Peirce's Theory of Inquiry and Beyond


Book Description

About a decade ago, an antagonistic debate on the 'science war' arose on both sides of the Atlantic. At issue was how far the social sciences could intervene in disentangling the practice of science. The debate has now calmed down, but has by no means been solved. As a continuation of the antagonism that once haunted the advocates of Karl Popper against those of Thomas Kuhn, versions of this animated debate are likely to arise again. In this light, the theory of inquiry once launched by Charles S. Peirce may prove valuable. Despite early efforts by, amongst others, Karl-Otto Apel and Juergen Habermas, Peirce's theory of inquiry remains largely unknown in the social sciences. It is the aim of this publication - the bulk of which was written long ago as a doctoral thesis - to place Peirce's theory of inquiry in the centre of social science theory.




Peirce's Pragmatic Theory of Inquiry


Book Description

A ground-breaking study of one of America's greatest philosophers




The Pragmatic Maxim


Book Description

Christopher Hookway presents a series of essays on the work of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1913), the 'founder of pragmatism' and one of the most important and original American philosophers. He illuminates how Peirce's writings on truth, science, and the nature of meaning contribute to philosophical understanding in ongoing debates.




Peirce and the Threat of Nominalism


Book Description

Charles Peirce, the founder of pragmatism, was a thinker of extraordinary depth and range - he wrote on philosophy, mathematics, psychology, physics, logic, phenomenology, semiotics, religion and ethics - but his writings are difficult and fragmentary. This book provides a clear and comprehensive explanation of Peirce's thought. His philosophy is presented as a systematic response to 'nominalism', the philosophy which he most despised and which he regarded as the underpinning of the dominant philosophical worldview of his time. The book explains Peirce's challenge to nominalism as a theory of meaning and shows its implications for his views of knowledge, truth, the nature of reality, and ethics. It will be essential reading both for Peirce scholars and for those new to his work.




Peirce's Theory of Signs


Book Description

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.




Consensus on Peirce’s Concept of Habit


Book Description

This book constitutes the first treatment of C. S. Peirce’s unique concept of habit. Habit animated the pragmatists of the 19th and early 20th centuries, who picked up the baton from classical scholars, principally Aristotle. Most prominent among the pragmatists thereafter is Charles Sanders Peirce. In our vernacular, habit connotes a pattern of conduct. Nonetheless, Peirce’s concept transcends application to mere regularity or to human conduct; it extends into natural and social phenomena, making cohesive inner and outer worlds. Chapters in this anthology define and amplify Peircean habit; as such, they highlight the dialectic between doubt and belief. Doubt destabilizes habit, leaving open the possibility for new beliefs in the form of habit-change; and without habit-change, the regularity would fall short of habit – conforming to automatic/mechanistic systems. This treatment of habit showcases how, through human agency, innovative regularities of behavior and thought advance the process of making the unconscious conscious. The latter materializes when affordances (invariant habits of physical phenomena) form the basis for modifications in action schemas and modes of reasoning. Further, the book charts how indexical signs in language and action are pivotal in establishing attentional patterns; and how these habits accommodate novel orientations within event templates. It is intended for those interested in Peirce’s metaphysic or semiotic, including both senior scholars and students of philosophy and religion, psychology, sociology and anthropology, as well as mathematics, and the natural sciences.




A General Introduction to the Semiotic of Charles Sanders Peirce


Book Description

"This definitive text is the single best work on Peirce's semeiotic (as Peirce would have spelled it) allowing scholars to extrapolate beyond Peirce or to apply him to new areas..." -- Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy Newsletter "... indispensable introduction to Peirce's semiotics." -- Teaching Philosophy "Both for students new to Peirce and for the advanced student, this is an excellent and unique reference book. It should be available in libraries at all... colleges and universities." -- Choice "The best and most balanced full account of Peirce's semiotic which contributes not only to semiotics but to philosophy. Liszka's book is the sourcebook for scholars in general." -- Nathan Houser Although 19th-century philosopher and scientist Charles Sanders Peirce was a prolific writer, he never published his work on signs in any organized fashion, making it difficult to grasp the scope of his thought. In this book, Liszka presents a systematic and comprehensive acount of Peirce's theory, including the role of semiotic in the system of sciences, with a detailed analysis of its three main branches -- grammar, critical logic, and universal rhetoric.




