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The Inferences That Never Were: Peirce, Perception, and Bernstein’s The Pragmatic Turn

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Abstract

In the first chapter of his book The Pragmatic Turn, Richard Bernstein has two aims. First, he aims to show that Charles Sanders Peirce is the founder of pragmatism not merely for his statement of the pragmatic maxim but for his criticisms of René Descartes. Second, he aims to apply Peirce’s insights to a contemporary issue in the philosophy of percep- tion. I shall comment on Bernstein’s success with respect to both aims.

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References

Peirce sources

  • CP: 1931–58. The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. 8 vols. Edited by C. Hartshome, P. Weiss, and A. Burks (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press).

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Secondary sources

  • Bergman, Mats. 2007. “Representationism and Presentationism.” Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society. 47:1, 53–89.

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  • Bernstein, Eichard J. 2010. The Pragmatic Turn (Cambridge: Polity Press).

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  • Bernstein, Richard J. 1995. “Whatever Happened to Naturalism?” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association. 69:2, 57–76.

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  • Descartes, René. 1985. “Rules for the Direction of the Mind,” in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes. Vol. 1. trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.

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  • Kant, Immanuel. 1998. Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Paul Guyer and Alan W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

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© 2014 Richard Kenneth Atkins

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Atkins, R.K. (2014). The Inferences That Never Were: Peirce, Perception, and Bernstein’s The Pragmatic Turn. In: Green, J.M. (eds) Richard J. Bernstein and the Pragmatist Turn in Contemporary Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137352705_4

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