Pragmaticism

"Pragmaticism" is a term used by Charles

Sanders Peirce for his pragmatic
philosophy starting in 1905, in order to
distance himself and it from pragmatism,
the original name, which had been used in
a manner he did not approve of in the
"literary journals". Peirce in 1905
announced his coinage "pragmaticism",
saying that it was "ugly enough to be safe
from kidnappers" (Collected Papers (CP)
5.414). Today, outside of philosophy,
"pragmatism" is often taken to refer to a
compromise of aims or principles, even a
ruthless search for mercenary advantage.
Peirce gave other or more specific reasons
for the distinction in a surviving draft letter
that year and in later writings. Peirce's
pragmatism, that is, pragmaticism,
differed in Peirce's view from other
pragmatisms by its commitments to the
spirit of strict logic, the immutability of
truth, the reality of infinity, and the
difference between (1) actively willing to
control thought, to doubt, to weigh
reasons, and (2) willing not to exert the
will, willing to believe.[2] In his view his
pragmatism is, strictly speaking, not itself
a whole philosophy, but instead a general
method for the clarification of ideas. He
first publicly formulated his pragmatism
as an aspect of scientific logic along with
principles of statistics and modes of
inference in his "Illustrations of the Logic
of Science" series of articles in 1877-8.
Pragmatic maxim
Whether one chooses to call it
"pragmatism" or "pragmaticism"—and
Peirce himself was not always consistent
about it even after the notorious renaming
—his conception of pragmatic philosophy
is based on one or another version of the
so-called "pragmatic maxim". Here is one
of his more emphatic statements of it:

Pragmaticism was originally

enounced in the form of a
 maxim, as follows: Consider
what effects, that might
conceivably have practical
bearings, you conceive the
objects of your conception to
have. Then, your conception of
those effects is the whole of your
conception of the object (CP
5.438).[3]

In the 1909 Century Dictionary Supplement,

the entry for pragmaticism by John
Dewey[4] was
pragmaticism (prag-mat′i-
sizm), n. [pragmatic + ism.] A
special and limited form of
pragmatism, in which the
pragmatism is restricted to the
determining of the meaning of
concepts (particularly of
philosophic concepts) by
consideration of the
experimental differences in the
conduct of life which would
conceivably result from the
affirmation or denial of the
meaning in question.

He [the writer] framed the

theory that a conception, that
is, the rational purport of a
word or other expression, lies
exclusively in its conceivable
bearing upon the conduct of
life. . . . To serve the precise
purpose of expressing the
original definition, he begs to
announce the birth of the
 word "pragmaticism."
     C. S. Peirce, in The Monist,
April, 1905, p. 166.

Pragmatism's origin
Pragmatism as a philosophical movement
originated in 1872 in discussions in The
Metaphysical Club among Peirce, William
James, Chauncey Wright, John Fiske,
Francis Ellingwood Abbot, Nicholas St.
John Green, and Joseph Bangs Warner.
The first use in print of the name
pragmatism appears to have been in 1898
by James, who credited Peirce with having
coined the name during the early 1870s.[5]

James, among others, regarded Peirce's

1877-8 "Illustrations of the Logic of
Science" series, especially "How to Make
Our Ideas Clear" (1878) as pragmatism's
foundation.[6] Peirce (CP 5.11-12), like
James[7] saw pragmatism as embodying
familiar attitudes, in philosophy and
elsewhere, elaborated into a new
deliberate method of thinking and
resolving dilemmas. Peirce differed from
James and the early John Dewey, in some
of their tangential enthusiasms, in being
decidedly more rationalistic and realistic,
in several senses of those terms,
throughout the preponderance of his own
philosophical moods.

In a 1906 manuscript,[8] Peirce wrote that,

in the Metaphysical Club decades earlier,
Nicholas St. John Green

often urged the importance of

applying Bain's definition of
 belief, as "that upon which a
man is prepared to act." From
this definition, pragmatism is
scarce more than a corollary; so
that I am disposed to think of
him as the grandfather of
pragmatism.

James and Peirce, inspired by crucial links

among belief, conduct, and disposition,
agreed with Green. John Shook has said,
"Chauncey Wright also deserves
considerable credit, for as both Peirce and
James recall, it was Wright who demanded
a phenomenalist and fallibilist empiricism
as a vital alternative to rationalistic
speculation."[9]

Pragmatism is regarded as a distinctively

American philosophy. As advocated by
James, John Dewey, F. C. S. Schiller,
George Herbert Mead, and others, it has
proved durable and popular. But Peirce did
not seize on this fact to enhance his
reputation, and even coined the word
"pragmaticism" to distinguish his
philosophical position.

Clarification of ideas in
inquiry
Pragmatism starts with the idea that belief
is that upon which one is prepared to act.
Peirce's pragmatism is about conceptions
of objects. His pragmatism is a method
for fruitfully sorting out conceptual
confusions caused, for example, by
distinctions that make (sometimes
needful) formal yet not practical
differences. It equates any conception of
an object with a conception of that
object's effects to a general extent of
those conceived effects' conceivable
implications for informed practice. Those
conceivable practical implications are the
conception's meaning. The meaning is the
consequent form of conduct or practice
that would be implied by accepting the
conception as true. Peirce's pragmaticism,
in the strict sense, is about the conceptual
elucidation of conceptions into such
meanings — about how to make our ideas
clear. Making them true, in the sense of
proving and bearing them out in fruitful
practice, goes beyond that. A conception's
truth is its correspondence to the real, to
that which would be found by investigation
taken far enough. A conception's actual
confirmation (if it occurs) is neither its
meaning nor its truth per se, but an actual
upshot.

