Customer Reviews

The Essential Peirce, Volume 1: Selected Philosophical Writings‚ (1867-1893)

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I came to this book because I was inspired by "the Metaphysical Club" to learn more about the roots of pragmatism. The book is challenging. The Metaphysical Club points out that William James did not understand Peirce at first, so it is a bit much for mere mortals. It is especially daunting because the first essay is written with respect to Kant's categories, not something I know off of the top-of-my head.
However, as the books progresses many of the things that are assumed in the first essay are explained. For instance Peirce explains in detail what he means by a sign.

He discusses cognition, or consciousness and shows that logically our internal experience is based on external stimulation. It soon becomes impossible to ignore the fact that you are reading the works of a logician and that that is where he is coming from. But even though you might have to reread parts several times, once you master the arguements, it is satisfying indeed.

According to the introduction of the book and references, Peirce was influential. William James, Oliver Wendel Holmes and John Dewey were all influenced by him. Modern cognitive psychology owes much to William James. Psychology took a different direction through psychoanalysis and then behaviorism but cognitive psychology is now the dominate paradigm. Because of this Peirce has renewed importance.

My advice is to read it through once and not feel you have to get everything and the reread it because he explains things later that he assmes you know earlier.

People interested in the history and philosophy of logic will want to own this tour-de-force of selecting and editing. It contains large parts of Peirce's two most important contributions to mathematical logic: the 1880 "On the Algebra of Logic" and the 1885 "On the Algebra of Logic: A Contribution to the Philosophy of Notation" --both published in the American Journal of Mathematics, the same journal that brought out Russell's 1908 paper on the theory of types. Besides these two technical papers, which were influential in the development of mathematical logic, it also contains several more papers essential to understanding Peirce's philosophy of logic.