Peirce's Epistemology

by W.H. Davis

Overview

This work is an essay in Peirce's epistemology, with about an equal emphasis on the "epistemology" as on the "Peirce's." In other words our intention has not been to write exclusively a piece of Peirce scholarship hence, the reader will find no elaborate tying in of Peirce's epistemology to other portions of his thought, no great emphasis on the chronology of his thought, etc. Peirce scholarship is a painstaking business. His mind was Labyrinthine, his terminology intricate, and his writings are, as he himself confessed, "a snarl of twine." This book rather is intended perhaps even primarily as an essay in epistemology, taking Peirce's as the focal point. The book thus addresses a general philosophical audience and bears as much on the wider issue as on the man. I hope therefore that readers will give their critical attention to the problem of knowledge and the sugges­ tions we have developed around that problem and will not look here in the hope of finding an exhaustive piece of Peirce scholarship.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789024712960
Publisher:	Springer Netherlands
Publication date:	07/31/1972
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1972
Pages:	163
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.01(d)

Table of Contents

I. Inference: The Essence of All Thought.- A. There would be no telling of an intuition if we had one.- B. As a matter of fact the mind works inferentially.- C. Knowing is a process in time.- D. There is no intuitive self-consciousness.- E. Peirce’s divergence from Kant.- F. Thought is sign activity.- II. Hypothesis or Abduction: The Originative Phase of Reasoning.- A. Deduction, Induction, and Abduction.- B. A suggested solution to the problem of induction.- C. Abduction and explanation.- D. What kind of abductions are meaningful, significant, admissible?.- E. The hypothesis of God: a test case.- F. Peirce and James.- G. Peirce and Kant.- H. Peirce and John Wisdom.- III. Fallibilism: The Self-Corrective Feature of Thought.- A. The notion of “meaning” examined on Peircean principles.- B. Organism and Interdependence in knowledge.- IV. Concrete Reasonableness: Cooperation Between Reason and Instinct.- A. Abduction is inference guided by nature’s hand.- B. Evolution and Critical-commonsensism.- C. Theory and Practice.- V. The Cartesian Circle: A Final Look at Scepticism.- A. The theory of types as applied to ordinary language.- B. Believing is seeing.- C. Conclusions.- Indez.