Peirce and the Threat of Nominalism

Provides a clear and comprehensive explanation of Peirce's thought and analyses his challenge to nominalism as a theory of meaning.

Paul Forster (Author)

9780521118996, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 17 March 2011

272 pages, 2 b/w illus.
23.5 x 16 x 1.1 cm, 0.57 kg

'If you are a contemporary realist in the analytic tradition, please read this book! Such a combination of difference (from accepted philosophical wisdom) and depth is rare, and whether you agree or disagree with the position argued for, it will challenge your thinking in productive ways.' Journal of the History of Philosophy

Charles Peirce, the founder of pragmatism, was a thinker of extraordinary depth and range - he wrote on philosophy, mathematics, psychology, physics, logic, phenomenology, semiotics, religion and ethics - but his writings are difficult and fragmentary. This book provides a clear and comprehensive explanation of Peirce's thought. His philosophy is presented as a systematic response to 'nominalism', the philosophy which he most despised and which he regarded as the underpinning of the dominant philosophical worldview of his time. The book explains Peirce's challenge to nominalism as a theory of meaning and shows its implications for his views of knowledge, truth, the nature of reality, and ethics. It will be essential reading both for Peirce scholars and for those new to his work.

List of abbreviations
Preface
1. Nominalism as demonic doctrine
2. Logic, philosophy and the special sciences
3. Continuity and the problem of universals
4. Continuity and meaning: Peirce's pragmatic maxim
5. Logical foundations of Peirce's pragmatic maxim
6. Experience and its role in inquiry
7. Scientific method as self-corrective - Peirce's view of the problem of knowledge
8. The unity of Peirce's theories of truth
9. Order from chaos: Peirce's evolutionary cosmology
10. A universe of chance: foundations of Peirce's indeterminism
11. From inquiry to ethics: the pursuit of truth as moral ideal.

Subject Areas: Ethics & moral philosophy [HPQ], Philosophy: epistemology & theory of knowledge [HPK], Western philosophy: c 1600 to c 1900 [HPCD]