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Common Knowledge

Legal name: Peirce, Charles Sanders
Birthdate: 1839-09-10
Date of death: 1914-04-19
Gender: male
Nationality: USA
Birthplace: Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Place of death: Milford, Pennsylvania, USA
Cause of death: cancer
Places of residence: Baltimore, Maryland, USA
Education: Harvard University (B.A.|1859 | M.A.|1862 | B.S. summa cum laude|1863)
Occupations: philosopher
logician
mathematician
scientist
geodesist
pauper
Relationships: Wright, Chauncey
James, William
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, Jr. (friend)
Fiske, John
Abbot, Francis Ellingwood
Everett, C. C. (show all 9)
Royce, Josiah
Howells, William Dean (friend)
Peirce, Benjamin (father)
Organizations: United States Coast Survey
Johns Hopkins University
Metaphysical Club
Awards and honors: Lowell Lectures
Harvard Lectures (1898)
Harvard Lectures (1903)
Harvard Lectures (1907)
American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1867)
National Academy of Sciences (1868)
Short biography: American philosopher. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The son of Harvard mathematician, Benjamin Peirce. Graduated from Harvard in 1859. He worked in the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survery from 1860 to 1891. He taught logic at Johns Hopkins University, 1879 to 1894; and for three years was special lecturer in Philosophy of Science at Harvard. He also lectured at the Lowell Institute in Boston. Retired to Milford, Pennsylvania in 1887. Principal writings: The Collected Papers of C. S. Peirce, vols. 1-6 (ed. C. Hartshorne and P. Weiss), 1931-35; vols. 7-8 (ed. A. Burks), 1958. From: "Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion, Eastern and Western Thought" by W. L. Reese, Humanities Press, 1980.

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Reviews

Philosophical Writings of Peirce by Justus Buchler

12/10/21

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laplantelibrary | 1 other review | Dec 10, 2021 |

Philosophical Writings of Peirce by Charles S. Peirce

Not a bad read. Quite dry though. Peirce was a Scotist logician; and that doesn't make for an incredibly enjoyable read. My preference is for the more speculative metaphysical philosophies; but I don't mind studying rigorous epistemology on occasion.
Peirce was the founder of what came to be known as "pragmatism"; or as he later preferred to call it: "pragmaticism", to differentiate his approach from that of William James, who was influenced by Peirce. Peirce was also a pioneer in the study of semeiotics.
This book was cobbled together from numerous sources, including periodicals. It is rather a rough sketch of Peirce's output and one does get the feeling that much is lacking in the presentation; although, I must admit that it probably does merit reading more than once because his thought is often quite involved, more involved than can be fathomed from one reading alone. I have to say that one thing that caught my attention was his criticisms of Descartes, which are basically almost identical with my criticisms of him. Peirce spends a goodly amount of time dismissing different brands of philosophy in order to bolster pragmaticism and his more speculative semi-religious application he referred to as "agapism"; which is in some manner based on the New Testament, but which he also feels is in some sense practical and empirical.
Decent book. I doubt I'll be revisiting it anytime soon though. He does go over numerous subjects, including evolution, chance, probability, science, God, tychism etc. Too much to really elucidate in this review. If logic and epistemology are your cup of tea than Peirce is certainly worth reading… (more)

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Erick_M | 1 other review | Jun 4, 2016 |

Chance, love, and logic : philosophical essays by Charles S. Peirce

The author, who spelled his name "Peirce", considered philosophy to be the most useful and necessary pursuit. He was an accomplished scientist -- chemistry, mathematics.
This work is a collection of his published (well-vetted) articles.

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keylawk | 1 other review | Sep 8, 2015 |

Chance, Love, and Logic: Philosophical Essays by Charles Sanders Peirce

Peirce, credited with "inventing" pragmatism, is now recognized as one of the seminal American philosophers although he seems to be much more popular in Europe than in the U.S., oddly. Rorty, one of the most recent pragmatists tended to dismiss Perice as not quite being able to let go of the notion of an ahistorical truth, which, to Rorty, would condemn him utterly.

Habermas is a fan, as is Umberto Eco--Peirce also, luck would have it, invented "semiotics", Eco's specialty when he isn't writing novels.

This is a pretty good introduction to his work, available for free as an ebook--but the ebook is a rough scan with no proofreading, so contains many mispellings and superfluous characters and the rendering of the handful of formulas makes then useless. We shouldn't complain too much about free books, but if you're really interested spring for [The Essential Peirce].… (more)

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steve.clason | 1 other review | Dec 19, 2010 |

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