Editing Charles Sanders Peirce (section)

== As a philosopher ==
Peirce was a working scientist for 30 years, and arguably was a professional philosopher only during the five years he lectured at Johns Hopkins. He learned philosophy mainly by reading, each day, a few pages of [[Immanuel Kant]]'s ''[[Critique of Pure Reason]]'', in the original German, while a Harvard undergraduate. His writings bear on a wide array of disciplines, including mathematics, [[logic]], philosophy, statistics, [[astronomy]],<ref name="SP2" /> [[metrology]],<ref name="metr" /> [[geodesy]], [[experimental psychology]],<ref name="psych" /> economics,<ref name="econom" /> [[linguistics]],<ref name="ling" /> and the [[history and philosophy of science]]. This work has enjoyed renewed interest and approval, a revival inspired not only by his anticipations of recent scientific developments but also by his demonstration of how philosophy can be applied effectively to human problems.

Peirce's philosophy includes a pervasive three-category system: belief that truth is immutable and is both independent from actual opinion ([[fallibilism]]) and discoverable (no radical skepticism), logic as formal semiotic on signs, on arguments, and on inquiry's ways—including philosophical [[pragmatism]] (which he founded), [[#Critical common-sensism|critical common-sensism]], and [[scientific method]]—and, in metaphysics: [[Scotistic realism|Scholastic realism]], e.g. [[John Duns Scotus]], belief in God, freedom, and at least an attenuated immortality, [[objective idealism]], and belief in the reality of continuity and of absolute chance, mechanical necessity, and creative love.<ref name=evolove/> In his work, fallibilism and pragmatism may seem to work somewhat like [[skepticism]] and [[positivism]], respectively, in others' work.  However, for Peirce, fallibilism is balanced by an [[Pragmatism#antiskep|anti-skepticism]] and is a basis for belief in the reality of absolute chance and of continuity,<ref name="FCE">Peirce (1897) "Fallibilism, Continuity, and Evolution", ''Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce'', 1.141–175 ([http://www.textlog.de/4248.html Eprint]), placed by the ''Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce'', editors directly after "F.R.L." (1899, ''Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce'', 1.135–140).</ref> and pragmatism commits one to anti-[[nominalist]] belief in the reality of the general (CP 5.453–457).

For Peirce, First Philosophy, which he also called cenoscopy, is less basic than mathematics and more basic than the special sciences (of nature and mind). It studies positive phenomena in general, phenomena available to any person at any waking moment, and does not settle questions by resorting to special experiences.<ref name="phil">Peirce (1903), ''Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce'', 1.180–202 and (1906) "The Basis of Pragmaticism", ''The Essential Peirce'', 2:372–373, see "[http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/terms/philosophy.html Philosophy]" at ''Commens Digital Companion to C.S. Peirce''.</ref> He [[Classification of the sciences (Peirce)|divided]] such philosophy into (1) phenomenology (which he also called phaneroscopy or categorics), (2) normative sciences (esthetics, ethics, and logic), and (3) metaphysics; his views on them are discussed in order below.

Peirce did not write extensively in aesthetics and ethics,<ref>"[http://agora.phi.gvsu.edu/kap/CSP_Bibliography/CSP_norm_bib.pdf Charles S. Peirce on Esthetics and Ethics: A Bibliography] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030406170524/http://agora.phi.gvsu.edu/kap/CSP_Bibliography/CSP_norm_bib.pdf|date=6 April 2003}}" (PDF) by Kelly A. Parker in 1999.</ref> but came by 1902 to hold that aesthetics, ethics, and logic, in that order, comprise the normative sciences.<ref>Peirce (1902 MS), Carnegie Application, edited by Joseph Ransdell, [http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/bycsp/l75/ver1/l75v1-02.htm Memoir 2] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131103160621/http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/bycsp/l75/ver1/l75v1-02.htm |date=2013-11-03  }}, see table.</ref> He characterized aesthetics as the study of the good (grasped as the admirable), and thus of the ends governing all conduct and thought.<ref>See [http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/terms/esthetics.html Esthetics] at ''Commens Digital Companion to C.S. Peirce''.</ref>

===Influence and legacy===
[[Umberto Eco]] described Peirce as "undoubtedly the greatest unpublished writer of our generation"<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Eco |first1=Umberto |title=Peirce's Notion of Interpretant |journal=[[Modern Language Notes]] |date=December 1976 |volume=91 |issue=6}}</ref> and by [[Karl Popper]] as "one of the greatest philosophers of all time".<ref>{{cite book |last1=George Frederick Simkin |first1=Colin |title=Popper's Views on Natural and Social Science |date=1993 |publisher=E.J. Brill |page=41}}</ref> The [[Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]] says of Peirce that although "long considered an eccentric figure whose contribution to pragmatism was to provide its name and whose importance was as an influence upon James and Dewey, Peirce's significance in his own right is now largely accepted."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Atkin |first1=Albert |title=Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) |url=https://iep.utm.edu/peirce-charles-sanders/ |publisher=[[Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]}}</ref>