The Road Of Inquiry Charles Peirce S Pragmatic Realism

Scientist, mathematician, thinker, the father of pragmatism, the inspiration for William James and John Dewey, Charles Peirce has remained until recently a philosopher's philosopher. Peirce trod a fine line between the extremes of nominalism and realism, tough-minded pragmatism and metaphysical speculation. As Peter Skagestad makes clear, Peirce's system of thought was fragmented, incomplete, and sometimes inconsistent. But one overriding concern gives unity to the whole: the road of inquiry must never be blocked.

This work runs counter to the traditional interpretations of Peirce's philosophy by eliciting an inherent strand of pragmatic pluralism that is embedded in the very core of his thought and that weaves his various doctrines into a systematic pattern of pluralism. Rosenthal gives a new design to the seeming bedrock of Peirce's position: convergence toward the final ultimate opinion of the community of interpreters in the idealized long run. Focusing frequently on passages from Peirce's writings which have been virtually ignored in the more traditional interpretations of his work, this book shows the way in which Peirce's position, far from lying in opposition to the Kuhnian interpretation of science, provides strong and much needed metaphysical and epistemic underpinnings for it in a way which avoids the pitfalls of false alternatives offered by the philosophical tradition. The book examines in depth the various features of Peirce's position that enter into these underpinnings. Among the topics explored are meaning, truth, perception, world, sign relations, realism, categorical inquiry, phenomenology, temporality, and speculative metaphysics. -- Back cover.

Re-evaluates Peirce's metaphysics, exploring his views on pragmatism, reality, truth, and the mind's relation to the external world.

C. S. Peirce, the founder of pragmatism, argued that truth is what we would agree upon, were inquiry to be pursued as far as it could fruitfully go. In this book C. J. Misak argues for and elucidates the pragmatic account of truth, paying attention both to Peirce's texts and to the requirements for a suitable account of truth. An important argument of the book is that we must be sensitive to the difference between offering a definition of truth and engaging in a distinctively pragmatic project. This book spells out the relationship between truth and inquiry; it articulates the consequences of a statement's being true. It shows that the existence of a distinct pragmatic enterprise has implications for the status of the pragmatic account of truth and for the way in which philosophy should be conducted. This new paperback includes a brand-new additional chapter, along with a new preface and revised bibliography.

This book examines the ways in which religious communities experimentally engage the world and function as fallible inquisitive agents, despite frequent protests to the contrary. Using the philosophy of inquiry and semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce, it develops unique naturalist conceptions of religious meaning and ultimate orientation while also arguing for a reappraisal of the ways in which the world’s venerable religious traditions enable novel forms of communal inquiry into what Peirce termed “vital matters.” Pragmatic inquiry, it argues, is a ubiquitous and continuous phenomenon. Thus, religious participation, though cautiously conservative in many ways, is best understood as a variety of inhabited experimentation. Religious communities embody historically mediated hypotheses about how best to engage the world and curate networks of semiotic resources for rendering those engagements meaningful. Religions best fulfill their inquisitive function when they both deploy and reform their sign systems as they learn better to engage reality.

Charles Sanders Peirce, the founder of Pragmatism, was convinced that metaphysics is not just of primary importance to philosophy, but that it serves as the basis of all sciences. From Realism to 'Realicism' is a unique critical study of Peirce's metaphysics, and his repeated insistence on the realism of the medieval schoolman as the key to understanding his own system. By tracing the problem of universals beginning with its Greek roots, Rosa Maria Perez-Teran Mayorga provides the necessary yet underrepresented background of moderate realism and Peirce's eventual revision of metaphysics. This book examines Peirce's definition of the "real," his synechism, his idealism, and his "pragmaticism," which are all related to his sense of realism. With strong analyses and references to Plato, Aristotle, and John Duns Scotus, a Franciscan monk known as a major proponent of scholastic realism, From Realism to 'Realicism' is an insightful and intriguing book that will stimulate the minds of fellow philosophers and those interested in Charles Sanders Peirce.

This book is an attempt to understand a significant part of the complex thought of Charles Sanders Peirce, especially in those areas which interested him most: scientific method and related philosophical questions. It is organized primarily from Peirce's own writings, taking chronological settings into account where appropriate, and pointing out the close connections of several major themes in Peirce's work which show the rich diversity of his thought and its systematic unity. Following an introductory sketch of Peirce the thinking and writer is a study of the spirit and phases of scientific inquiry, and a consideration of its relevance to certain outstanding philosophical views which Peirce held. This double approach is necessary because his views on scientific method are interlaces with a profound and elaborate philosophy of the cosmos. Peirce's thought is unusually close-knit, and his difficulty as a writer lies in his inability to achieve a partial focus without bringing into view numerous connections and relations with the whole picture of reality. Peirce received some of the esteem he deserves when the publication of his Collected Papers began more than thirty-five years ago. Some reviewers and critics, however, have attempted to fit Peirce into their own molds in justification of a particular position; others have disinterestedly sought to present him in completely detached fashion. Here, the author has attempted to understand Peirce as Peirce intended himself to be understood, and has presented what he believes Perice's philosophy of scientific method to be. He singles out for praise Peirce's Greek insistence on the primacy of theoretical knowledge and his almost Teilhardian synthesis of evolutionary themes. Primarily philosophical, this volume analyzes Peirce's thought using a theory of knowledge and metaphysics rather than formal logic.

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.