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'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. Keywords: Charles S. Peirce, Common Sense, Pragmaticism, Predicate, Subject, Vagueness., 1. Introduction In the years 1905-1906 Charles S. Peirce wrote a series of three articles on pragmatism for the Monist. 'What Pragmatism Is,' (1) mostly written in September 1904 and [...]

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. Keywords: Charles S. Peirce; Assertion; Conjunction; Logical Graphs; Existential Graphs, (I). Peter Geach summarizes the 'classical doctrine' of conjunctive propositions in the following four claims: (I) For any set of propositions there is a single proposition that is their conjunction, [...]

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 [...]

We analyze the steps that took Peirce from his early 1882 proposals to represent logic by graphs to the advent of the full theory of quantification in his 1896 logic of Existential Graphs. Keywords: Charles S. Peirce, Oscar H. Mitchell, logical graphs, logic of relatives, quantification, Entitative Graphs, Existential Graphs., I. Introduction It is well-known that by 1882, Peirce, influenced by Cayley's, Clifford's and Sylvester's works on algebraic invariants and by the chemical analogy, had already achieved something like a [...]

In this article I connect Peirce's early logico-semiotic investigations (1865-1867) to the doctrine of sign-inference presented by Aristotle in the Prior Analytics. In section III I argue that An. Pr. II.27 showed Peirce the possibility of a syllogistic reconstruction of non-syllogistic inferences, and taught him (i) to consider the premises of an argument as affording a [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] or sign of the conclusion, and (ii) to consider the three syllogistic figures as three different signs based on three different semiotic principles. As a preliminary to my argument, in section II I discuss some of Peirce's later remarks on semiotic terminology that collectively throw some light on the historical models of Peirce's semiotic enterprise. Keywords: Charles Peirce, Aristotle, semiotics sign-inference, sign, symbol, principles of reasoning., I. Introduction According to an established reconstruction, (1) Augustine of Hippo in the fourth century CE was the first to perform a complete fusion between the theory of signs and [...]

In his later years, Peirce devoted much energy to the project of a book on logic, whose intended title was 'Logic, considered as Semeiotic.' That the science of logic is better considered as semeiotic is indeed one of the most fundamental tenets of Peirce's mature philosophy of logic. But what is the primary motivation for considering logic as semeiotic and what advantages did Peirce see in doing so? If logic is to be considered as semeiotic, this can only mean that its objects and their functioning are to be described in purely semeiotical terms. But did Peirce succeed in providing such a description? This paper focuses on the semeiotical functioning of the fundamental triad of logic: terms (rhemes), propositions (dici-signs), and arguments; it also discusses the idea of an extension of the science of logic and offers examples of the kind of extension that Peirce had in mind. Keywords: Charles Peirce, classification of signs, interpretant, philosophy of logic, proposition, reasoning., In his later years, Peirce devoted much energy to the project of a book on logic that, according to him, would show the results of his work in this field [...]

The paper addresses the issue of propositional unity in Peirce's logic: what distinguishes a proposition from a mere list of constituents, so that the former is able to say something while the latter is not? I first give a brief survey of Frege's, Russell's, and Wittgenstein's endeavours to cope with the question of the unity of the proposition. I then proceed to analyze Peirce's solution thereof. Like Frege, Peirce developed a chemistry of concepts capable of avoiding the difficulties raised by the unity problem. He subsequently adopted a version of Russell's Principle of Acquaintance and claimed that that which gives a proposition its unity is a peculiar relation that he called "continuous predicate." Finally, I attempt to illustrate what Peirce would have replied to Wittgenstein's claim that logical form is ineffable. Keywords: Charles Peirce, Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, unity, proposition., The problem of the unity of the proposition--what distinguishes a proposition from a mere list of constituents, so that the former is able to say something while the latter is [...]

Around 1906, Peirce discovered that the logical analysis of a proposition comes to an end when a 'continuous predicate' is found. Continuous predicates are those predicates that cannot be analyzed, or, which is the same, are only analyzable into parts all homogeneous with the whole. This paper examines Peirce's concept of continuous predicate and its relevance to his theory of logical analysis. Keywords: Charles S. Peirce, Combination, Continuity, Continuous Predicate, Existential Graphs, Leading Principles, Logical Analysis, Triadicity., A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose. Gertrude Stein As is well known, according to Charles S. Peirce one of the principal tasks of logic is [...]