Charles Sanders Peirce

The idea does not belong to the soul; it is the soul that belongs to the idea.

Charles Sanders Peirce (pronounced purse), (10 September 1839 – 19 April 1914) was an American polymath. Although educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for 30 years, he is now mostly seen as a philosopher.

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• Now, to say that a lot of objects is finite, is the same as to say that if we pass through the class from one to another we shall necessarily come round to one of those individuals already passed; that is, if every one of the lot is in any one-to-one relation to one of the lot, then to every one of the lot some one is in this same relation.
  • "On The Algebra of Logic : A Contribution to the Philosophy of Notation" in The American Journal of Mathematics 7 (1885), p. 180 - 202

• The consciousness of a general idea has a certain "unity of the ego" in it, which is identical when it passes from one mind to another. It is, therefore, quite analogous to a person, and indeed, a person is only a particular kind of general idea.
  • "Man's Glassy Essence" (1892)

• It is the man of science, eager to have his every opinion regenerated, his every idea rationalized, by drinking at the fountain of fact, and devoting all the energies of his life to the cult of truth, not as he understands it, but as he does not yet understand it, that ought properly to be called a philosopher.
  • Review of the Nineteenth Century (1900)

• In all the works on pedagogy that ever I read — and they have been many, big, and heavy — I don't remember that any one has advocated a system of teaching by practical jokes, mostly cruel. That, however, describes the method of our great teacher, Experience.
  • Harvard Lectures on Pragmatism (1903) CP 5.51

• By "semiosis" I mean, on the contrary, an action, or influence, which is, or involves, a cooperation of three subjects, such as a sign, its object, and its interpretant, this tri-relative influence not being in any way resolvable into actions between pairs.
  • 'Pragmatism', The Essential Peirce. Selected Philosophical Writings Vol. 2 (1907), p. 411, edited by the Peirce Edition Project, 1998. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.

• Unless man have a natural bent in accordance with nature's, he has no chance of understanding nature at all.
  • A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God in the Hibbert Journal VII:90 (1908)

• I define a Sign as anything which is so determined by something else, called its Object, and so determines an effect upon a person, which effect I call its Interpretant, that the latter is thereby mediately determined by the former.
  • "A Letter to Lady Welby" (1908) SS 80-81

• By an object, I mean anything that we can think, i.e. anything we can talk about.
  • "Reflections on Real and Unreal Objects", Undated, MS 966

• The entire universe is perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs.
  • Quoted in Essays in Zoosemiotics (1990) by Thomas A. Sebeok

The Law of Mind (1891)

• Logical analysis applied to mental phenomenon shows that there is but one law of mind, namely that ideas tend to spread continuously and to affect certain others which stand to them in a peculiar relation of affectibility. In this spreading they lose intensity, and especially the power of affecting others, but gain generality and become welded with other ideas.

• How can a past idea be present?... it can only be going, infinitesimally past, less past than any assignable past date. We are thus brought to the conclusion that the present is connected to the past by a series of real infinitesimal steps.

• If the sensation that precedes the present by half a second were still immediately before me, then on the same principle, the sensation preceding that would be immediately present, and so on ad infinitum. Now, since there is a time [period], say a year, at the end of which an idea is no longer ipso facto present, it follows that this is true of any finite interval, however short.

• But yet consciousness must essentially cover an interval of time; for if it did not, we could gain no knowledge of time, and not merely no veracious cognition of it, but no conception whatever. We are therefore, forced to say that we are immediately conscious through an infinitesimal interval of time.

• In fact, this infinitesimally spread-out consciousness is a direct feeling of its contents as spread out. In an infinitesimal interval we directly perceive the temporal sequence of its beginning, middle, and end... Now upon this interval follows another, whose beginning is the middle of the former, and whose middle is the end of the former. Here we have an immediate perception of the temporal sequence of its beginning, middle and end, or say, of the second, third, and fourth instants.

• From these two immediate perceptions, we gain a mediate, or inferential perception of the relation of all four instants. This mediate perception is objectively, or as to the object being represented, spread over the four instants; but subjectively, or as itself the subject of duration, it is completely embraced in the second moment. (The reader will observe that I use the word instant to mean a point in time, and moment to mean an infinitesimal duration.

• Now, let there be an indefinite succession of these inferential acts of comparative perception; and it is plain that the last moment will contain objectively the whole series. Let there be, not merely an indefinite succession, but a continuous flow of inference through a finite time; and the result will be a mediate objective consciousness of the whole time in the last moment. In this last moment, the whole series will be recognized, or known as known before.

• Indeed, even this last moment will be recognized like the rest, at least, be just beginning to be so.

• Suppose a surface to be part red and part blue; so that every point on it is either red or blue, and of course, non part can be both red and blue. What then, is the color of the surface in the immediate neighborhood of the point. ...it follows that the boundary is half red and half blue. In like manner, we find it necessary to hold that consciousness essentially occupies time... Thus, the present is half past and half time to come. ...Take another case: the velocity of a particle at any instant of time is its mean velocity during an infinitesimal instant in which that time is consumed. Just so, my immediate feeling is my feeling through an infinitesimal duration containing the present instant.

