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Affordable "best of" the most influential U.S. philosopher
Someone once noted that the course of the average person's life is often determined by the ideas of thinkers of whom he/she has never heard.Charles Peirce, the father of Pragmatism, the most infuential 20th century philosophy ( the quintessentially American contribution to the canon of Western thought), and to a degree the modern scientific worldview, is such a figure.
Peirce's father was for many years chairman of the Math dept at Harvard, teacher to the plethora of great names and leaders who poured forth from that venerable institution to lead our nation through the mid 19th century.But Peirce's own professional aspirations were dashed by an unfortunate affair with the wife of a colleague during a brief tenure at Johns Hopkins, which led to his banishment from academe.For the duration of his rather long life (he died in 1914), he painfully eeked out a living in a government job and wrote some of the most powerful philosophy of all time.He lived outside of Cambridge, MA where a circle of young scholars who would rise to prominence (notably William James, who would, with Freud, essentially co-found the new science of psychology) gathered at his feet to imbibe the vision of a world that would come to be.
The thrust of Peirce's philosophy is the effort to place philosophy on a scientific basis. Peirce's belief was that the theoretical could only have value if practically applicable, and, in the words of the distinguished Buchler, who brilliantly edited, selected, and arranged the papers for this volume, "that the broadest speculative theories should be experimentally verifiable.This attitude rests on the conviction that philosophy is a branch of progressive inquiry rather than a species of art, and that the scientific method alone makes progressive inquiry possible."As opposed to intuitional, mystical, or strictly theoretical subjective processes of justification, prominent in the nineteeth century, Peirce extrolled the scientific method as a social, cooperative enterprise, where objective criteria could be established through processes of universal examination and consensus, by which we could honestly and openly take measure of the veracity of our ideas. Moreover, the scientific method was distinguished from other approaches, as "it conceives of its results as essentially provisional or corrigle" and thus "ensures measurable progress".This concept of "falliblism", the idea that no idea is beyond question, and no criterion for judgement, infallible, is the lynchpin of Peirce's democratization of thought, a gift for the ages.Thus Peirce's famous motto: "DO NOT BLOCK THE ROAD TO INQUIRY!"
These papers represent the finest issue of Peirce's massive output (much of which was unfortunately destroyed and/or lost)."The Fixation of Belief" and "How to Make Our Ideas Clear" ought to be read by anyone interested in participating in the democratic process.
Not to be overlooked is the eloquence, humor, and compassion found in these papers, and in testimony their effect, the greater part of us might agree with Peirce that, "We are, doubtless, in the main, logical animals, but we are not perfectly so." ... Read more

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A Constellation of Logical Gems--and More
People interested in the history and philosophy of logic will want to own this tour-de-force of selecting and editing. It contains large parts of Peirce's two most important contributions to mathematical logic: the 1880 "On the Algebra of Logic" and the 1885 "On the Algebra of Logic: A Contribution to the Philosophy of Notation" --both published in the American Journal of Mathematics, the same journal that brought out Russell's 1908 paper on the theory of types. Besides these two technical papers, which were influential in the development of mathematical logic, it also contains several more papers essential to understanding Peirce's philosophy of logic.

Foundation material for how we think
I came to this book because I was inspired by "the Metaphysical Club" to learn more about the roots of pragmatism. The book is challenging. The Metaphysical Club points out that William James did not understand Peirce at first, so it is a bit much for mere mortals. It is especially daunting because the first essay is written with respect to Kant's categories, not something I know off of the top-of-my head.
However, as the books progresses many of the things that are assumed in the first essay are explained. For instance Peirce explains in detail what he means by a sign.

He discusses cognition, or consciousness and shows that logically our internal experience is based on external stimulation. It soon becomes impossible to ignore the fact that you are reading the works of a logician and that that is where he is coming from. But even though you might have to reread parts several times, once you master the arguements, it is satisfying indeed.