In "How to Make Our Ideas Clear",[10]

Peirce discusses three grades of
clearness of conception:
1. Clearness of a conception familiar
and readily used even if unanalyzed and
undeveloped.
2. Clearness of a conception in virtue of
clearness of its definition's parts, in
virtue of which logicians called an idea
distinct, that is, clarified by analysis of
just what elements make the given idea
applicable. Elsewhere, echoing Kant,
Peirce calls such a definition "nominal"
(CP 5.553).
3. Clearness in virtue of clearness of
conceivable practical implications of the
 object's effects as conceived of, such as
can lead to fruitful reasoning, especially
on difficult problems. Here he
introduces that which he later called the
pragmatic maxim.

By way of example of how to clarify

conceptions, he addressed conceptions
about truth and the real as questions of
the presuppositions of reasoning in
general. To reason is to presuppose (and
at least to hope), as a principle of the
reasoner's self-regulation, that the truth is
independent of our vagaries of opinion and
is discoverable. In clearness's second
grade (the "nominal" grade), he defines
truth as the correspondence of a sign (in
particular, a proposition) to its object, and
the real as the object (be it a possibility or
quality, or an actuality or brute fact, or a
necessity or norm or law) to which a true
sign corresponds, such that truth and the
real are independent of that which you or I
or any actual, definite community of
inquirers think. After that needful but
confined step, next in clearness's third
grade (the pragmatic, practice-oriented
grade) he defines truth — not as actual
consensus, such that to inquire would be
to poll the experts — but as that which
would be reached, sooner or later but still
inevitably, by research taken far enough,
such that the real does depend on that
ideal final opinion—a dependence to which
he appeals in theoretical arguments
elsewhere, for instance for the long-run
validity of the rule of induction.[11] (Peirce
held that one cannot have absolute
theoretical assurance of having actually
reached the truth, and later said that the
confession of inaccuracy and one-
sidedness is an essential ingredient of a
true abstract statement.[12]) Peirce argues
that even to argue against the
independence and discoverability of truth
and the real is to presuppose that there is,
about that very question under argument,
a truth with just such independence and
discoverability. For more on Peirce's theory
of truth, see the Peirce section in
Pragmatic theory of truth. Peirce's
discussions and definitions of truth have
influenced several epistemic truth
theorists and been used as foil for
deflationary and correspondence theories
of truth.

Peirce said that a conception's meaning

consists in "all general modes of rational
conduct" implied by "acceptance" of the
conception—that is, if one were to accept,
first of all, the conception as true, then
what could one conceive to be consequent
general modes of rational conduct by all
who accept the conception as true?—the
whole of such consequent general modes
is the whole meaning. His pragmatism,
since a conception is general, does not
equate a conception's meaning, its
intellectual purport, with any definite set of
actual consequences or upshots
corroborating or undermining the
conception or its worth, nor does it equate
its meaning, much less its truth (if it is
true), with the conceived or actual benefit
or cost of the conception itself, like a
meme (or, say, propaganda), outside the
perspective of its being true in what it
purports. If it is true, its truth is not
transitory but instead immutable and
independent of actual trends of opinion.
His pragmatism also bears no
resemblance to "vulgar" pragmatism,
which misleadingly connotes a ruthless
and Machiavellian search for mercenary or
political advantage. Rather, Peirce's
pragmatic maxim is the heart of his
pragmatism as a method of
experimentational mental reflection[13]
arriving at conceptions in terms of
conceivable confirmatory and
disconfirmatory circumstances—a method
hospitable to the generation of
explanatory hypotheses, and conducive to
the employment and improvement of
verification[14] to test the truth of putative
knowledge.

Peirce's pragmatism, as method and

theory of definitions and the clearness of
ideas, is a department within his theory of
inquiry,[15] which he variously called
"Methodeutic" and "Philosophical or
Speculative Rhetoric". He applied his
pragmatism as a method throughout his
work.

Peirce called his pragmatism "the logic of

abduction",[16] that is, the logic of inference
to explanatory hypotheses. As a method
conducive to hypotheses as well as
predictions and testing, pragmatism leads
beyond the usual duo of foundational
alternatives, namely:

Deduction from self-evident truths, or

rationalism;
 Induction from experiential
phenomena, or empiricism.

His approach is distinct from

foundationalism, empiricist or otherwise,
as well as from coherentism, by the
following three dimensions:

Active process of theory generation,

with no prior assurance of truth;
Subsequent application of the
contingent theory in order to clarify its
logical and practical implications;
Testing and evaluation of the
provisional theory's utility for the
anticipation of future experience, and
that in dual senses of the word:
prediction and control. Peirce's
appreciation of these three
dimensions serves to flesh out a
physiognomy of inquiry far more solid
than the flatter image of inductive
generalization simpliciter, which is
merely the relabeling of
phenomenological patterns. Peirce's
pragmatism was the first time the
 scientific method was proposed as an
epistemology for philosophical
questions.