• Time with its continuity logically involves some other kind of continuity than its own. Time, as the universal form of change, cannot exist unless there is something to undergo chane, and to undergo a change continuous in time, there must be a continuity of changeable qualities.

• The development of the human mind has practically extinguished all feelings, except a few sporadic kinds, [like] sound, colors, smells, warmth, etc., which now appear to be disconnected and separate.

• In the case of colors, there is a tridimensional spread of feelings. Originally all feelings may have been connected in the same way, and the presumption is that the number of dimensions was endless. For development essentially involves a limitation of possibilities. But given a number of dimensions of feeling, all possible varieties are obtainable by varying the intensities of the different elements.

• Accordingly, time logically supposes a continuous range of intensity of feeling. It follows then, from the definition of continuity, that when any particular kind of feeling is present, an infinitesimal continuum of all feelings differing infinitesimally from that, is present.

• Since space is continuous, it follows that there must be an immediate community of feeling between parts of mind infinitesimally close together. Without this, I believe it would have been impossible for any co-ordination to be established in the action of the nerve-matter of one brain.

• A finite interval of time generally contains an innumerable series of feelings; and when these become welded together in association the result is a general idea.

• The first character of a general idea so resulting is that it is living feeling. A continuum of this feeling, infinitesimal in duration, but still embracing innumerable parts, and also, though infinitesimal, entirely unlimited, is immediately present. And in its absence of boundedness a vague possibility of more than is present is directly felt.

• Second, in the presence of this continuity of feeling, nominalistic maxims appear futile. There is no doubt about one idea affecting another, when we can directly perceive the one generally modified and shaping itself into the other. Nor can there any longer be any difficulty about one idea resembling another, when we can pass along the continuous field of quality from one to the other and back again to the point which we had marked.

• Third, consider the insistency of an idea. The insistency of a past idea with reference to the present is a quantity which is less, the further back that past idea is, and rises to infinity as the past idea is brought up into coincidence with the present.

• Here we must make one of those inductive applications of the law of continuity which have produced such great results in all of the positive sciences. We must extend the law of insistency into the future. Plainly, the insistency of a future idea with reference to the present is a quantity affected by the minus sign; for it is the present that affects the future, if there be any effect, not the future that affects the present.

• Feeling which has not yet emerged into immediate consciousness is already affectible and already affected. In fact, this is habit, by virtue of which an idea is brought up into the present consciousness by a bond that has already been established between it and another idea while it was still in futuro.

• Whenever ideas come together they tend to weld into general ideas; and whenever they are generally connected, general ideas govern the connection; and these general ideas are living feelings spread out.

Collected Papers (1931-1958)

• Do not block the way of inquiry.
  • Vol. I, par. 135

• The idea does not belong to the soul; it is the soul that belongs to the idea.
  • Vol. I, par. 216

• Effort supposes resistance.
  • Vol. I, par. 320

• Every man is fully satisfied that there is such a thing as truth, or he would not ask any question.
  • Vol. V, par. 211

• To say, therefore, that thought cannot happen in an instant, but requires a time, is but another way of saying that every thought must be interpreted in another, or that all thought is in signs.
  • Vol. V, par. 254

• Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts.
  • Vol. V, par. 265

• Consider what effects that might conceivably have practical bearings you conceive the objects of your conception to have. Then, your conception of those effects is the whole of your conception of the object.
  • Vol. V, par. 438

• All the evolution we know of proceeds from the vague to the definite.
  • Vol. VI, par. 191

• Mere imagination would indeed be mere trifling; only no imagination is mere.
  • Vol. VI, par. 286

• Our whole past experience is continually in our consciousness, though most of it sunk to a great depth of dimness. I think of consciousness as a bottomless lake, whose waters seem transparent, yet into which we can clearly see but a little way.
  • Vol. VII, par. 547

External links

• Arisbe: The Peirce Gateway, Joseph Ransdell (ed.)
• Charles S. Peirce Society

• Transactions

• Charles S. Peirce Studies
• Charles Sanders Peirce, MacTutor History of Mathematics, O'Connor & Robertson
• Commens: Virtual Centre for Peirce Studies, University of Helsinki, Bergman & Paavola (eds.)

• Dictionary of Peirce Terms
• Peirce's Writings Online

• Digital Encyclopedia of Charles S. Peirce
• Grupo de Estudios Peirceanos, Jaime Nubiola (ed.)
• His Glassy Essence: Autobiography of Charles S. Peirce, Kenneth Laine Ketner
• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fieser & Dowden (eds.)

• Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), Albert Atkin
• C.S. Peirce's Architectonic Philosophy, Albert Atkin
• C.S. Peirce's Pragmatism, Albert Atkin

• Peirce, Charles Sanders (1839-1914), Ralph Lichtensteiger
• Peirce Edition Project

• Introduction to Essential Peirce, vol. 1, Nathan Houser
• Introduction to Essential Peirce, vol. 2, Nathan Houser

• Pragmatism Cybrary, John R. Shook (ed.)

• Cambridge School of Pragmaticm

• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.)

• Charles Sanders Peirce, Robert Burch
• Peirce's Logic, Eric Hammer

• Wikipédia, l’encyclopédie libre

• Philosophie et sémiotique de Peirce, Raymond Robert Tremblay.