Abstract

As became clear in the wake of Joseph Brent 's presentation to this Society a year ago, the question of the relevance of biography to philosophy is a point of some controversy.0 On the one hand, the logic books warn us that it is an error either to condemn or praise a system of ideas on the basis of its author's life. In that direction lie the ad hominem, ad populum, and empty arguments from authority. We do well to beware of the genetic fallacy. On the other hand, we believe that philosophical ideas do have consequences for life, and we are right to look to their originators' lives for some indication of the consequences a system of ideas may have. Philosophers cannot stubbornly ignore Heidegger's association with the Nazis, or Jefferson's slaveholding. In such cases, biographical fact properly forces us to ask what a person was really thinking when he or she expressed some idea, or remained silent on a point we feel should obviously have been addressed. The context of signs that can be relevant for interpreting a philosopher's work does not consist only of written texts, as Peirce scholars should perhaps know better than anyone else