Abstract

One of the crucial debates within pragmatism concerns the import of Charles S. Peirce’s “pragmatic maxim.” The aim of this article is to show that Peirce maintains a twofold attitude toward his maxim. I would call this twofold approach ‘problematical,’ not because it is the origin of inconsistencies within Peirce’s thought, but because the collocation and use of the pragmatic maxim constitutes a genuine problem upon which Peirce continued to reflect throughout his life.1 This problem concerns the relationship among semantics, metaphysics, and what Peirce called the “Normative Sciences,” i.e., the inquiry into the correct normative criteria for human self-control.On the one hand, Peirce stresses repeatedly that his..