"Unabridged and unaltered republication of the work originally published ... in 1950." Bibliographical footnotes.

Charles Peirce was one of those rare individuals, an expert logician who is at the same time an experienced practical scientist. His logical acumen was apparent even to his contemporaries; while an early training in chemistry, astronomy, geodesy and optics, left him, as he declares, “saturated through and through with the spirit of the physical sciences.“ One is therefore hardly surprised to discover that he was deeply interested in scientific methodology—particularly in the logic of induction. Indeed, it would not be (...) an exaggeration to say that some of his most significant contributions to philosophy were made in precisely this field. No apology is thus required for devoting attention to them. In the present paper I want to sketch his treatment of induction very briefly, and attempt a tentative estimate of its validity. (shrink)

Charles Peirce had a flair for asking fruitful questions and for proposing answers that did not block the way of inquiry. Typical examples occur in his philosophy of science where he raises issues that are still very much alive. They include such items as the nature and conditions of scientific progress, the grounds of human success in formulating theories, the completability of scientific knowledge, and the limits imposed by the economy of research. Because these are living issues, Peirce's ideas about (...) them invite examination as if he were our philosophical contemporary. Nicholas Rescher so examines them in his compact, timely book. His treatment is sympathetic but by no means uncritical, as might have been expected in view of the similarities and differences between his own position of methodological pragmatism and the pragmaticism of Peirce. The ensuing discussion thus seems to me worth looking at in a bit of detail. (shrink)