A theory that proves itself more successful

than its rivals in predicting and controlling
our world is said to be nearer the truth.
This is an operational notion of truth
employed by scientists.

In "The Fixation of Belief ", Peirce

characterized inquiry in general not as the
pursuit of truth per se but as the struggle
to settle disturbances or conflicts of belief,
irritating, inhibitory doubts, belief being
that on which one is willing to act. That let
Peirce frame scientific inquiry not only as
a special kind of inquiry in a broader
spectrum, but also, like inquiry generally,
as based on actual doubts, not mere
verbal doubts (such as hyperbolic doubt),
which he held to be fruitless, and it let him
also frame it, by the same stroke, as
requiring that proof rest on propositions
free from actual doubt, rather than on
ultimate and absolutely indubitable
propositions. He outlined four methods,
ordered from least to most successful in
achieving a secure fixation of belief:

1. The method of tenacity (policy of

sticking to initial belief) — which
brings comforts and decisiveness,
but leads to trying to ignore contrary
information and others' views, as if
truth were intrinsically private, not
public. The method goes against the
social impulse and easily falters
since one may well fail to avoid
noticing when another's opinion is as
 good as one's own initial opinion. Its
successes can be brilliant but tend to
be transitory.
2. The method of authority — which
overcomes disagreements but
sometimes brutally. Its successes
can be majestic and long-lasting, but
it cannot regulate people thoroughly
enough to suppress doubts
indefinitely, especially when people
learn about other societies present
and past.
3. The method of the a priori — which
promotes conformity less brutally but
fosters opinions as something like
tastes, arising in conversation and
comparisons of perspectives in
terms of "what is agreeable to
reason." Thereby it depends on
fashion in paradigms and goes in
circles over time. It is more
intellectual and respectable but, like
the first two methods, sustains
accidental and capricious beliefs,
destining some minds to doubt it.
 4. The method of science — the only
one whereby inquiry can, by its own
account, go wrong (fallibilism), and
purposely tests itself and criticizes,
corrects, and improves itself.

Peirce held that, in practical affairs, slow

and stumbling ratiocination is often
dangerously inferior to instinct and
traditional sentiment, and that the
scientific method is best suited to
theoretical research,[17] which in turn
should not be bound to the other methods
and to practical ends; reason's "first rule" is
that, in order to learn, one must desire to
learn and, as a corollary, must not block
the way of inquiry.[18] What recommends
the scientific method of inquiry above all
others is that it is deliberately designed to
arrive, eventually, at the ultimately most
secure beliefs, upon which the most
successful practices can eventually be
based. Starting from the idea that people
seek not truth per se but instead to subdue
irritating, inhibitory doubt, Peirce shows
how, through the struggle, some can come
to submit to truth, seek as truth the
guidance of potential practice correctly to
its given goal, and wed themselves to the
scientific method.

Pragmaticism's name

William James
1842–1910
F. C. S. Schiller
1863–1937

It is sometimes stated that James' and

other philosophers' use of the word
pragmatism so dismayed Peirce that he
renamed his own variant pragmaticism.
Susan Haack has disagreed,[19] pointing
out the context in which Peirce publicly
introduced the latter term in 1905. Haack's
excerpt of Peirce begins below at the
words "But at present ...," and continues
with some ellipses. The fuller excerpt
below supports her case further:

[The] word "pragmatism" has

gained general recognition in a
generalised sense that seems to
argue power of growth and
vitality. The famed psychologist,
James, first took it up, seeing
that his "radical empiricism"
substantially answered to the
writer's definition of
pragmatism, albeit with a
certain difference in the point of
view. Next, the admirably clear
and brilliant thinker, Mr.
Ferdinand C. S. Schiller, casting
about for a more attractive
name for the
"anthropomorphism" of his
Riddle of the Sphinx, lit, in that
most remarkable paper of his on
Axioms as Postulates, upon the
same designation "pragmatism,"
which in its original sense was
in generic agreement with his
own doctrine, for which he has
since found the more
appropriate specification
"humanism," while he still
retains "pragmatism" in a
somewhat wider sense. So far
all went happily. But at present,
the word begins to be met with
occasionally in the literary
journals, where it gets abused in
the merciless way that words
have to expect when they fall
into literary clutches.
Sometimes the manners of the
British have effloresced in
scolding at the word as ill-
chosen, —ill-chosen, that is, to
express some meaning that it
was rather designed to exclude.
So then, the writer, finding his
bantling "pragmatism" so
promoted, feels that it is time to
kiss his child good-by and
relinquish it to its higher
destiny; while to serve the
precise purpose of expressing
the original definition, he begs
to announce the birth of the
word "pragmaticism", which is
ugly enough to be safe from
kidnappers.[20]
Then, in a surviving draft letter to
Calderoni, dated by the CP editors as circa
that same year 1905, Peirce said regarding
his above-quoted discussion:

