The article intends to show the significance of Ch. Peirce’s ideas for the development of contemporary philosophy, to find out the main directions of his criticism of the principles of Cartesian and more broadly modern philosophy (where it comes from Descartes) and to consider the positive program of his philosophy, which he offers as an alternative to Modern philosophy. Peirce starts from a pragmatic and semiotic approach to human nature, consciousness and cognition. Thanks to this approach, he managed to undermine (...) the key ideas of the modern understanding of cognition, human, language, namely: individualism, linguistic atomism, dogmatism, dualism, representationism, nominalism, foundationalism, etc. And, instead, to propose a new theory of knowledge, a new ontology and anthropology. Peirce asserts the indirectness of human cognition by signs (linguistic, cultural, sensory), the impossibility of introspection and intuition, advocates holism, fallibilism, pragmatism, realism, synechism, inferentialism and offers a new understanding of the personality — all this makes him a relevant and contemporary thinker. Peirce’s ideas offer a fresh perspective on modern scientific practice. Peirce’s rethinking of the foundations of knowledge puts him alongside many thinkers of the 20th and 21st centuries. The development of his ideas can be seen in modern anthropology, epistemology, research on artificial intelligence, semiotics, etc. The article is divided into four subsections, which are devoted to the main directions of Peirce’s criticism of Descartes’ philosophy: in the first — against Descartes’ skeptical methodology, Peirce puts the concept of fallibilism and the principle of belief, in the second — Peirce denies the possibility of intuition and proves the indirectness of our cognition by signs, in the third — it is about the advantages of the semiotic and communicative approach over individualism and linguistic atomism, in the fourth — Descartes’ nominalism and dualism, Peirce contrasts the realist approach and his theory of synechism, as well as semiotic anthropology. (shrink)

Phenomenology has been described as a “non-argumentocentric” way of doing philosophy, reflecting that the philosophical focus is on generating adequate descriptions of experience. But it should not be described as an argument-free zone, regardless of whether this is intended as a descriptive claim about the work of the “usual suspects” or a normative claim about how phenomenology ought to be properly practiced. If phenomenology is always at least partly in the business of arguments, then it is worth giving further attention (...) to the role and form of phenomenological argumentation, how it interacts with its more strictly descriptive component, and the status of phenomenological claims regarding conditions for various kinds of experience. I contend that different versions of phenomenological reasoning encroach upon argument forms that are commonly thought to be antithetical to phenomenology, notably abductive reasoning, understood in terms of its role in both hypothesis generation and in terms of justification. This paper identifies two main steps to making this case. The first step takes seriously the consequences of the intrinsically dialectical aspect of phenomenology in intersection with other modes of philosophy, the natural attitude, and non-philosophy. The second step focuses on transcendental reflection and arguments about the conditions/structures they contain. Together, these two steps aim to rescue phenomenology from the objection that it has an “ostrich epistemology” with regard to the ostensible purity of description, the intuition of essences, or the “conditions” ascertained through transcendental reflection. (shrink)

Phenomenology has been described as a “non-argumentocentric” way of doing philosophy, reflecting that the philosophical focus is on generating adequate descriptions of experience. But it should not be described as an argument-free zone, regardless of whether this is intended as a descriptive claim about the work of the “usual suspects” or a normative claim about how phenomenology ought to be properly practiced. If phenomenology is always at least partly in the business of arguments, then it is worth giving further attention (...) to the role and form of phenomenological argumentation, how it interacts with its more strictly descriptive component, and the status of phenomenological claims regarding conditions for various kinds of experience. I contend that different versions of phenomenological reasoning encroach upon argument forms that are commonly thought to be antithetical to phenomenology, notably abductive reasoning, understood in terms of its role in both hypothesis generation and in terms of justification. This paper identifies two main steps to making this case. The first step takes seriously the consequences of the intrinsically dialectical aspect of phenomenology in intersection with other modes of philosophy, the natural attitude, and non-philosophy. The second step focuses on transcendental reflection and arguments about the conditions/structures they contain. Together, these two steps aim to rescue phenomenology from the objection that it has an “ostrich epistemology” with regard to the ostensible purity of description, the intuition of essences, or the “conditions” ascertained through transcendental reflection. (shrink)

