In this book, scholars examine the nature and significance of Peirce’s work on perception, iconicity, and diagrammatic thinking. Abjuring any strict dichotomy between presentational and representational mental activity, Peirce’s theories transform the Aristotelian, Humean, and Kantian paradigms that continue to hold sway today and forge a new path for understanding the centrality of visual thinking in science, education, art, and communication. This book is a key resource for scholars interested in Perice’s philosophy and its relation to contemporary issues in mathematics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of perception, semiotics, logic, visual thinking, and cognitive science.

Above all other titles, Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) prized that of logician. He thought of logic broadly, such that it includes not merely formal logic but an examination of the entire process of inquiry. His works are replete with detailed investigations into logical questions. Peirce is especially concerned to show that valid inferential processes, diligently followed, will eventually root out error and alight on the truth. Peirce on Inference draws together diverse strands from Peirce's lifelong reflections on logic in order to develop a comprehensive perspective on Peirce's theory of inference. Peirce argues that each genus of inference--deduction, induction, and abduction--has a different truth-producing virtue. An inference is valid just in case the procedure used in fact has the truth-producing virtue claimed for it and the person making the inference adheres to the procedure. In successive chapters, this book shows how Peirce supports the thesis that these genera of inference have the truth-producing virtues claimed for them and how Peirce responds to objections. Among the objections given consideration are the liar paradox, Hume's problem of induction, Goodman's new riddle of induction, that this may be a chance world, and that we are incapable of conceiving the true hypothesis. The book defends several controversial theses, including that Peirce does not so strongly object to Bayesianism as is sometimes claimed and that prior to 1900 Peirce had no explicit theory of abduction. It also proposes a novel account of abduction.

This book is the sole theological essay written by the logician, scientist, and philosopher C. S. Peirce. It was published in 1908 and has drawn much attention from philosophers, clergy, and scientists since that time.

This is a study edition of Charles Sanders Peirce's manuscripts for lectures on pragmatism given in spring 1903 at Harvard University. Excerpts from these writings have been published elsewhere but in abbreviated form. Turrisi has edited the manuscripts for publication and has written a series of notes that illuminate the historical, scientific, and philosophical contexts of Peirce's references in the lectures. She has also written a Preface that describes the manner in which the lectures came to be given, including an account of Peirce's life and career pertinent to understanding the philosopher himself. Turrisi's introduction interprets Peirce's brand of pragmatism within his system of logic and philosophy of science as well as within general philosophical principles.

In this book, T. L. Short corrects widespread misconceptions of Peirce's theory of signs and demonstrates its relevance to contemporary analytic philosophy of language, mind and science. Peirce's theory of mind, naturalistic but nonreductive, bears on debates of Fodor and Millikan, among others. His theory of inquiry avoids foundationalism and subjectivism, while his account of reference anticipated views of Kripke and Putnam. Peirce's realism falls between 'internal' and 'metaphysical' realism and is more satisfactory than either. His pragmatism is not verificationism; rather, it identifies meaning with potential growth of knowledge. Short distinguishes Peirce's mature theory of signs from his better-known but paradoxical early theory. He develops the mature theory systematically on the basis of Peirce's phenomenological categories and concept of final causation. The latter is distinguished from recent and similar views, such as Brandon's, and is shown to be grounded in forms of explanation adopted in modern science.

This is a study edition of Charles Sanders Peirce's manuscripts for lectures on pragmatism given in spring 1903 at Harvard University. Excerpts from these writings have been published elsewhere but in abbreviated form. Turrisi has edited the manuscripts for publication and has written a series of notes that illuminate the historical, scientific, and philosophical contexts of Peirce's references in the lectures. She has also written a Preface that describes the manner in which the lectures came to be given, including an account of Peirce's life and career pertinent to understanding the philosopher himself. Turrisi's introduction interprets Peirce's brand of pragmatism within his system of logic and philosophy of science as well as within general philosophical principles.

"A convenient two-volume reader's edition makes accessible to students and scholars the most important philosophical papers of the brilliant American thinker Charles Sanders Peirce."--Back cover.