In the April number of the

Monist I proposed that the word
'pragmatism' should hereafter
be used somewhat loosely to
signify affiliation with Schiller,
James, Dewey, Royce, and the
rest of us, while the particular
doctrine which I invented the
 word to denote, which is your
first kind of pragmatism, should
be called 'pragmaticism.' The
extra syllable will indicate the
narrower meaning.[21]

Indeed in the Monist article Peirce had

said that the coinage "pragmaticism" was
intended "to serve the precise purpose of
expressing the original definition". Of
course this does not mean that Peirce
regarded his fellow pragmatist
philosophers as word-kidnappers. To the
contrary he had said, regarding James's
and Schiller's uses of the word
"pragmatism": "So far, all went happily." So
it would seem that Peirce intended the
coinage "pragmaticism" for two
distinguishable purposes: (1) protection
from literary journals and word-kidnappers,
and (2) reference strictly to his own form
of pragmatism, as opposed even to other
pragmatisms that had not moved him to
the new name. In the letter to Calderoni,
Peirce did not reject all significant
affiliation with fellow pragmatists, and
instead said "the rest of us". Nor did he
reject all such affiliation in later
discussions.

However, in the following year 1906, in a

manuscript "A Sketch of Logical Critics",[22]
Peirce wrote:

I have always fathered my

pragmaticism (as I have called it
since James and Schiller made
the word [pragmatism] imply
"the will to believe," the
 mutability of truth, the
soundness of Zeno's refutation
of motion, and pluralism
generally), upon Kant, Berkeley,
and Leibniz. ...

(Peirce proceeded to criticize J. S. Mill but

acknowledged probable aid from Mill's
Examination.)

Then, in 1908, in his article "A Neglected

Argument for the Reality of God",[2]
mentioning both James and the journalist,
pragmatist, and literary author Giovanni
Papini, Peirce wrote:

In 1871, in a Metaphysical Club

in Cambridge, Mass., I used to
preach this principle as a sort of
logical gospel, representing the
unformulated method followed
by Berkeley, and in conversation
about it I called it "Pragmatism."
In December 1877 and January
1878 I set forth the doctrine in
the Popular Science Monthly,
and the two parts[23] of my essay
were printed in French in the
Revue Philosophique, volumes
vi. and vii. Of course, the
doctrine attracted no particular
attention, for, as I had remarked
in my opening sentence, very few
people care for logic. But in 1897
Professor James remodelled the
matter, and transmogrified it
into a doctrine of philosophy,
some parts of which I highly
approved, while other and more
prominent parts I regarded, and
still regard, as opposed to sound
logic. About the time Professor
Papini discovered, to the delight
of the Pragmatist school, that
this doctrine was incapable of
definition,[24] which would
certainly seem to distinguish it
from every other doctrine in
whatever branch of science, I
 was coming to the conclusion
that my poor little maxim
should be called by another
name; and accordingly, in April
1905, I renamed it
Pragmaticism.

Peirce proceeded in "A Neglected

Argument" to express both deep
satisfaction and deep dismay with his
fellow pragmatists. He singled F. C. S.
Schiller out by name and was vague about
which among the others he most
particularly referred to. Peirce wrote "It
seems to me a pity they should allow a
philosophy so instinct with life to become
infected with seeds of death. ... "
Peirce remained but was dismayed
allied with them with their "angry
about: hatred of strict logic"
the reality of and saw seeds of
generals and philosophical death in:
habits, to be their view that "truth
understood, as is mutable";
are hypostatic their view that
abstractions, in infinity is unreal;
terms of potential and
concrete effects
"such confusions of
even if
thought as of active
unactualized;
willing (willing to
 the falsity of control thought, to
necessitarianism; doubt, and to weigh
the character of reasons) with
consciousness willing not to exert
as only "visceral the will (willing to
or other external believe)".
sensation".

There has been some controversy over

Peirce's relation to other pragmatists over
the years and over the question of what is
owed to Peirce, with visible crests in titles
such as literary essayist Edward
Dahlberg's "Cutpurse Philosopher"[25]
about James, in which Dahlberg claimed
that Peirce had "tombstone reticences"
about making accusations, and Kenneth
Laine Ketner's and Walker Percy's A Thief
of Peirce,[26] in which Percy described
himself as "a thief of Peirce" (page 130).
Meanwhile, Schiller, James's wife Alice,
and James's son Henry James III believed
that James had a habit of overstating his
intellectual debts to others such as
Peirce.[27]
In another manuscript "A Sketch of Logical
Critic" dated by the CP editors as 1911,[28]
Peirce discussed one of Zeno's paradoxes,
that of Achilles and the Tortoise, in terms
of James's and others' difficulties with it.
Peirce therein expressed regret at having
used a "contemptuous" manner about
such difficulties in his 1903 Harvard
lectures on pragmatism (which James had
arranged), and said of James, who had
died in August 1910: "Nobody has a better
right to testify to the morality of his
attitude toward his own thoughts than I,
who knew and loved him for forty-nine or
fifty years. But owing to his almost
unexampled incapacity for mathematical
thought, combined with intense hatred for
logic — probably for its pedantry, its
insistence on minute exactitude — the
gêne of its barbarous formulations, etc.
rendered him an easy victim to Zeno and
the Achilles. ... ",[29] called James "about
as perfect a lover of truth as it is possible
for a man to be. ... "[30] and said: "In
speaking, then, of William James as I do, I
am saying the most that I could of any
man's intellectual morality; and with him
this was but one of a whole diadem of
virtues."[31]