This research investigates the intersubjective aspects of communication design practice through a focus on the other, and the roles that the other takes in practice. It does so in order to better understand the practice of communication design as practiced on a day-to-day basis. Communication design, as a practice, and a field, extends out of graphic design. This extension is due to a change in priorities; from privileging the graphic and artefactual aspects of practice, to prioritising the consideration of the (...) broader agency of design within a specific context. This research has been accomplished through a practice-led methodology. Communication design projects form the methods of, and the foundation for, the investigation. Seven individual research projects have been designed and carried out. These projects have each incorporated members of the different participants of communication design practice; new and existing clients, student designers and established practicing designers. This has allowed the research to investigate its concerns from a range of roles and viewpoints, incorporating different perspectives into its observations and understandings. This research extends the work of Donald Schön and his investigation into The Reflective Practitioner. It achieves this through a consideration for the roles of the other in professional practice. In order to articulate this move extensive reference is made to the thinking of the twentieth century philosophers Martin Heidegger and Emmanuel Levinas. This research has found that the other plays critical roles in the practice of communication design. These roles are ones of providing provocative disjunction. Provocative disjunction, as understood by this research, contributes directly to the generative action communication design offers artefacts, clients and designers. The observations and understandings of this practice-led research have enabled extensive insights into the practice of communication design. These insights contribute significantly to the broader communication design discourse in professional practice, education and research. (shrink)

Louis Loeb has argued that Hume is pessimistic while Peirce is optimistic about the attainment of fully stable beliefs. In contrast, we argue that Hume was optimistic about such attainment but only if the scope of philosophical investigation is limited to first-order explanatory questions. Further, we argue that Peirce, after reformulating the pragmatic maxim to accommodate the reality of counterfactuals, was pessimistic about such attainment. Finally, we articulate and respond to Peirce's objection that Hume's skeptical arguments in T 1.4.1 and (...) his commitment to common sense indicate that Hume was confused about whether we could have stable beliefs at all. (shrink)

This chapter presents a detailed explanation of Peirce’s early and late views on semiotic indeterminacy and then considers how those views might be applied within biosemiotics. Peirce distinguished two different forms of semiotic indeterminacy: generality and vagueness. He defined each in terms of the “right” that indeterminate signs extend, either to their interpreters in the case of generality or to their utterers in the case of vagueness, to further determine their meaning. On Peirce’s view, no sign is absolutely determinate, i.e., (...) every sign is indeterminate to at least some degree and so exhibits some degree of generality or vagueness. If Peirce was right about this, then no instance of biosemiosis is completely determinate—every biosign must be general or vague to some degree. I show that on Peirce’s view, whether a sign is general or vague depends on its immediate object, “the idea which the sign is built upon,” and I explain how Peirce would go about identifying the immediate object of a sign lacking both a minded utterer and a minded interpreter—an identification that must be possible if any biosign is indeterminate. (shrink)

The goal of this paper is a reassessment of Peirce’s doctrine of symbol. The paper discusses a common reading of Peirce’s doctrine, according to which all and only symbols are conventional signs. Against this reading, it is argued that neither are all Peircean symbols conventional, nor are all conventional signs Peircean symbols. Rather, a Peircean symbol is a general sign, i. e., a sign that represents a general object.

While a number of classical pragmatists crafted their philosophies in conjunction with a careful study of Hegel's works, others saw their philosophies emerge in antagonism with proponents of Hegel. In this paper, we offer an instance of the latter case. Namely, we show that the impetus for Charles S. Peirce's early articulation and avowal of realism (the claim that some generals are real) was William Torrey Harris's claim that the formal laws of logic lacked universal validity. According to Harris, the (...) leading representative of Hegelism in the United States, the universal validity of the laws of logic rested on a nominalistic metaphysics that a Hegelian-realism showed to be false. In response to this charge, we articulate how Peirce's attempt to prove the universal validity of the laws of logic resulted in avowing a realism that differed from both nominalism and Harris's Hegelian-realism. (shrink)