According to the introduction of the book and references, Peirce was influential. William James, Oliver Wendel Holmes and John Dewey were all influenced by him.Modern cognitive psychology owes much to William James. Psychology took a different direction through psychoanalysis and then behaviorism but cognitive psychology is now the dominate paradigm.Because of this Peirce has renewed importance.

My advice is to read it through once and not feel you have to get everything and the reread it because he explains things later that he assmes you know earlier. ... Read more

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A well written basic overview of Peirce's writing.
This book covers the early work of Charles SandersPeirce, the father of Pragmatism.Starting withhis seminal work on signs and triadic relations, this book covers a smattering of topics from the importance ofconveying what we mean to the concept of Pragmaticism. As the recognizedfounderof american philosophy, this book shows a diverse picture of thework created by this remarkable man. ... Read more

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An American Philosopher in the Grand Manner
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839 -1914) was an eccentric American genius and the founder of the philosophy generally known as pragmatism.A difficult, erratic, and sometimes violent man, he was denied in his attempts to secure an academic position and spent the last several years of his life in near isolation at his home, called Arisbe, near Milford, Pennsylvania. Peirce may be America's most significant philosopher.Yet he never produced a book.His reputation, insofar as it is based on his written work, is based on essays he wrote throughout his life and on large manuscripts which his admirers saw through to publication beginning shortly after his death.

Professor Kenneth Ketner, the author of this "autobiography" of Peirce, is an acknoledged authority on Peirce's life and thought. He calls this book, "His Glassy Essence" an "autobiography" because it is based in large part upon a selection of Peirce's writings and letters arranged to tell the story of his life.As Professor Ketner states, however, the book is also in part fiction.It includes three fictitious characters, the narrator, Ike, a writer of mysteries, his wife Betsey, a nurse, and Roy, a Harvard PhD in philosophy who allegedly knew and studied with Peirce.The story line involves Ike taking an interest in Peirce based upon an old box of Peirce's papers that Betsey has inherited.Roy comes into the story to provide information about Peirce and, not accidentally, some excellent discussions on the nature of philosophy.

The mechanism creaks at times.The story line is artificial although Roy has many insightful things to say in commenting on Peirce.It is difficult to separate fact from fiction in the account of Peirce because many of his letters and essays seem to be melded together from sources written at different times and places.Ketner's protestations notwithstanding, it is difficult to be convinced of the accuracy of the account presented here as scholarly biography.Finally, this book covers essentially only the first 28 years of Peirce's life (with forwards to his death and to some of his subsequent writings.) There are two promised sequels which are to continue the story through the remainder of Peirce's life.

For all the difficulties, I came away from this book with a better understanding of Peirce and some inkling of the development of his thought.Peirce's own distinctive ideas beging to be developed only in the last third or so of this book.The earlier sections deal largely with Peirce's years in college when he was deeply under the influence of Kant.

The book makes a good case that Peirce's work is narrowed unduly when he is viewed simply as one of the first American pragmatists.He was in fact a philosopher in the large manner concerned about science, about logic and categories in an expansive sense of these terms, and about God. He was an empiricist in the broadest sense that William James developed with his term "radical empiricism".I also see strong parallels in the account of Peirce given in this book to Husserl's phenomenology.

Peirce tought the distinction between knowledge, or the accumulation of facts, and wisdom and meaning which cannot be learned from the books.He developed the philosophy of signs called semiotics and invented a personal and highly idiosyncratic philosophical vocabulary, including terms such as "Cenopythagoreanism" (see page 342) which stretch the casual reader' patience and may stretch the more serious reader's mind.

This book gives an excellent picture of the philosophic mind, in the person of Charles Peirce, and of the serious and consuming nature of philosophic inquiry.It is not a book to read for a full account either of Peirce's life or his thought.It does capture something of the spirit of the man and the thinker.

