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This paper presents a model of the continuous structure of Cognition based on several theses proposed by Charles S. Peirce in his youth and in his mature period. In this model, cognitions are discontinuous parts on a continuum and a cognitive process becomes "individually-synthetic," as a hypostatic abstraction from discontinuous transformations of informational fluxes in the continuous course of experience. That is, they are salient regions or neighborhoods on a continuum rather than points, and the relations of succession and precession among them are inferential, fluid, time sensitive, and goal-directed. First, this paper will outline the theses found in the young Peirce's work, which inspire a conception of continuous Cognition. Two questions will be raised regarding such a conception: (1) at what point does a particular act of cognition conclude? and (2) how should we characterize individual cognitions? To address these questions, the paper will later introduce the concept of continuity that Peirce developed in his mature years. The synthetic character of the continuum leads to the formulation of the concepts of neighborhood and synthetic individuality. These notions support the conception of a continuous model of Cognition in which the relations of succession and precession between individual finite cognitions are explained. The paper ends with a brief reflection regarding the possibility of developing this model of continuous Cognition as a theory of extended cognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Issues of Pragmaticism" (1905) contains the only published version of Peirce's doctrine of "critical common-sensism." One of the claims of that doctrine is that common sense beliefs are invariably vague. In this paper, we seek to explain this claim. We begin by providing a philological reconstruction of the drafts of "Issues of Pragmaticism" and a comparison of Peirce's several, successive expositions of critical common-sensism across those drafts. Then we examine Peirce's theory of vagueness; we show that there is both a "subjectal" and a "predicative" variety of vagueness, and that Peirce construes predicative vagueness according to three distinct models. Finally, we assess in what sense, i.e., according to which of the three models, common sense beliefs may be said to be invariably vague. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to analyze an apparent paradox that exists in the concept of the assertiveness of terms, an idea put forth by Peirce in the manuscript R 787, c. 1896. The scrutiny of this case sheds new light on Peirce's speculative grammar, especially on his account of subject and predicate. After briefly reviewing the current relevance of Peirce's thought for speech act theories, this paper investigates the role of rudimentary assertions in Peirce's thought, which lies at the crossroads of semiotics, logic and linguistics. In order to reach this goal, this paper (i) considers the place of assertions in Peirce's thought; (ii) analyzes the general conditions for assertion, especially its syntactical structure; (iii) redefines Peirce's original concepts of subject, predicate and copula, which differ from traditional logic and Indo-European grammars; and (iv) explores the structure of reasoning tacitly assumed in our linguistic habits, such that even a term might be understood as assertoric. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peirce's theory of assertions articulates the original commitment theory of assertions. Commitment theories of assertion have gained considerable recent interest not only in the Peirce scholarship but also in studies of history and philosophy of language, logic and communication. In this preface we point out some recent work on the topic and provide a brief introduction to the papers published in this Transactions symposium. These papers consist of a selection of those presented in the workshop "Peirce on Assertion" held in Lecce, Italy, on 13 September 2019. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to clarify what Peirce meant by "correlate" in his early paper "On a New List of Categories." I take up the interpretation of Peirce's concept of the correlate put forward by André De Tienne in his book L'analytique de la représentation chez Peirce , and I offer my own interpretation by pointing out the problems with De Tienne's view. De Tienne detects a certain confusion in Peirce's notion of the correlate in the "New List." The problem is that Peirce seems to be using the term "correlate" in two incompatible senses, namely: (1) that which occasions the introduction of reference to a ground, and (2) the second term of a dyadic or triadic relation. I will argue, however, that these two senses of the term "correlate" are incompatible only on a narrow, psychological reading of Peirce's notion of comparison and that there is no incompatibility if we understand comparison in a broader way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After considering why pragmatism should constructively treat issues of sexuality and erotic love and why it traditionally failed to, this paper examines the sexual views of classical pragmatism's leading figures. Focusing primarily on the canonical, heterosexual, white founding fathers—Peirce, James, Dewey, and Mead, it then examines sexuality in Jane Addams and Alain Locke, whose difference of gender or race is complemented by alterity of sexual attitudes. While exposing the shortcomings of these pragmatist sexual theories, the paper conversely shows the resources that classical pragmatism has for a more constructive and fulfilling treatment of sexuality and erotic love. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cheryl Misak has presented an argument for democracy based on her analysis of the writings of Charles Sanders Peirce: If we care about the truth of our beliefs—as everyone does, according to Misak—then we ought to support democratic norms and democratic political institutions. We argue in the present paper that Misak's argument does not adequately justify a democratic political system. Her argument does, however, justify a rational commitment to the standard liberal-democratic values of freedom of expression, freedom of association, and the like. We demonstrate as well that Misak's argument for the democratic values withstands well-known objections against her argument for a democratic political system. We also show that weaker premises involving every agent's commitment to pursuing their own subjective ends can get us to Misak's conclusions regarding liberal values. These weaker premises avoid objections raised against Misak's Peircean view and are acceptable even to those who reject Misak's idea, taken from her reading of Peirce, that truth is a constitutive norm of belief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In April 2019, a granite monument was erected at the Peirce gravesite in the Milford Cemetery in place of the small eroded tombstone which for many years had been thought to be inadequate as a sign of Peirce's enduring importance as a philosopher and man of science. A small symposium featuring six papers was held in conjunction with the dedication of the new monument. Those six papers, along with an account of the challenging campaign to replace the old tombstone, follow this introduction. Here the papers are encapsulated in an account of Peirce's life after the death of his father, his marriage to Juliette, and the loss of his position at Johns Hopkins. Peirce's move to Milford, Pennsylvania, in 1887, completed a transition from membership in the society of the scientific and intellectual elite to the ranks of the outsiders. From that time on, Peirce would be in perpetual conflict over the urgent need for income and his sense of duty to contribute to the advancement of knowledge. Many of the most troubled and distressing times of Peirce's life occurred during his Milford years and yet they also fostered much of his best and most creative thought. The following symposium papers provide illuminating accounts of important facets of Peirce's life and thought during these times providing new information and insights about the man whose ashes lie under the new monument but whose ideas continue to grow. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To better understand Peirce's practical conservatism, this paper examines Peirce's views on a liberal arts education and the political potential of the university. Peirce's views on education raise a puzzle for his political thought: Given his practical conservatism, why does Peirce think it is important to teach citizens and future leaders how to think, not what to think? If tradition, sentiment, and instinct are the best guides for the active life, why should those who lead active lives receive an education that focuses on strengthening and improving reasoning abilities? Why not simply teach them traditional wisdom and morality—as is often the case with conservative institutions and societies? This examination reveals an understanding of both the potential and limits of reason in the practical realm, resulting in a moderate practical conservatism. We also learn of the important moral lessons offered by institutions devoted to the noble pursuit of truth for its own sake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper engages with Isaac Levi's approach to justifying changes in our states of full belief and offers a Peircean criticism of his strategy for resolving conflicts between the results of what inquirers deem to be the most reliable programs for a given situation and the settled beliefs about which we have no doubts. In the first section, I discuss the central features of Levi's theory of justifying changes to our state of full belief. In the second section, I present a Peircean approach to evaluating the reliability of these programs for routine expansion of belief, and I argue that there is a conflict between Levi's approach to situations where an inquirer has expanded her beliefs into inconsistency and Peirce's criticisms of non-scientific methods for settling opinion. The third section presents two potential objections to the Peircean approach, objections that emphasize the importance of our concern to avoid error, and in the fourth section, I propose an original supplement to the Peircean approach that better addresses that concern. Ultimately, my aim is to develop and defend a Peircean approach that is in opposition to Levi's views about when it is appropriate to question the reliability of our programs for routine expansion of belief but that also addresses his legitimate worries about underemphasizing our concern to avoid error. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws upon Peirce's philosophy of inquiry to recommend a theory of religious participation as a form of maximally habitual, inhabited inquiry. It argues for conceiving of inquiry as a ubiquitous phenomenon and works from Peirce's writings on 'vital matters' and science to develop distinctions between different forms of inquiry that are, nevertheless, continuous with one another. As a form of inquiry religious participation, even in its most conservative manifestations, is inquisitive and fallible and the paper argues that scholars of religion would do well to reject conceptions of religion that excise religion and religious people from larger theories of fallible inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some philosophers claim that truth is the norm of assertion, or that asserting that p commits one to the truth of p. In some seminal works Peirce put it in terms of responsibility: asserting that p makes one responsible for the truth of the proposition that p. I take this thesis to be stimulating but inaccurate, since making an assertion generally commits one to sincerity, not to truth. This explains how it is possible to be truthful liars and why we are disappointed by these. Justification of belief is also important, as shown by the cases of the justified falsity-teller and the unjustified truth-teller. So, for the assessment of assertion, what matters is (a) what we believe, (b) whether we assert what we believe and (c) whether we have a justification for what we believe. This does not throw truth out of the picture, however: insofar as asserting that p is asserting that one believes that p , and believing that p is believing that it is true that p , asserting that p is asserting that one believes that it is true that p. The paper also distinguishes some senses in which truth is normative for belief and assertion, and endorses a teleological understanding of this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until well into the 1890s, Peirce did not pay special attention to the act of asserting a proposition, and he used "proposition" and "assertion" interchangeably. This began to change in the period of the "Grand Logic" and the "Short Logic", and in Peirce's vast semiotic development after 1902, no less than three theories of assertion are developed to account for the ability of certain signs to claim truth. One is assertion as a special self-reference of proposition signs, claiming that the sign itself is indexically connected to its object as a truth grant; another is the assumption of social responsibility for the sign's truth on the part of the utterer; the third is the purpose of asserting a proposition, namely to persuade some interlocutor about the truth of the sign. These three theories are oftentimes developed in isolation, but this paper argues they fit together in the way that the third presupposes the second, in turn presupposing the first. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about Peirce's understanding and notational realization of the relationship between the logical content of conjunction and the illocutionary force of assertion. The argument moves from an imaginary, subtextual dialogue between several authors in the history of logic and the philosophy of language (Aristotle, Ammonius, Boethius, Frege, Peirce, Geach, and Dummett) and shows that the problem of the relationship between conjunction and assertion is quite old and has received distinct and irreconcilable treatments. Peirce has an original take on the problem, which he addresses, as often happens in his mature writings, in notational terms: the anomaly of conjunction (i.e., the fact that, unlike the other connectives, conjunction is subject to assertion distribution) is not to be hidden behind a uniform notation, like standard sentential calculus, in which the conjunction connective is treated on a par with the other connectives. Rather, a sentential language is possible that embodies rather than conceals the anomaly, and this is Peirce's system of Existential Graphs, which from 1896 onwards understandably becomes his preferred instrument of logical analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In early 1909, Charles S. Peirce conducted a series of experiments with three-valued logic, anticipating the pioneering work of Jan Łukasiewicz and Emil Post by ten years. These experiments are entirely contained within six or seven pages of Peirce's Logic Notebook. Due to the work of Atwell Turquette, the formalisms contained in those pages are relatively well understood. What is less understood are Peirce's philosophical reasons for conducting those experiments. His explanation of the need for his "triadic" logic is very brief, taking up little more than a single short page in the Notebook. Here he gives us two clues about his motivations, one connected to modal notions and one to his views on continuity. There are two previous accounts of the philosophical motivations behind triadic logic, due to Max Fisch and Turquette, and to Robert Lane. In this paper, I re-evaluate those views and connect the two clues to Peirce's hypothetical cosmology. I argue that in conducting his three-valued experiments, Peirce was trying to create a logic to capture his notion of the evolving universe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shortly before writing the papers that many consider the birthplace of pragmatism, Peirce studied Antoine Cournot's application of the calculus to political economy. Though there is no explicit evidence that Peirce's reading of Cournot influenced his theory of inquiry, there is a discernable affinity between Cournot's approach to economics and Peirce's approach to inquiry. The current paper aims at making this affinity explicit and show that looking at Peirce through the lens of Cournot's approach to economics can give us a better understanding of Peirce's views on inquiry and his understanding of truth in terms of a final opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brief introduction to four papers on the economy of research published in this issue of the Transactions. The papers were originally presented in a workshop on the economy of research at Bocconi University, October 5–6, 2017. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores Peirce's concept of analogy. I begin by arguing that he understands it along two main lines: (1) as a natural cognitive operation that discerns the resemblance of structural relations, pivotally signified by the diagram sign-class, and (2) as a "mixed" form of argument employing abduction, deduction, and induction. After exploring these two aspects, along with their interpenetration, I compare Peirce's account of analogous reasoning with the highly influential view of the late-Medieval scholastic Thomas Cajetan. I argue that Peirce presents a superior approach because his diagrammatic logic renders a view that is methodologically open to further inquiry, explains that openness in terms of inference through sampling, and capaciously accepts a variety of potential determinations for any one analogy due to the objective vagueness of signs. Cajetan's appeal to the irreducible proportionality of analogous thinking, on the other hand, excludes further explanation of analogy's workings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper gives a survey and presents a critical analysis of Peirce's studies in Egyptology from 1885 to 1904, as documented mainly in MSS 1227, 1228, 1244, and 1294. It examines Peirce's studies and advances in the language and script of Pharaonic Egypt as well as his assessments of the scientific achievements of the Ancient Egyptians. Among the linguistic topics in focus are Peirce's assumptions concerning the iconicity of hieroglyphic writing, his conjectures on the origins of indexical words from nouns, and his hypotheses concerning the proximity of Ancient Egyptian to the ursprache of humans. The paper traces some of Peirce's hypotheses concerning the structure of Egyptian to his fundamental assumptions about iconicity and indexicality in language. Altogether, Peirce was not only very familiar with the state of the art of contemporary Egyptology, but he also achieved a remarkable competence of the Egyptian language and its hieroglyphic writing. While some of Peirce's insights into the language and civilization of the Ancient Egyptians are still tenable, others reflect certain misinterpretations of the scholarship of his time, which call for correction in light of the state of the art of today's Egyptology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empiricists have traditionally assumed that an epistemic subject has immediate access only to some primitive perceptual objects, so that judgments about kinds, modal properties, and dispositions are parasitic upon and less certain than those about what is given in perception. Against this view, Peirce argues that perception provides doxastic warrants in virtue of subconscious inferential processes that constitute the content of a temporally extended perceptual episode. According to Peirce, perceptual judgments have an abductive logical form, and they supply the perceiver with novel hypotheses about the world. Though the production of these hypotheses is not subject to conscious control, it is subject to subconscious control, when a present percept is compared to other features of perceptual experience. By examining Peirce's account of the continuity and temporality of perception and his investigations of subconscious processes, this paper considers how experience can confirm or falsify prior beliefs and produce novel knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although Peirce's mature accounts of his classification of the sciences never lack a few sentences about Science of Review, the role that this principal division of science plays for both his architectonic of science in general and the heuretic coenoscopic philosophical sciences in particular remains rather unclear, although it even seems to contain philosophical disciplines such as a philosophia ultima. The aim of this paper is to take stock of Peirce's remarks on Science of Review in published and unpublished writings from the years 1902–1911 in order to (I.) provide a philologically reliable account of the development of Peirce's conception of this branch of science, (II.) highlight the nature of Peirce's work as a taxonomist of the sciences as a contribution to one of the three essential orders of Science of Review, and finally (III.) shed light on its architectonic role as an integral function of scientific semeiosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses Flórez's idea that an inference having the form of Peirce's abduction is to be found in chapter 13 of the first book of the Posterior Analytics , where Aristotle expounds the distinction between "syllogism of the that" and "syllogism of the why." It is shown that this idea is mistaken because all of Aristotle's examples in APo. I.13 are deductively valid first-figure syllogisms (either of the why or of the that), while abduction is a deductively invalid second-figure