Kelly suggested that it was useful to consider anyone as functioning as a scientist, in the business of applying theories, making hypotheses and predictions and testing them out in the practice of everyday life. One of Charles Peirce’s major contributions was to develop the disciplines of logic and the philosophy of science. We can deepen and enrich our understanding of Kelly’s vision by looking at what Peirce has to say about the process of science. For Peirce, the essence of science (...) was the application of the laws of inference. He developed a much broader concept of logic, elaborating the processes of deduction and induction and adding to these the logic of hypothetical inference, or ‘abduction’, even as Kelly broadened it further in his “departure from classical logic”. Examining the implications of these three forms of inference allows us to elaborate the dynamics involved in the process of construing, ordinacy and the cycles of experience, creativity and decision making. This is the second of a three part series examining the relationship between the work of Peirce and Kelly. The third will include a look at phenomenology, bipolarity, the self, dialogical process and sociological considerations. (shrink)

O presente artigo pretende tecer algumas breves considerações acerca de um importante e heurístico tema da filosofia arquitetônica de Charles Sanders Peirce, a saber, o papel exercido pelo conceito de jogo estético do devaneio no surgimento e estabelecimento de uma crença pragmática na hipótese da realidade de Deus. Seguindo, dentro do limite de espaço disponível, a exposição das etapas do chamado argumento negligenciado para a realidade de Deus, desenvolvido por Peirce em texto homônimo, mostrar-se-á como o conceito de jogo estético (...) do devaneio encontra-se profundamente alicerçado na ontologia realística do autor e como esse conceito, embora apareça, propriamente falando, como a primeira etapa de um processo de pensamento sobre traços notáveis do universo real, um estado mental livre e despropositado, que não se propõe a mediar algo, tal como o pensamento autocontrolado o faz, mas que pode, no entanto, resultar no sentimento de estar diante de alguma maravilha em um dos três universos da experiência, acaba por converter-se, em última instância, em um processo de ponderação com força de apelo instintivo para a conduta da vida, sendo essa, justamente, a sua marcante e contundente significação pragmática. (shrink)

Kelly’s work was formed and developed in the context of the American philosophical movement known as pragmatism. The major figures to which this tradition is attributed are Charles S. Peirce, William James and John Dewey. In Personal Construct Psychology, Dewey was acknowledged by Kelly and by subsequent writers as perhaps his most important influence. It has recently become increasingly apparent, however that Peirce was a much more pervasive and crucial influence on James and Dewey than has previously been recognized. Kelly (...) did not mention Peirce but a close reading of the two writers reveals a remarkable correspondence and relationship between their two bodies of work. To set these two thinkers side by side proves to be an interesting and productive exercise. In this paper, after introducing Peirce and examining the relationship between him and Dewey, Kelly’s basic philosophical assumptions, as outlined at the beginning of Volume 1 of the Psychology of Personal Constructs, are used as a framework for exploring their similarities and differences. The result is an enrichment of our understanding of Kelly’s philosophy which allows us to make links with many different subsequent thinkers’ ideas and provides a basis for exploring the psychological aspects of the two men’s work. The latter forms the subject of Part II of this series which is in preparation. (shrink)

Hilary Putnam makes two related points in his recent collection of essays: (1) Values can be rational, and their inescapable intrusion into every kind of discourse is welcome. (2) Ignoring or suppressing this fact is common yet irrational. This is of course true; yet the intrusion in question can be trivial, and it can be problematic. Putnam ignores this here. The book is pleasant to read; it is infused with friendly and appreciative personal anecdotes and observations. It is almost entirely (...) critical and almost always in a friendly way. Yet it is often unclear. In almost every discussion here, the author announces one item and discusses another almost identical with it but one much easier to discuss. Key Words: values • rationality • positivism • Carnap • Popper. (shrink)

Within this paper, we utilise a delimited area of philosophy to help make sense of a delimited area of design science as it pertains to a class of contemporary information systems. The philosophy is taken from that of Charles Sanders Peirce; the design science is directed at the construction of visual devices in that area known as visual management. The utilisation of such devices within their wider visual management systems we take to be instances of what we refer to as (...) tangible information systems. Tangible information systems use tangible artefacts, such as whiteboards and magnetic tokens, to accomplish information. We particularly use Peircean semiotics to analyse the use of tangible emoticons articulated upon performance boards within a large-scale manufacturing facility. We infer from our analysis of these informative artefacts that certain integrated aspects of Peircean philosophy offers an alternative way of framing notions of a proper design science, design theory and design artefact for the discipline of information systems. (shrink)