Readers who want a historically based account of Peirce and his times might enjoy "The Metaphysical Club" by Louis Menand. Ketner's book is cited in the references for Menand and it covers much of the same ground, Peirce's life, his relationship to his father, the mathematician Benjamin Peirce, the metaphysical club which met briefly at Harvard in the 1870s, the effect of the Civil War on American pragmatism, and much else.The distinctive value of Ketner's book, I think, is that for all its problems it will allow the reader to see Peirce from the inside out.

"Glassy Essence" is a valuable resource
For me the book, "His Glassy Essence," has been invaluable. Ketner has pulled together information about Peirce's early life that I could not possibly have gotten to on my own. Since I am not attached to anyinstitution, I do not have access to any unpublished documents. I am notsure I would have been able to find the information Ketner has laid out inthis book even if I had such access. He has pulled together a great deal ofinformation from diverse sources and put these scattered pieces together inchronological and contextual order.

This book has been immensely helpfulto me for coming to understand the provenance of Peirce's pragmatism. Now,it is obvious to me that there was no abrupt beginning to the developmentof Peirce's pragmatic theory. Now that I know of his early exposure toqualitative discernment and aesthetics, I can identify these as central tothe evolution of his theory of abduction-something I have suspected allalong, but had been unable to nail down because of the lack of achronological and contextual framework for Peirce's early life.

Theauthor did a fine job of referencing information, providing page by pagenotes at the end of the book. These references were noted in such a waythat they do not interfere with the reading of the text--which unfolds in astory-like way, enabling me to see how Peirce fit within his context. Thebiographical and temperamental information concerning Peirce's father, forexample, fleshed out the cultural and familial milieu in which he wasraised-seemingly as a crown prince of the intellectual world for which hisfather was a sort of king.

Although there are minor discrepancies (suchas a brother who seems to have been left out)and occasional confusions whenfollowing the story line, I think that this book is going to be very usefulfor anyone wanting to know about the early Peirce. I am finding "HisGlassy Essence" especially useful as a reference tool. I suspect thatother independent researchers, like myself, who are working with Peirce'sideas, but do not have access to unpublished materials by or about him willfind this book useful as well.

Experience the Transforming Power of this book for yourself
As a Peircean supporter of personal inquiry I can't in good conscience write a traditional "review" like the Kirkus one which dominates this page.I write to encourage everybody to disregard the Kirkus commentsand explore His Glassy Essence (and their own, in turn) for themselves.

Having read the correspondence between Ketner and Percy in Thief ofPeirce, I know that Percy commissioned Ketner to write this volume.Thatsaid, I believe that Charles S Peirce, Walker Percy, and Kenneth L. Ketnerare all speaking to any person whose interests run toward open-minded,evaluative, and exploratory inquiry into Life.What better way to discoveryour own Way than to see it in the life of another, namelyPeirce.

Personally, I have no doubt in my heart that Percy would bepleased with Ketner's first installment of the life of CS Peirce.But, byall means, don't take anyone's word for it --- be Percy's sovereignwayfarer, pick up a copy of HGE, and discover Peirce's transformative powerfor you own self! ... Read more

Book Description
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) is rapidly becoming recognized as the greatest American philosopher.At the center of his philosophy was a revolutionary model of the way human beings think.Peirce, a logician, challenged traditional models by describing thoughts not as "ideas" but as "signs," external to the self and without meaning unless interpreted by a subsequent thought.His general theory of signs—or semiotic—is especially pertinent to methodologies currently being debated in many disciplines.

This anthology, the first one-volume work devoted to Peirce's writings on semiotic, provides a much-needed, basic introduction to a complex aspect of his work.James Hoopes has selected the most authoritative texts and supplemented them with informative headnotes.His introduction explains the place of Peirce's semiotic in the history of philosophy and compares Peirce's theory of signs totheories developed in literature and linguistics. ... Read more

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Signs on
Selection of writings by Peirce. Short, clear introductions with every 'article'. Good have been longer. ... Read more

