possible justification for this convergence, thereby reconstructing its metaphysical and epistemological grounding. The study is divided into four sections. In the first part, Peirce’s and Cassirer’s theories of knowledge are compared as expressions of a similar symbolic conception of thought. Secondly, I offer a parallel account of the reasons which led the two philosophers toward a more metaphysical grounding of their symbolic theories, focusing in particular on the relevance of the problem of life in both views. In the third section, I concentrate on the content of the two phenomenological theories and argue that they both represent an attempt to conciliate the tension between the transcendental premises of their symbolic theories of knowledge and the living character of experience. Finally, the reflections of Goethe and Schiller are presented as a possible source of Peirce’s and Cassirer’s triadic phenomenological theories.