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)

Peircean Truth is the view that truth is in some sense epistemically constrained, constrained that is by what we would, if we inquired long enough and well enough, eventually come to believe. Contemporary Peirceans offer various different formulations of the view, which can make it difficult, particularly for critics, to see exactly how PT differs from popular alternatives such as correspondence theories or deflationism. This article, therefore, considers four possible formulations of PT, and sets out the different objections and challenges (...) they each face and their relationships with one another. I focus upon the question of what, if anything, PT has to say about the property of truth. (shrink)

Koopman’s book revolves around the notion of transition, which he proposes is one of the central ideas of the pragmatist tradition but one which had not previously been fully articulated yet nevertheless shapes the pragmatist attitude in philosophy. Transition, according to Koopman, denotes “those temporal structures and historical shapes in virtue of which we get from here to there”. One of the consequences of transitionalism is the understanding of critique and inquiry as historical pro...

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)

It is commonplace to describe the pragmatist conception of truth as incompatible with correspondence theory. This popular description relies on a deflationary reading of Peirce and James’s many apparent endorsements of correspondence. This reading says they regarded it as a mere platitude or truism, not as a substantive piece of philosophical theorizing. There are two main reasons typically offered in support of this platitude narrative – its consonance with Peirce’s original formulation of PT from 1878, and the objections that pragmatists (...) frequently raised against various notions traditionally associated with CT. I argue that neither reason is compelling and that PT and CT are compatible conceptions of truth. (shrink)

A close reading of Descartes’ works, particularly his Regulae ad Directionem Ingenii, calls into question the common interpretation of Peirce’s ‘Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man’ and ‘Some Consequences of Four Incapacities’ as being anti-Cartesian. In particular, Descartes’ conception of intuition differs from Peirce’s, and on one plausible reading of Descartes his intuitionism actually mirrors Peirce’s inferentialism in key respects. Given these similarities between Descartes and Peirce, the dogmatic status of the anti-Cartesian interpretation of Peirce becomes evident.

This multifaceted essay emerges from a host of sources within diverse academic settings. Its central thesis is guided by physicist John A. Wheeler's thoughts on the quantum enigma. Wheeler concludes, following Niels Bohr, that we are co-participants within the universal self-organizing process. This notion merges with concepts from Peirce's process philosophy, Eastern thought, issues of topology, and border theory in cultural studies and social science, while surrounding itself with such key terms as complementarity, interdependence, interrelatedness, vagueness, generality, incompleteness, inconsistency, and (...) mestizaje. Ultimately, a sense of semiosic process pervades in light of combined homogenous and hetergenous tendencies. (shrink)

Charles Peirce’s model of inquiry is supposed to demarcate appropriate methods of inquiry from specious ones. Cheryl Misak points out that Peirce’s explicit account fails, but can nevertheless be rescued by elements of his own system. While Misak’s criticism is a propos, her own attempt to fortify Peirce’s account does not succeed, as it falls prey to the same criticism she raises against Peirce’s explicit account. The account provided in this paper—the ‘open path’ alternative—draws from Peirce’s corollary to his “first (...) rule of reason”, that one should not block the road to inquiry. The ‘open path’ account is able to withstand Misak’s objections, and when combined with other aspects of Peirce’s work, shows us why the optimal way to conduct inquiry is to follow the path of greatest resistance. Inquiry, however, is rarely conducted in optimal conditions. Actual, constrained conditions of inquiry require a measure of economy in terms of what can be reasonably pursued and how. The question, then, is how to conduct our inquiries so that they are as nearly optimal as possible given actual constraints. As a working scientist, Peirce was acutely aware of the need to economize in research. Nicholas Rescher has recognized this issue’s significance for Peirce, and noted its neglect in discussions of Peirce’s work. One issue that has been largely neglected in the literature on Peirce is what specifically he recommends, based on considerations of economy, for how to go about gathering evidence. Kronz & McLaughlin points out that Peirce’s primary recommendation is that in gathering evidence relevant to a particular hypothesis we should test for empirical consequences that would not have been expected otherwise. The view that is developed in this paper is that economy in research, according to Peirce, follows the general line of his theory of inquiry. Peirce’s theory of inquiry implies that pursuit of truth requires maximizing resistance. I argue that his considerations about how to navigate within the constraints introduced in the context of actual research are also best understood as recommendations for maximizing resistance. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to present a conceptual review and analysis of symptom understanding. Subjective bodily sensations occur abundantly in the normal population and dialogues about symptoms take place in a broad range of contexts, not only in the doctor’s office. Our review of symptom understanding proceeds from an initial subliminal awareness by way of attribution of meaning and subsequent management, with and without professional involvement. We introduce theoretical perspectives from phenomenology, semiotics, social interactionism, and discourse analysis. Drew (...) Leder’s phenomenological perspectives deal with how symptom perception occurs when any kind of altered balance brings forward a bodily attention. Corporeality is brought to explicit awareness and perceived as sensations. Jesper Hoffmeyer’s biosemiotic perspectives provide access to how signs are interpreted to attribute meaning to the bodily messages. Symptom management is then determined by the meaning of a symptom. Dorte E. Gannik’s concept “situational disease” explains how situations can be reviewed not just in terms of their potential to produce signs or symptoms, but also in terms of their capacity to contain symptoms. Disease is a social and relational phenomenon of containment, and regulating the situation where the symptoms originate implies adjusting containment. Discourse analysis, as presented by Jonathan Potter and Margaret Wetherell, provides a tool to notice the subtle ways in which language orders perceptions and how language constructs social interaction. Symptoms are situated in culture and context, and trends in modern everyday life modify symptom understanding continuously. Our analysis suggests that a symptom can only be understood by attention to the social context in which the symptom emerges and the dialogue through which it is negotiated. (shrink)