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Hausman has written a book whose purpose is to present Peirce's evolutionary realism as his systematic position.The book follows the thread of Peirce's Pragmaticism from its conception, through the theory of signs, the phenomenology and derivation of the categories to the concept of Synechism, which Hausman takes as the heart of Peirce's evolutionary realism. This is a well-organized discussion of Peirce's work, introducing a continuity to his theories. This book is recommended for upper-level undergraduate philosophy majors and graduate students, as well as professional philosophers. ... Read more

Book Description
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), the founder of pragmatism, is generally considered the most significant American philosopher. Popularized by William James and John Dewey, pragmatism advocates that our philosophical theories be linked to experience and practice.The essays in this volume reveal how Peirce developed this concept. ... Read more

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"This is essential reading for anyone who wants to find common ground between the best of American semiotics and better-known European theories. Deledalle has done more than anyone else to introduce Peirce to European audiences, and now he sends Peirce home with some new flare." --Nathan Houser, Director, Peirce Edition Project ... Read more

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Terrific insight into the man behind the philosophy
This book contains a great deal of information on the life of a sadly-neglected philosopher; one of the most brilliant Americans of the 19th century.Dr. Brent has a wonderful, at times even poetic, writingstyle, and he has "lived" with Peirce so long that he hasexcellent insight into the man behind the philosophy. Struggling throughPeirce in a class?This book may not make his philosophy"easy"--but it will make him more human.

Excellent
This is a very good biography of an overlooked great American thinker.Mr. Brent does a good job of recounting the life of Peirce without getting bogged down in the details of Peirce's philosophy which is well documentedin several other books. The book also attempts to analyze Peirce'sbehavoir and why he failed as an academic, something that desperatelyneeded to be done.As Peirce's reputation inevitatably increases, thisbiography will become a classic reference to this very interestingAmerican. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Terrific insight into the man behind the philosophy
This book contains a great deal of information on the life of a sadly-neglected philosopher; one of the most brilliant Americans of the 19th century.Dr. Brent has a wonderful, at times even poetic, writingstyle, and he has "lived" with Peirce so long that he hasexcellent insight into the man behind the philosophy. Struggling throughPeirce in a class?This book may not make his philosophy"easy"--but it will make him more human.

Excellent
This is a very good biography of an overlooked great American thinker.Mr. Brent does a good job of recounting the life of Peirce without getting bogged down in the details of Peirce's philosophy which is well documentedin several other books. The book also attempts to analyze Peirce'sbehavoir and why he failed as an academic, something that desperatelyneeded to be done.As Peirce's reputation inevitatably increases, thisbiography will become a classic reference to this very interestingAmerican. ... Read more

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Splendid example of American Philosophy
Have you ever wondered what makes America?What is patriotism?What is right and wrong within YOUR society? Peirce helps in your discovery of who you are among your people.He preaches, but as any good philosopher,expects his readers to think hard.Not for beginners, but entertaining. ... Read more

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This succinct and lucid study examines the thought of the philosopher Charles Peirce as it applies to literary theory and shows that his concept of the sign can give us a fresh understanding of literary art and criticism. John Sheriff analyzes the treatment of determinate meaning and contends that as long as we cling to a notion of language that begins with Saussure's dyadic definition of signs, meaning cannot be treated as such any more than can essence or presence. Asserting that Peirce's less familiar position offers a way out of this difficulty, Sheriff first discusses the Saussurean-based theory of meaning and then argues for the advantages of the radically different triadic theory developed by Peirce.Part One of the work reviews and critiques the treatment of meaning in works by Jonathan Culler, Tzvetan Todorov, Stanley Fish, Roland Barthes, and Jacques Derrida, among others. The focus of this section is on the treatment of meaning in structural and post-structural theories and their common basis in Saussurean linguistics. Part Two provides a readable introduction to Peirce's general theory of signs and develops comprehensively the implications of his semiotic. The substitution of his theory for Saussure's opens our eyes to new and cogent answers to many questions relevant to the meaning of texts. ... Read more

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. ... Read more

Book Description
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) is regarded by many as the greatest American philosopher there has been. Best known as the founder of pragmatism - the philosophy that assesses the meaning of what we say by its practical consequences - his writings cover an enormous range of subjects. A highly original thinker, Peirce's influence can be found in ethics, aesthetics, symbolic logic, religion, epistemology and metaphysics, as well as scientific topics.

