I spent 18 years as a faculty member at SUNY Fredonia. I moved to my position at West Point in 1995, and assumed teaching duties at Buffalo in fall of 2000. In addition to my dissertation, I have published extensively on the history and philosophy of logic, especially on Peirce and the..
Few philosophers today know much about Charles Peirce’s metaphysics, although a great many know something about his epistemology, philosophy of science, and logic. Indeed, few Peirce experts have written much on his metaphysics or made it the focus of their research. To an extent, this is understandable. Peirce’s writings were left in a disastrously disorganized state (mostly unpublished), and the crucial papers on metaphysics from his later years have not yet been republished in the first-rate chronological edition, the incomplete Writings (...) of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition , edited at Indianapolis by my friends. And then there is Peirce’s writing: an awkward, abrasive, arrogant, eclectic style that demands technical knowledge in diverse fields, especially logic, mathematics, and the natural sciences. His worst personality traits manifested themselves in his highly technical metaphysics—with its idiosyncratic, anti-Cantorian conception of continua, a pecularly mathematical phenomenology, and elaborate views on Darwinian and non-Darwinian evolution, for example. Finally, there is what might appear to be the bizarreness of the theory itself, as we shall see. Peirce was a kind of philosophical swashbuckler, a bold, courageous speculator on philosophical questions beyond most of our temperaments even to ponder. Ours is not the philosophical age of Errol Flynn but the minimalist age of Harrison Ford, with no grand gestures or speeches, just a series of small, no-nonsense gestures: we typically like our philosophy short, neat, "science-like," and isolated from other philosophical issues. (shrink)
If I look from the outside at the practices of a discipline—any discipline—and see some members declaring themselves to be upholders of one “ism,” or labeling others’ views as representatives of some other failed or flawed “ism,” then I would frankly form the suspicion that this is an immature profession, not quite developed. It has tendencies to fall into modes of discourse that are more characteristic of religious or political fealty and factionalism.
Few philosophers today know much about Charles Peirce’s metaphysics, although a great many know something about his epistemology, philosophy of science, and logic. Indeed, few Peirce experts have written much on his metaphysics or made it the focus of their research. To an extent, this is understandable. Peirce’s writings were left in a disastrously disorganized state (mostly unpublished), and the crucial papers on metaphysics from his later years have not yet been republished in the first-rate chronological edition, the incomplete Writings (...) of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition , edited at Indianapolis by my friends. And then there is Peirce’s writing: an awkward, abrasive, arrogant, eclectic style that demands technical knowledge in diverse fields, especially logic, mathematics, and the natural sciences. His worst personality traits manifested themselves in his highly technical metaphysics—with its idiosyncratic, anti-Cantorian conception of continua, a pecularly mathematical phenomenology, and elaborate views on Darwinian and non-Darwinian evolution, for example. Finally, there is what might appear to be the bizarreness of the theory itself, as we shall see. Peirce was a kind of philosophical swashbuckler, a bold, courageous speculator on philosophical questions beyond most of our temperaments even to ponder. Ours is not the philosophical age of Errol Flynn but the minimalist age of Harrison Ford, with no grand gestures or speeches, just a series of small, no-nonsense gestures: we typically like our philosophy short, neat, "science-like," and isolated from other philosophical issues. (shrink)
Philosophers have almost always said something about emotions and passions whenever they have discussed human mental life. Many have asserted that it is some emotions or, more broadly, passions, that are to be primarily valued and sought. These valued passionate states of mind might include emotions, moods, desires, belief-like feelings of conviction and commitment, and romantic or erotic love, which are typically scarcely distinguished. Not only are these states of mind lumped together, but the reasons why they are valued may (...) likewise be various: they may be valued because of their intrinsic feeling (especially insofar as they are intense), through their long-term or deep effects on the rest of our practical and mental lives, through their effects on others’ lives, or even in the glimpse they give us of an object that transcends our mundane and superficial concerns, as in love, peak experiences, or intimations of God, Beauty, or Nature. Others have claimed that it is in the subduing or elimination of some or all of these passions that the ideal human life consists. Again, what precisely are the objectionable passions is typically not delineated, and why such mental states are objectionable may be diverse and even unspecified. One might resent their "disruptive" nature on our mental life, especially insofar as some of them stem from external, uncontrollable sources, and instead seek a calm state that is within one’s control and not subject to these whimsical externalities. Or one can see many or all passions as disruptive of control and success in our inner or outer life, or in the lives of others. We might call this latter group the anti-emotional Rationalists, and the former group the pro-emotional Romantics. (shrink)
CHARLES S.PEIRCE(ED.), Studies in logic by members of the Johns Hopkins University. Original Preface by Peirce, new introduction by Max H. Fisch, new preface by Achim Eschbach. A Reprint of the original 1883 edition. Amsterdam andPhiladelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1983, lviii + vi + 203 pp. No price stated.
In this essay, I discuss some observations by Peirce which suggest he had some idea of the substantive metalogical differences between logics which permit both quantifiers and relations, and those which do not. Peirce thus seems to have had arguments?which even De Morgan and Frege lacked?that show the superior expressiveness of relational logics.