See also
Charles Sanders Peirce bibliography
Entitative graph
Existential graph
Hypostatic abstraction
Inquiry
Logical graph
Philosophy of mathematics
 Philosophy of science
Pragmatic maxim
Pragmatic theory of truth
Scientific method
Semeiotic
Sign relation
Truth theory

Notes
1. Brent, Joseph (1998), Charles Sanders
Peirce: A Life, 2nd edition,
Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana
 University Press (catalog page ); also
NetLibrary.
2. Peirce (1908), "A Neglected Argument
for the Reality of God", Hibbert Journal
v. 7, CP 6.452-485, EP 2:434-450, and
elsewhere. See the discussion of
pragmatism toward the end.
Depending on the edition, it may
appear in Section V or in an
"additament" afterward.
3. See p. 481 in Peirce, C. S. (1905),
"Issues of Pragmaticism", The Monist,
vol. 15, pp. 481-499, Google Books
 Eprint , Internet Archive Eprint .
Reprinted Collected Papers (CP) v. 5,
paragraphs 438-463, see 438, and in
Charles S. Peirce: Selected Writings,
pp. 203–226.
4. Peirce had primary responsibility in the
Century Dictionary for terms in logic,
philosophy and other fields, see B:139.
"Pragmatism" and presumably
"pragmaticism" were among the words
in Peirce's charge in the Century
Dictionary – see under "P Archived
2011-10-02 at the Wayback Machine"
in the list of words at PEP-UQÀM
Archived 2011-07-06 at the Wayback
Machine, the Peirce Edition Project's
branch at Université du Québec à
Montréal (UQÀM), which is working on
Writings v. 7: Peirce's work on the
Century Dictionary. However, Joseph
M. Ransdell reported that PEP-UQÀM's
director François Latraverse informed
him that John Dewey actually wrote
the Supplements definitions of
"pragmatic", "pragmatism", etc.
5. As Brent (B:86) points out, in a letter
November 10, 1900 (CP 8:253) to
James, Peirce wrote:

Now, however, I have a

particular occasion to
write. Baldwin, arrived at J
in his dictionary, suddenly
calls on me to do the rest of
the logic, in the utmost
haste, and various
questions of terminology
 come up.
Who originated the term
pragmatism, I or you?
Where did it first appear in
print? What do you
understand by it?

to which James replied (CP 8:253

footnote 8) on a post card dated
November 26, 1900, Widener Library
(Cambridge, Massachusetts) VB2a:
 You invented 'pragmatism'
for which I gave you full
credit in a lecture entitled
'Philosophical conceptions
and practical results' of
which I sent you 2
(unacknowledged) copies a
couple of years ago.

As Brent also points out (B:88), Peirce

— or as Peirce scholars recently say,
Dewey (see above) — in the 1909
Century Dictionary Supplement
definition of pragmatism (Wikisource),
wrote:

In an article for "The

Monist" for 1905, Mr. Peirce
says that he "has used it
continually in philosophical
conversation since,
perhaps, the mid-seventies."
The term was publicly
introduced in print by
Professor William James in
 1898 in an address upon
"Philosophical Conceptions
and Practical Realities," in
which authorship of the
term and of the method is
credited to Mr. Peirce.

James, William (1898), "Philosophical

Conceptions and Practical Results",
delivered before the Philosophical
Union of the University of California at
Berkeley, August 26, 1898, and first
printed in the University Chronicle 1,
September 1898, pp. 287-310. Internet
Archive Eprint . On p. 290 ::

I refer to Mr. Charles S.

Peirce, with whose very
existence as a philosopher I
dare say many of you are
unacquainted. He is one of
the most original of
contemporary thinkers; and
the principle of practicalism
or pragmatism, as he called
 it, when I first heard him
enunciate it at Cambridge
in the early 70s is the clue
or compass by following
which I find myself more
and more confirmed in
believing we may keep our
feet upon the proper trail.

James credited Peirce again the 1901-

1902 Gifford Lectures that were
published as The Varieties of Religious
Experience (p. 444), and then in the
 1906 lectures that were published in
1907 as Pragmatism: A New Name for
Some Old Ways of Thinking, see
Lecture 2, fourth paragraph.

. See James (1897), Will to Believe

(which James dedicated to Peirce),
see p. 124 and footnote via Google
Books Eprint :

Indeed, it may be said that if

two apparently different
definitions of the reality
before us should have
identical consequences,
those two definitions would
really be identical
definitions, made delusively
to appear different merely
by the different verbiage in
which they are expressed.¹

¹ See the admirably original

"Illustrations of the Logic of
Science," by C. S. Peirce,
 especially the second paper,
"How to make our Thoughts
clear," [sic] in the Popular
Science Monthly for
January, 1878.