The first part of this essay provides an analysis of the text “The Law of Mind”, in which Peirce theorizes about the power of growth and spreading of ideas and also presents his response to the classic question about how mind can influence matter. We intended to show, from an analysis focused on the dual semantic meaning of the word “ affect ”, how the author’s rupture with the Cartesian dualism between mind and matter implies in a substantial identity between (...) ideality and reality by means of a metaphysical merging of realism and idealism, where matter is taken to be only a special case of mind . The second part shows how the forms of evolutionism are drawn from the three categories, highlighting the agapism, the doctrine of cosmic and creative love. Finally, we shall argue on how the association between realism and idealism, as well as the considerations of the author’s evolutionism, constitute vital aspects for the justification of the historical success of our human capacity for conjecturing, viz., for proposing successful hypothesis to explain the facts. (shrink)

In a recent conference volume, American philosopher Michael Sandel engages the Confucian tradition in the search for alternatives to what Sandel calls the “unencumbered self,” the unattached liberal subject as detailed in the philosophy of John Rawls. Responding to Sandel, American Confucianist Roger Ames draws on a lifetime of comparative thought to advance the Pragmatism of John Dewey as a way to interrogate Western philosophy in general, arguing that “humane becomings,” a view of the human person facilitated, Ames writes, by (...) Deweyan Pragmatism, are the Confucian ideal and the key to recovering a holistic anthropology within the Western tradition. In this essay, I intervene in the Ames-Sandel debate to argue that Charles Peirce, and not John Dewey, is the best American Pragmatist for bridging the divide between the Confucian and Rawlsian views of the human person. Peirce’s emphasis on love as true intersubjectivity and on communication as the exchange of real meaning is, I argue, the key to unlocking the Confucian ideal to the West. (shrink)

One of the least explored areas of C.S. Peirce's wide range of work is his contributions to psychology and the philosophy of mind. This dissertation examines the corpus of this work, especially as it relates to the subjects of mind, habit, instinct, sentiment, emotion, perception, consciousness, cognition, and community. The argument is that Peirce's contributions to these areas of investigation were both highly original and heavily influenced by the main intellectual currents of his time. An effort has been made to (...) present Peirce's philosophy without apology, within the conceptual framework and idiom of its time, and without appeal to a comprehensive view that Peirce never articulated. Nevertheless, as several noted interpreters have argued, much of this work can be viewed through the lens of Peirce's innovative theory of signs and the notion of the semiotic triad as its central unifying feature, despite the fact that the general theory was itself under continuous refinement and remained incomplete at the time of his death. Another hermeneutical device employed is William James' better known and more accessible work which, when juxtaposed with Peirce's ideas, serves to bring them into sharper relief. While general and historical in the presentation of material, this study seeks, at the same time, to engage the criticism of contemporary Peirce scholars in an attempt to account for several of the conundrums inherent in Peirce's work. Among the problems with implications for his philosophy of mind and theory of inquiry are the limitations of his theory of continuity, his negative view of the self, his somewhat ambiguous position on the relation of psychology to logic, and the metaethical puzzle arising from application of his theory of probable inference to truly fateful decisions. These problems provide an interesting perspective and lend balance to the truly insightful contributions Peirce made to the discovery of the mind. (shrink)

This dissertation responds to the question, "To what extent can the pragmatist theories of truth of Peirce and James be defended against the major philosophical criticisms that have been used to dismiss them?" The answer to this depends to a great degree on the kind of formulation given these theories. Hence, one of the major goals of this dissertation is to express precisely and systematically Peirce's and James's theories of truth in such a way that only one of various possible (...) alternative expressions is identified as the interpretation that most remains faithful to the intentions of Peirce and James. Rather than offer merely a historical overview of these theories, I attempt a critical reformulation of them in the sense that I intervene to correct errors and aberrations in the theories as promulgated, either on my own responsibility or by reference to authoritative statements. The investigation consists of these parts: a comparison and contrast of Peirce's and James's pragmatic methods, in which it is suggested that James's medical background led him to a theory of meaning rather more broad in principle than Peirce's; an investigation of Peirce's theory of truth, in which his most famous formulation receives detailed exegesis; an investigation of James's theory of truth, in which it is argued that this theory should more properly be understood as a theory of knowledge; and an enumeration and evaluation of those major philosophical criticisms aimed at these theories, in which it is argued that the pragmatist theories have, indeed, been misunderstood, and that when correctly interpreted, they may be defended against these objections. (shrink)