The greater part of Peirce's papers were unpublished during his lifetime and upon his death several hundred manuscripts were left to Harvard University. The editors succeeded in creating an order out of what had seemed to all, including Peirce himself, to be a disarray of papers and fragments. When the Collected Papers were published, the philosophical world recognized for the first time the depth, variety and power of Peirce's philosophy. The 8-volume collection includes Peirce's writings on general philosophy, logic, pragmatism, metaphysics, experimental science, scientific method and philosophy of mind, as well as reviews and correspondence. Out of print for many years, this major work is once again available to libraries and scholars. ... Read more

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"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 ... Read more

Book Description
Volume 6 of this landmark edition contains 66 writings mainly from the unsettled period in Peirce's life just after he moved from New York to Milford, Pennsylvania, followed shortly afterward by the death of his mother. The writings in this volume reveal Peirce's powerful mind probing into diverse issues, looking for an underlying unity but, perhaps, also looking for direction. ... Read more

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A great thinker deserves a great book
The eight volumes of the Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, published by Harvard University Press, have been one of the most important sources for references on Peirce. But since 1958 - the year Arthur Burks edited the last volume - some other editions became public, complementing the Collected Papers. Surely it demonstrates the increasing academic interest on Peircean works, but at the same time it represents a problem for making unambiguous reference citations on the original manuscripts. Nowadays we need to recognize the efforts of Indiana University's Peirce Edition Project in publishing the complete writings of Peirce in a chronological edition (6 volumes available, 30 projected). It is the most important contribution in recent times to those who are really interested in the writings of Charles Peirce, one of the most important and influential american philosopher. ... Read more

Book Description

Volumes I-VI of the Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce are being reissued in response to a growing interest in Peirce's thought--a development that was prophesied by John Dewey when he reviewed the first volume of these papers on their appearance in 1931. Writing in The New Republic, Mr. Dewey said, "Nothing much will happen in philosophy as long as a main object among philosophers is defense of some formulated historical position. I do not know of any other thinker more calculated than Peirce to give emancipation from the intellectual fortifications of the past and to arouse a fresh imagination."

... Read more

Book Description

Volumes 1-VI of the Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce are being reissued in response to a growing interest in Peirce's thought - a development that was prophesied by John Dewey when he reviewed the first volume of these papers on their appearance in 1931. Writing in The New Republic, Mr. Dewey said, "Nothing much will happen in philosophy as long as a main object among philosophers is defense of some formulated historical position. I do not know of any other thinker more calculated than Peirce to give emancipation from the intellectual fortifications of the past and to arouse a fresh imagination."

Originally published as six separate volumes, the Peirce papers appear in the new Belknap Press edition in three handsome books of two volumes each. The content is identical with that of the original edition: Volume I, Principles of Philosophy; Volume II, Elements of Logic; Volume III, Exact Logic; Volume IV, The Simplest Mathematics; Volume V, Pragmatism and Pragmaticism; Volume VI, Scientific Metaphysics.

This republication presents the seminal concepts of a writer described in John Dewey's article as "the most original philosophical mind this country has produced."

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The last Great Enlightenment Philosopher
If you still believe that the enlightenment is more convincing than unquestioned ignorance (or what amounts to the same thing--a philosophical return to fundamentalist authoritarinism hidden within a philosophy of what is thought to be radically 'other')this book is a great book to have.Or if you are convinced by the arguments of Habermas but wish that he would stop apologising and parsing words with himself, then this brilliant and above all clear book by Karl-otto Apel is for you.Apel is one of the last philosophers left who can make a strong argument in favour of reason.He is thelast great scientific and rational humanist left in an intellectual landscape which is more and more looking like an ode to the ultimate demise of reason and sanity. ... Read more