See also James's 1907 Pragmatism: A

New Name for Some Old Ways of
Thinking, Lecture 2, fourth paragraph.
7. James, William (1907) Pragmatism: A
New Name for Some Old Ways of
Thinking.
 . Peirce, C. S., "The Founding of
Pragmatism", manuscript written 1906,
published in The Hound & Horn: A
Harvard Miscellany v. II, n. 3, April–
June 1929, pp. 282–5, see 283–4,
reprinted 1934 as "Historical Affinities
and Genesis" in Collected Papers v. 5,
paragraphs 11–13, see 12.
9. Shook, John (undated), "The
Metaphysical Club", the Pragmatism
Cybrary. Eprint .
10. See also "The Logic of Relatives," The
Monist, Vol. 7, 1897, pp. 161 -217 (via
 Google Books). Reprinted in CP, v. 3,
paragraphs 456-552.
11. "That the rule of induction will hold
good in the long run may be deduced
from the principle that reality is only
the object of the final opinion to which
sufficient investigation would lead", in
Peirce, C. S. (1878 April), "The
Probability of Induction", p. 718
(Internet Archive Eprint ) in Popular
Science Monthly, v. 12, pp. 705-18.
Reprinted (Chance, Love, and Logic,
pp. 82-105), (CP 2.669-93),
 (Philosophical Writings of Peirce, pp.
174-89), (W 3:290-305), (EP 1:155-69).
12. Peirce, C. S. (1902), "Logical" in "Truth
and Falsity and Error", Dictionary of
Philosophy and Psychology v. 2, see p.
718 . Reprinted CP v. 5, paragraphs
565-566.
13. Peirce (1902), CP 5.13 note 1
14. See CP 1.34 Eprint (in "The Spirit of
Scholasticism"), where Peirce
attributes the success of modern
science not so much to a novel
 interest in verification as to the
improvement of verification.
15. See Joseph Ransdell 's comments and
his tabular list of titles of Peirce's
proposed list of memoirs in 1902 for
his Carnegie application, Eprint
1 . Peirce, C.S. (1903), "Pragmatism —
The Logic of Abduction", CP v. 5,
paragraphs 195-205, especially
paragraph 196. Eprint .
17. "Philosophy and the Conduct of Life",
1898, Lecture 1 of the Cambridge
(MA) Conferences Lectures, published
 CP 1.616-48 in part and in Reasoning
and the Logic of Things, Ketner (ed.,
intro.) and Putnam (intro., comm.),
105-22, reprinted in EP 2:27-41.
1 . Peirce (1899), "F.R.L." [First Rule of
Logic], CP v. 1, paragraphs 135-40.
Eprint
19. 1998, Manifesto of a Passionate
Moderate, Chicago IL: University of
Chicago Press, p. 55
20. Peirce, on p p. 165 -166 in "What
Pragmatism Is", The Monist, v. XV, n. 2,
 April 1905, pp. 161-81, reprinted CP
5.411-37, see 5.414.
21. Letter to Signor Calderoni (c. 1905),
CP 8.205. See under Pragmaticism in
the CDPT.
22. Essential Peirce v. 2, pp. 451-62, see
pp. 457-8.
23. Peirce refers to "The Fixation of Belief"
and "How to Make Our Ideas Clear".
24. See for example "What Pragmatism Is
Like", a translation published in
October 1907 in Popular Science
 Monthly v. 71, pp. 351–8. Google
Books Eprint . The original Italian:
"Introduzione al pragmatismo",
Leonardo series 3, anno 5, n. 1,
February 1907, pp. 26-37, Google
Books Eprint .
25. In Alms for Oblivion, University of
Minnesota Press, 1967.
2 . University Press of Mississippi, 1995.
27. Myers, Gerald E., William James: His
Life and Thought, Yale University
Press, 2001. See pp. 491-2.
2 . An excerpt of it appears as "Achilles
and the Tortoise" in CP 6.177-84.
29. From CP 6.182.
30. From CP 6.183.
31. From CP 6.184.

