Abstract
In this paper I synthesize a unified system out of Peirce's life work, and name it “Peirce's Evolutionary Pragmatic Idealism”. Peirce developed this philosophy in four stages:
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(I)
His 1868–69 theory that cognition is a continuous and infinite social semiotic process, in which Man is a sign.
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(II)
His Popular Science Monthly pragmatism and frequency theory of probabilistic induction.
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(III)
His 1891–93 cosmic evolutionism of Tychism, Synechism, and Agapism.
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(IV)
Pragmaticism: The doctrine of real potentialities (“would-be's”), and Peirce's pragmatic program for developing concrete reasonableness.
Peirce's evolutionary conception of the cosmos is pantheistic, and he constructed it to reconcile religion with Darwinian evolution.
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References
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This article is dedicated to the memory of Edward Carter Moore (1917–1993) — for his many contributions to Peirce scholarship. Ed wrote on Peirce, James, and Dewey. As Dean of the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts he founded the Transactions of the Peirce Society. In 1973 he became Dean of the Faculties and Professor of Philosophy at Indiana University/Purdue University at Indianapolis, in charge of academic matters of that newly organized institution. In that role he founded and directed the new chronological edition of Peirce's writings.
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Burks, A.W. Peirce's evolutionary pragmatic idealism. Synthese 106, 323–372 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00413590
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00413590