Habit in semiosis can be modeled both as a macro-level in a hierarchical multi-level system where it functions as boundary conditions for emergence of semiosis, and as a cognitive niche produced by an ecologically-inherited environment of cognitive artifacts. According to the first perspective, semiosis is modeled in terms of a multilayered system, with micro functional entities at the lower-level and with higher-level processes being mereologically composed of these lower-level entities. According to the second perspective, habits are embedded in ecologically-inherited environments (...) of signs that co-evolve with cognition. Both descriptions offer a novel approximation of Peirce’s semiotics and theoretical findings in other areas (hierarchy theory, evolutionary biology), suggesting new frameworks to approach the concept of habit integrated with its role in semiosis. (shrink)

Charles Sanders Peirce is best known as the founder of pragmatism, but the name that he preferred for his overall system of thought was ‘‘synechism’’ because the principle of continuity was its central thesis. He considered time to be the paradigmatic example and often wrote about its various aspects while discussing other topics. This essay draws from many of those widely scattered texts to formulate a distinctively Peircean philosophy of time, incorporating extensive quotations into a comprehensive and coherent synthesis. Time (...) is not an existential subject with past, present, and future as its incompatible predicates, but rather a real law enabling things to possess contrary qualities at its different determinations, and Peirce identifies four classes of such states based on when and how they are realized. Because time is continuous, it is not composed of instants, and even the present is an indefinite lapse during which we are directly aware of constant change. The accomplished past is perpetually growing as the possibilities and conditional necessities of the future are actualized at the present, and the entire universe evolves from being utterly indeterminate toward being absolutely determinate. Nevertheless, time must return into itself even if events are limited to only a portion of it, a paradox that is resolved with the aid of projective geometry. Temporal synechism thus touches on a broad spectrum of philosophical issues including mathematics, phenomenology, logic, and metaphysics. (shrink)

This paper presents a comprehensive account of Peirce's post-1900 theory of abduction. The account aims at bringing together various strands of discussion in Peirce's work, showing how their interaction creates a more coherent picture of his thoughts on abductive reasoning as manifest after the turn of the century. The discussion is of a historical nature, rather than a critical assessment.

The study seeks to contribute to the concept of semiotic causation by building a nomenclature of effects (interpretants) produced by signs. As a starting point, the suggested approach uses Charles Peirce’s idea that the interpretant itself is a sign that is produced by another sign. From this, the study suggests that Peirce’s ten-fold division of signs can be used as a basis for the division of interpretants and, thus, proposes a nomenclature that distinguishes poti-interpretants (interpretants that are quali-signs), sin-interpretants (interpretants (...) that are sin-signs), and legi-interpretants (interpretants that are legi-signs), also differentiating between iconic, indexical, and symbolic interpretants, as well as rhematic, dicent, and argumentive interpretants. The article uses Peirce’s famous whistle example (EP 2:4–5) to illustrate how the proposed systematics of interpretants works and demonstrates that it aligns well with Peirce’s distinction of feeling, reaction, and thinking, as feeling corresponds to the production of iconic poti-interpretants and iconic sin-interpretants, reaction corresponds to the production of indexical sin-interpretants, and thinking corresponds to the production of legi-interpretants. The article also suggests how the proposed ten-fold systematics of interpretants can be reconciled with Peirce’s original classifications of interpretants, as immediate-dynamical-final interpretants correspond to the triad of poti-, sin-, and legi-interpretants, while emotional-energetic-logical interpretants correspond to the three sub-classes of sin-interpretants, i.e. iconic sin-interpretants, rhematic indexical sin-interpretants, and dicent indexical sin-interpretants. The study then explores how the suggested classification of interpretants can be used to draw distinctions between different kinds of semiosis in different agents. In particular, the study shows how the proposed ten-fold classification can be applied to analyze diverse biosemiotic and anthroposemiotic processes. It also tests how different capacities to produce interpretants can be used to distinguish full-fledged signs from quasi-signs and demonstrates that in some cases of zoösemiosis, as well as in proto-semiosis and tardo-semiosis, the production of symbolic interpretants is diminished. (shrink)

According to the received view, Charles S. Peirce's theory of diagrammatic reasoning is derived from Kant's philosophy of mathematics. For Kant, only mathematics is constructive/synthetic, logic being instead discursive/analytic, while for Peirce, the entire domain of necessary reasoning, comprising mathematics and deductive logic, is diagrammatic, i.e. constructive in the Kantian sense. This shift was stimulated, as Peirce himself acknowledged, by the doctrines contained in Friedrich Albert Lange's Logische Studien (1877). The present paper reconstructs Peirce's reading of Lange's book, and illustrates (...) what, according to Peirce, was right and what was problematic in Lange's account of reasoning. It further seeks to explain how Peirce's theory of deductive reasoning was a combination of Kant's philosophy of mathematics and Lange's philosophy of logic. (shrink)

Peirce maintains that facts and propositions are structurally isomorphic. When we understand how Peirce thinks they are isomorphic, we find that a common objection raised against epistemic conceptions of truth – that there are facts beyond the ken of discovery – holds no water against Peirce’s claim that truth is what would be believed after a sufficiently long and rigorous course of inquiry.

: In 1878's ‘How to Make Our Ideas Clear’, Peirce states that truth is the predestinate opinion, or that which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate. Later in his life, though, he would claim both that truth is what would be believed if we could figure out the right method of inquiry and that, instead of affirming that truth is the predestinate opinion in 1878, he ought to have affirmed that truth is what would be (...) believed if inquiry were carried sufficiently far. The aim of this paper is to provide an account of why the early Peirce endorses the claim that truth is the predestinate opinion and why the late Peirce is compelled to modify that position. I argue that Peirce's early statement that truth is the predestinate opinion is motivated by his theory that all mental action is of the nature of a valid inference and that the later modification of his view is partly motivated by his rejection of that theory. (shrink)