syllogism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peirce's sign type of "Dicent Indexical Legisigns" has received relatively little scholarly attention, and it is sometimes confused with the "Dicent Symbol" category. This stems from an inconsistency between Peirce's general explanation and his exemplifications of the category. Taking the lead from the latter, this paper argues that while the role of "Dicent Symbols" is descriptive, the task of "Dicent Indexical Legisigns" is not to describe but rather to establish identity of reference by connecting some proper name to an object or to another identifying sign of that object. Thus, it appears as an overlooked sign type playing an important role both in everyday agreement upon reference and in scientific negotiations over identity, terminology, existence, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on six papers, appearing in this issue of the Transactions, discussing rational inquiry, pragmatism, truth, cognitive progress, and value. The six papers were originally presented at 'The Idea of Pragmatism,' a conference held at the University of Sheffield on 18-19 May 2015 to honour the work of Christopher Hookway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows how Peirce's semeiotics can be applied to explain the representation of non-existent or unreal objects, whether in misrepresentation or in thought and discourse about fictional objects. Such representation would seem to require a relation between a sign and an unreal object, and the puzzle is how a real object (the sign) can bear a relation to an unreal object. Peirce can solve this puzzle without denying that representation generally is relational. However, he can deny that the representation of an unreal object involves a real relation to that object. The key lies with his distinction between the immediate object and the dynamical object of a sign, as an unreal object is always only an immediate object. With a functional substitution model of signs (suggested by Peirce's writings, and defended here) we can understand an unreal immediate object in terms of an interpreter responding to a sign as if it were related to a real object. The remainder of this Peircean solution rests upon a realist interpretation of dynamical objects, as well as upon his abstract definition of truth as the correspondence of a sign to its object, which helps to explain how some propositions about unreal objects can be true. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I examine recent treatments of Peircean truth in terms of regulative principles or intellectual hopes, drawing on work by Christopher Hookway, Cheryl Misak, and Andrew Howat. In doing this I show that recent arguments by Huw Price that Peirce's account cannot provide an effective truth norm do not apply when Peircean truth is construed as a regulative assumption on inquiry. I conclude by comparing the 'anthropological' sensibilities of Price's account of truth as convenient friction, and Peirce's account of truth as a regulative assumption or intellectual hope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Frank Ramsey is usually taken to be an emotivist or an expressivist about the good: he is usually taken to bifurcate inquiry into fact-stating and non-fact-stating domains, ethics falling into the latter. In this paper I argue that whatever the very young Ramsey's view might have been, towards the end of his short life, he was coming to a through-going and objective pragmatism about all our beliefs, including those about the good, beauty, and even the meaning of life. Ethical beliefs are not mere expressions of emotion, but rather fall under our cognitive scope. They can be assessed as rational or irrational, true or false. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Short introduction to a set of five papers on various aspects of several of Peirce's contributions to understanding religion. Papers range from Peirce's Neglected Argument, infant baptism, and the practice of religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his 1868 'Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man' and 'Some Consequences of Four Incapacities' Peirce famously rejected the possibility of having intuitions. Fie defined an intuition as ' a cognition not determined by a previous cognition of the same object' or as a ' premiss not itself a conclusion.' The rejection of intuitive knowledge can thus be seen as an expression of Peirce's enduring conviction that our knowledge is by nature inferential. Even though the main polemical target of these papers is surely Descartes, Peirce specifies in a footnote that he nearly uses the word intuitive ' as the opposite of discursive cognition,' and that this 'is also nearly the sense in which Kant uses it.' Peirce's position seems thus to be quite radical in his rejection of the Kantian distinction between intuitive and discursive cognition, between intuitions and concepts. I show that Peirce, despite this opposition to the Kantian distinction in his early writings, retained and developed in a totally new way some of its essential features in his mature semiotic. In fact, Peirce's famous distinction between icons, indices, and symbols can be read as having functions similar to those reserved by Kant for the distinction between intuitions and concepts. In this framework, the tasks that Kant attributed to intuitions are performed by indices and icons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]