Christopher Hookway presents a series of essays on the work of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1913), the 'founder of pragmatism' and one of the most important and original American philosophers.

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Christopher Hookway presents a series of studies of themes from the work of the great American philosopher and pragmatist, Charles S. Peirce (1839-1913). These themes center on the question of how we are to investigate the world rationally. Hookway shows how Peirce's ideas about this continue to play an important role in contemporary philosophy.

Comments on G. Maddalena and G. Tuzet, editors, I Pragmatisti Italiani. Tra Alleati e Nemeci (Italian Pragmatists. Between Enemies and Allies). Milano: Albo Versorio, 2007.

Each volume in the Purdue University Press Series in the History of Philosophy examines the fundamental ideas of a single philosopher, presenting one basic text by the thinker in question, and supplementing this by “a very thorough and up-to-date commentary.” The format is most successful when a reasonably short classic work containing the subject’s most important claims can be found. We might expect it to work much less well with a thinker like Peirce, serious study of whose work cannot (...) avoid taking seriously a large number of different papers and lectures: good reasons can be found for regarding any selection of a basic text unsatisfactory. It is thus a pleasure to report that Douglas Anderson met this challenge with considerable success. The commentary is of very high quality; and his choice of texts, although initially surprising, works very well. (shrink)

After describing some of the ways in which pragmatist philosophers have employed different views about how to do philosophy, this paper explains how their different philosophical goals determine how they actually do philosoophy. We explain and discuss two aspects of Peirce’s work that are relevant to the ways in which he does philosophy: his remarks about the use of “literary prose” in philosophy and his valuable discussion of the “ethics of notation.” This is grounded in view of how philosophical (...) writing should be carried out. We then discuss Peirce’s reasons for revising the model of representation that he adopted: he began by formulating philosophical issues about representation in terms of belief, but changed to give a central role to, first, judgment and, then, assertion. The paper concludes by discussing how these developments affected the development of his pragmatism. (shrink)

After describing some of the ways in which pragmatist philosophers have employed different views about how to do philosophy, this paper explains how their different philosophical goals determine how they actually do philosoophy. We explain and discuss two aspects of Peirce’s work that are relevant to the ways in which he does philosophy: his remarks about the use of “literary prose” in philosophy and his valuable discussion of the “ethics of notation.” This is grounded in view of how philosophical (...) writing should be carried out. We then discuss Peirce’s reasons for revising the model of representation that he adopted: he began by formulating philosophical issues about representation in terms of belief, but changed to give a central role to, first, judgment and, then, assertion. The paper concludes by discussing how these developments affected the development of his pragmatism. (shrink)

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

When the history of American philosophy in the nineteenth century can be written in great detail than hitherto, the important place of Charles S. Peirce as a pathfinder in every one of the many fields that his work touched will have to receive fuller recognition than has as yet been accorded to it. This quotation is from “Charles Peirce’s Pragmatism,” a paper by John Henry Muirhead that was published in The Philosophical Review in 1930s. It is evidence that (...) the value of Peirce’s work was reco... (shrink)

: T.L. Short's book argues that Peirce's early theory of signs was flawed, and that the development of his mature theories required a new start and the rejection of some fundamental doctrines from the earlier view. While agreeing that Peirce's view of signs changed and agreeing on the new developments that were of most significance, I express some doubts about Short's diagnosis of why such changes were required. I argue that the changes were required, not by internal inconsistencies (...) in the earlier position, but rather by the need to come up with an adequate account of the role of experience in cognition. (shrink)

My initial education in philosophy was in Oxford and in the philosophy of ‘ordinary language’ and the philosophy of language. My heroes were Wittgenstein and H.P Grice. I was intrigued by showing how metaphysical or ontological theories could be disposed of as lacking meaning. While I was studying for an M.A. at the University of East Anglia, I was taught by Martin Hollis who led me to read C.I. Lewis’s Mind and The World Order. The book was a challenge and (...) I doubt that I understood all of it. The footnotes to that book took me to Peirce’s writings and later to spending a year at Harvard writing a book on his work. His writings and using him as a teacher in how we should do philosophy have occupied most of my... (shrink)

Each volume in the Purdue University Press Series in the History of Philosophy examines the fundamental ideas of a single philosopher, presenting one basic text by the thinker in question, and supplementing this by “a very thorough and up-to-date commentary.” The format is most successful when a reasonably short classic work containing the subject’s most important claims can be found. We might expect it to work much less well with a thinker like Peirce, serious study of whose work cannot (...) avoid taking seriously a large number of different papers and lectures: good reasons can be found for regarding any selection of a basic text unsatisfactory. It is thus a pleasure to report that Douglas Anderson met this challenge with considerable success. The commentary is of very high quality; and his choice of texts, although initially surprising, works very well. (shrink)

Charles Sanders Peirce famously claimed that ‘The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate is what we mean by the truth’ (W3: 273). Christopher Hookway has argued for a highly distinctive interpretation of this claim in terms of speech-acts and the normative commitments we incur in performing them. So-construed, Peirce’s conception of truth is difficult to compare with standard theories of the concept, which tend to focus instead upon some property or (...) feature that is shared by all and only true propositions, and with whether or not that property is substantive or metaphysically significant. This paper examines Hookway’s interpretation of Peirce’s conception of truth in an effort to clarify its position in logical space. It then raises some difficulties for the way Hookway tries to accommodate Peirce’s remarks about the special status of assertion and belief in science. (shrink)