References and further

reading
Peirce, C. S. (1877–1878), "Illustrations
of the Logic of Science" (series), Popular
Science Monthly vols. 12–13. (Includes
"The Fixation of Belief" and "How to
Make Our Ideas Clear".)
Peirce, C. S.; James, William; Baldwin,
James Mark; and Seth, James (1902),
"Pragmatic (1) and (2) Pragmatism" in
Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology,
v. 2, James Mark Baldwin, ed.,
MacMillan, New York and London,
pp. 321–323.
Peirce, C. S. (1905), "What Pragmatism
Is", The Monist, vol. XV, no. 2, pp. 161–
181, The Open Court Publishing Co.,
Chicago, IL, April 1905, for the Hegeler
Institute. Reprinted in Collected Papers
(CP) v. 5, paragraphs 411–437 and
Charles S. Peirce: Selected Writings 180–
202. Arisbe Eprint .
Peirce, C. S. (1905), "Issues of
Pragmaticism", The Monist, vol. XV, no.
4, pp. 481–499, The Open Court
Publishing Co., Chicago, IL, October
1905, for the Hegeler Institute. Reprinted
in CP v. 5, paragraphs 438–463 and
Charles S. Peirce: Selected Writings 203–
226. Google Books (with a few botched
pages) Eprint . Internet Archive Eprint .
Peirce, C. S. (1906), "Prolegomena To an
Apology For Pragmaticism", The Monist,
vol. XVI, no. 4, pp. 492–546, The Open
Court Publishing Co., Chicago, IL,
October 1906, for the Hegeler Institute.
Reprinted in CP v. 4, paragraphs 530–
572 and Peirce on Signs: Writings on
Semiotic 249–252. Eprint .
Peirce, C. S. (1908), "A Neglected
Argument for the Reality of God",
published in part, Hibbert Journal vol. 7,
pp. 90–112. Reprinted including one or
another unpublished part in CP v. 6,
paragraphs 452–485, Charles S. Peirce:
Selected Writings 358–379, Essential
Peirce v. 2, 434–450, and Peirce on
Signs: Writings on Semiotic 260–278.
Eprint .
Peirce collections
Peirce, C.S. (1931–35, 1958), Collected
Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, vols.
1–6, 1931–35, Charles Hartshorne and
Paul Weiss, eds., vols. 7–8, 1958, Arthur
W. Burks, ed., Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, Massachusetts. In print
from HUP and online via InteLex .
Peirce, C.S (1976), The New Elements of
Mathematics by Charles S. Peirce, 4
volumes in 5, Carolyn Eisele, ed., Mouton
Publishers, The Hague, Netherlands,
1976. Humanities Press, Atlantic
Highlands, New Jersey. Out of print.
Peirce, C.S. (1981–), Writings of Charles
S. Peirce, A Chronological Edition, vols.
1–6 & 8, of a projected 30, Peirce Edition
Project, eds., Indiana University Press,
Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana.
In print from IUP and online (first six
volumes) via InteLex .
Peirce, C.S. (1992), Pragmatism as a
Principle and Method of Right Thinking:
The 1903 Harvard "Lectures on
Pragmatism", Patricia Ann Turisi, ed.,
State University of New York Press,
Albany, NY, 1997. In print from SUNY . A
study edition of Peirce's lecture
manuscripts, including unused drafts,
which had been previously published in
abridged form.
Peirce, C.S. (1992, 1998), The Essential
Peirce, Selected Philosophical Writings,
Volume 1 (1867–1893), 1992, Nathan
Houser and Christian Kloesel, eds., and
Volume 2 (1893–1913) including the
1903 lectures on pragmatism, 1998,
Peirce Edition Project, eds., Bloomington
and Indianapolis, Indiana: Indiana
University Press. In print from IUP .
Other
Apel, Karl-Otto (1981), Charles S. Peirce:
From Pragmatism to Pragmaticism, 288
pages, University of Massachusetts
Press, hardcover (October 1981)
(ISBN 978-0870231773, ISBN 0-87023-
177-4), reprinted, Humanities Press Intl
(August 1995), paperback (ISBN 978-
0391038950, ISBN 0-391-03895-8).
Atkin, Albert (2006), "C.S. Peirce's
Pragmatism" in the Internet Encyclopedia
of Philosophy. Eprint
Dewey, John (1916), "The Pragmatism
of Peirce" in The Journal of Philosophy,
Psychology, and Scientific Methods, v. 13,
n. 26, December, 709–715. Google
Books eprint, but much of p. 714 is
missing . Reprinted or adapted in Peirce,
C. S., Chance, Love, and Logic:
Philosophical Essays, Morris Raphael
Cohen, ed., 1923, still in print.
Fisch, Max, (1986), Peirce, Semeiotic,
and Pragmatism, Ketner, Kenneth Laine,
and Kloesel, Christian J. W., eds.,
Indiana University Press: catalog page ,
Bloomington, IN, 1986, 480 pages, cloth
(ISBN 978-0-253-34317-8, ISBN 0-253-
34317-8).
Hookway, Christopher (2000, 2003),
Truth, Rationality, and Pragmatism:
Themes from Peirce, Oxford University
Press, USA, 328 pages, hardcover
(ISBN 978-0198238362, ISBN 0-19-
823836-3), new edition 2003: O.U.P.
catalog page , 328 pages, paperback
(ISBN 978-0199256587, ISBN 0-19-
925658-6).
Lane, Robert (2007), "Peirce's Modal
Shift: From Set Theory to Pragmaticism",
Journal of the History of Philosophy, v.
45, n. 4, Oct. 2007.
Misak, Cheryl J. (1991), Truth and the
End of Inquiry : A Peircean Account of
Truth, Oxford University Press (catalog
page ), Oxford, UK; 2004 paperback 232
pages (ISBN 978-0-19-927059-0).
Nubiola, Jaime (1996), "C. S. Peirce:
Pragmatism and Logicism", Philosophia
Scientiae I/2, 121-130. Eprint .
Shook, John R., and Margolis, Joseph,
eds. (2006), A Companion to
Pragmatism, Blackwell (now Wiley),
Malden, MA, 431 pages, hardcover
(ISBN 978-1405116213, ISBN 1-4051-
1621-8) Blackwell catalog page .
Skagestad, Peter (1981), The Road of
Inquiry, Charles Peirce's Pragmatic
Realism, Columbia University Press:
 catalog page , New York, NY, 261 pages,
cloth (ISBN 0-231-05004-6)

