12/10/21

Not a bad read. Quite dry though. Peirce was a Scotist logician; and that doesn't make for an incredibly enjoyable read. My preference is for the more speculative metaphysical philosophies; but I don't mind studying rigorous epistemology on occasion.
Peirce was the founder of what came to be known as "pragmatism"; or as he later preferred to call it: "pragmaticism", to differentiate his approach from that of William James, who was influenced by Peirce. Peirce was also a pioneer in the study of semeiotics.
This book was cobbled together from numerous sources, including periodicals. It is rather a rough sketch of Peirce's output and one does get the feeling that much is lacking in the presentation; although, I must admit that it probably does merit reading more than once because his thought is often quite involved, more involved than can be fathomed from one reading alone. I have to say that one thing that caught my attention was his criticisms of Descartes, which are basically almost identical with my criticisms of him. Peirce spends a goodly amount of time dismissing different brands of philosophy in order to bolster pragmaticism and his more speculative semi-religious application he referred to as "agapism"; which is in some manner based on the New Testament, but which he also feels is in some sense practical and empirical.
Decent book. I doubt I'll be revisiting it anytime soon though. He does go over numerous subjects, including evolution, chance, probability, science, God, tychism etc. Too much to really elucidate in this review. If logic and epistemology are your cup of tea than Peirce is certainly worth reading ( )