Philosophy Is Not a Luxury


Book Description

This book is about the profound utility of philosophy. It is rooted in the conviction that philosophy is not a luxury-it is a necessity that none of us can afford to ignore.This is not an instruction manual for inquiry or a collection of philosophical ideas to adopt. It is not written it in order to tell you what to think, but rather to give you some things to think about. The philosophical ideas most discussed in this book are those held by the classical American philosophers Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey. These three brilliant minds were the originators of the philosophy called pragmatism, which remains to this day America's most significant contribution to world philosophy.




Education beyond Crisis


Book Description

This book intends to find a common path for diverse approaches meant to reach a better vision on the future of education, to adapt it to the most spectacular and rapid changes in the modern world. Remarkable education specialists bring their research into this volume that collects the best ideas and solutions presented in the 19th Biennial Conference of the International Study Association on Teachers and Teaching (Sibiu, Romania, July 2019). The 17 chapters of this book promote a hopeful vision on the future of education as proclaimed in the title: Education beyond Crisis: Challenges and Directions in a Multicultural World. The volume focuses on three major ideas: defining directions for the future of teaching, challenges of the contemporary teaching context, and teaching in a multicultural world. The volume itself stands for the multicultural approach of education, as the contributors propose a unitary picture on education, in the contexts of national educative programs or inclusive education for the refugee children. Well-known researchers answer important questions on the effectiveness of educational reforms and education policies in different countries. They take into account the student voice or the teachers' opinions in teaching and designing the new curriculum. The volume includes researches based on case studies, interviews, surveys, qualitative analysis, and original researching instruments. Readers will find here not only the vision of a multicultural world, but also valuable ideas on education in Austria, Brazil, Canada, Portugal, Germany, Greece, India, Italy, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Serbia, Spain, Singapore, Romania, Turkey, and the United States. Contributors are: Christiana Deliewen Afrikaner, Laura Sara Agrati, Ana Flavia Souza Aquiar, Neelofar Ahmed, Douwe Beijaard, Terence Titus Chia, Cheryl J. Craig, Feyza Doyran, Estela Ene, Maria Assunção Flores, Maria Antonella Galanti, Paula Martín Gómez, Christos Govaris, Heng Jiang, Stavroula Kaldi, Ria George Kallumkal, Manpreet Kaur, Julia Köhler, Malathy Krishnasamy, Virginia Grazia Iris Magoga, Maria Ines Marcondes, Paulien C. Meijer, Juanjo Mena, Raluca Muresan, Ingeborg van der Neut, Ida E. Oosterheert, Darlene Ciuffetelli Parker, Loredana Perla, Cui Ping, Snežana Obradović-Ratković, Maria Luisa Garcia Rodriquez, Minodora Salcudean, Gonny Schellings, Antonis Smyrnaios, Sydney Sparks, Alexandra Stavrianoudaki, Vassiliki Tzika, Evgenia Vassilaki, Viviana Vinci, Kari-Lynn Winters, Vera E. Woloshyn, Tamara Zappaterra, and Gang Zhu.




Beyond Physicalism


Book Description

The rise of modern science has brought with it increasing acceptance among intellectual elites of a worldview that conflicts sharply both with everyday human experience and with beliefs widely shared among the world’s great cultural traditions. Most contemporary scientists and philosophers believe that reality is at bottom purely physical, and that human beings are nothing more than extremely complicated biological machines. On such views our everyday experiences of conscious decision-making, free will, and the self are illusory by-products of the grinding of our neural machinery. It follows that mind and personality are necessarily extinguished at death, and that there exists no deeper transpersonal or spiritual reality of any sort. Beyond Physicalism is the product of an unusual fellowship of scientists and humanities scholars who dispute these views. In their previous publication, Irreducible Mind, they argued that physicalism cannot accommodate various well-evidenced empirical phenomena including paranormal or psi phenomena, postmortem survival, and mystical experiences. In this new theory-oriented companion volume they go further by attempting to understand how the world must be constituted in order that these “rogue” phenomena can occur. Drawing upon empirical science, metaphysical philosophy, and the mystical traditions, the authors work toward an improved “big picture” of the general character of reality, one which strongly overlaps territory traditionally occupied by the world’s institutional religions, and which attempts to reconcile science and spirituality by finding a middle path between the polarized fundamentalisms, religious and scientific, that have dominated recent public discourse. Contributions by: Harald Atmanspacher, Loriliai Biernacki, Bernard Carr, Wolfgang Fach, Michael Grosso, Michael Murphy, David E. Presti, Gregory Shaw, Henry P. Stapp, Eric M. Weiss, and Ian Whicher