External links
Peirce, including pragmatism
Arisbe: The Peirce Gateway , Joseph
Ransdell, ed. Over 100 online writings by
Peirce as of November 24, 2010, with
annotations. 100s of online papers on Peirce.
The peirce-l e-forum. Much else.
Center for Applied Semiotics (CAS) (1998–
2003), Donald Cunningham & Jean Umiker-
Sebeok, Indiana U.
Centro Internacional de Estudos Peirceanos
(CIEP) and previously Centro de Estudos
Peirceanos (CeneP), Lucia Santaella et al.,
Pontifical Catholic U. of São Paulo (PUC-SP),
Brazil. In Portuguese, some English.
Commens Digital Companion to C.S. Peirce ,
Mats Bergman, Sami Paavola, & João
Queiroz, formerly Commens at Helsinki U .
Includes Commens Dictionary of Peirce's
Terms with Peirce's definitions, often many
per term across the decades, and the Digital
Encyclopedia of Charles S. Peirce (old edition
still at old website).
Centro Studi Peirce , Carlo Sini, Rossella
Fabbrichesi, et al., U. of Milan, Italy. In Italian
and English. Part of Pragma .
Charles S. Peirce Foundation . Co-
sponsoring the 2014 Peirce International
Centennial Congress (100th anniversary of
Peirce's death).
Charles S. Peirce Society
—Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce
Society . Quarterly journal of Peirce studies
since spring 1965. Table of Contents of all
issues.
Charles S. Peirce Studies , Brian Kariger, ed.
Pragmaticism at the Mathematics
Genealogy Project
Collegium for the Advanced Study of Picture
Act and Embodiment : The Peirce Archive.
Humboldt U, Berlin, Germany. Cataloguing
Peirce's innumerable drawings & graphic
materials. More info (Prof. Aud Sissel Hoel).
Digital Encyclopedia of Charles S. Peirce ,
João Queiroz (now at UFJF ) & Ricardo
Gudwin (at Unicamp ), eds., [[Universidade
Estadual de Campinas|U. of Campinas]],
Brazil, in English. 84 authors listed, 51 papers
online & more listed, as of January 31, 2009.
Newer edition now at Commens.
Existential Graphs , Jay Zeman, ed., U. of
Florida. Has 4 Peirce texts.
Grupo de Estudios Peirceanos (GEP) / Peirce
Studies Group , Jaime Nubiola, ed., U. of
Navarra, Spain. Big study site, Peirce & others
in Spanish & English, bibliography, more.
Helsinki Peirce Research Center (HPRC),
Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen et al., U. of Helsinki.
His Glassy Essence . Autobiographical
Peirce. Kenneth Laine Ketner.
Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism ,
Kenneth Laine Ketner, Clyde Hendrick, et al.,
Texas Tech U. Peirce's life and works.
International Research Group on Abductive
Inference , Uwe Wirth et al., eds., Goethe U.,
Frankfurt, Germany. Uses frames. Click on
link at bottom of its home page for English.
Moved to [[University of Gießen|U. of
Gießen]], Germany, home page not in English
but see Artikel section there.
L'I.R.S.C.E. (1974–2003)—Institut de
Recherche en Sémiotique, Communication et
Éducation, Gérard Deledalle, Joëlle Réthoré, U.
of Perpignan, France.
Minute Semeiotic , Vinicius Romanini, U. of
São Paulo, Brazil. English, Portuguese.
Peirce at Signo: Theoretical Semiotics on the
Web, Louis Hébert, director, supported by U.
of Québec. Theory, application, exercises of
Peirce's Semiotics and Esthetics . English,
French.
Peirce Edition Project (PEP) , Indiana U.-
Purdue U. Indianapolis (IUPUI). André De
Tienne, Nathan Houser, et al. Editors of the
Writings of Charles S. Peirce (W) and The
Essential Peirce (EP) v. 2. Many study aids
such as the Robin Catalog of Peirce's
manuscripts & letters and:
—Biographical introductions to EP 1–2 and
W 1–6 & 8
—Most of W 2 readable online.
—PEP's branch at Université du Québec à
Montréal (UQÀM) . Working on W 7: Peirce's
work on the Century Dictionary. Definition of
the week .
Peirce's Existential Graphs , Frithjof Dau,
Germany
Peirce's Theory of Semiosis: Toward a Logic
of Mutual Affection , Joseph Esposito. Free
online course.
Pragmatism Cybrary , David Hildebrand &
John Shook.
Research Group on Semiotic Epistemology
and Mathematics Education (late 1990s),
Institut für Didaktik der Mathematik (Michael
Hoffman, Michael Otte, Universität Bielefeld,
Germany). See Peirce Project Newsletter v. 3,
n. 1, p. 13 .
Semiotics according to Robert Marty , with
76 definitions of the sign by C. S. Peirce .

Related pragmatism
Associazione Culturale Pragma with
European Journal of Pragmatism and
American Philosophy
International Pragmatism Society . Journal:
Contemporary Pragmatism , Mitchell
Aboulafia & John R. Shook, Editors.
 Nordic Pragmatism Network , Henrik
Rydenfelt (U. of Helsinki), coordinator.
Journal: Nordic Studies in Pragmatism .
Pragmatism Cybrary , David Hildebrand &
John R. Shook, Editors.

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