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Peirce's Conception of Metaphysics Peirce’s Conception of Metaphysics Joshua David Black Department of Philosophy University of Sheffield A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2017 Word count: 81,000 Abstract This thesis develops and defends a Peircean conception of the task of metaphysics and critically compares it with recent anti-metaphysical forms of pragmatism. Peirce characterises metaphysics in terms of its place within his hierarchical classification of the sciences. According to the classification, metaphysics depends on logic for principles and provides principles to the natural and social sciences. This arrangement of the sciences is defended by appeal to Peirce’s account of philosophy as ‘cenoscopy’. The dependence of the natural and social sciences on cenoscopy is then argued for on the basis of Peirce’s rejection of psychologism and in terms of the necessity of abductive inference. Peirce’s position is then compared with recent forms of pragmatism. While it is less naturalistic, Peirce’s position is defended on pragmatist grounds. An account of Peirce on truth is then developed. Peirce’s account of truth in terms of an ideal limit of inquiry is defended as consistent with recent, more de- flationary, approaches. The truth of ‘abstract propositions’ is a matter of local in- defeasibility. These abstract propositions are related to the ‘absolute truth’, un- derstood as a single non-abstract proposition. The truth of this proposition is then understood in terms of an identity theory. Two conceptions of Peircean metaphysics are presented. Both are ‘abductive’. Their task is to explain the possibility of success in inquiry. However, only one proposal accepts the notion of an absolute truth. The ‘absolutist’ proposal is de- fended as an interpretation of Peirce and as a contemporary option for pragmatist philosophers. The thesis concludes by comparing recent anti-metaphysical arguments due to Huw Price with the Peircean position. Room for the absolutist proposal is defended by means of an account of recent exchanges between Price and Robert Brandom on dispositional modality. i Acknowledgements Many thanks are due to my supervisors Christopher Hookway and Robert Stern. Both have been incredibly encouraging and have helped guide this research to its final form. Sheffield has been a particularly good place for research on pragmatism. I am especially thankful to all those who have been involved in the pragmatism reading group. In particular, I’d like to thank Alexander Klein, Catherine Legg, Daniel Herbert, David Strohmaier, James Lewis, Jeremy Dunham, Mara-Daria Cojocaru, Neil Williams, Paniel Reyes Cardenas, Phillip Nash, Shannon Dea, Simon Barker, and Trystan Goetze. The Sheffield postgraduate community has been very supportive and friendly throughout my time here. I have stuck around in Sheffield long enough that the list of names which should be included here is prohibitively long. Special thanks are due to Neil Williams, who started his research on William James at around the same time as me. We have been able to carry on a very fruitful (at least for me) James-Peirce dialogue over the last few years. Outside the university, my thanks are due to May Connolly, Simon Joy, and Grant Naylor. Many thanks are due to Matthew Scobie, Richard Healey, and Neil Williams for proof reading various chapters. My time at Sheffield would not have been possible without financial support from the University of Sheffield, in the form of a Faculty Scholarship. In my final year I also received a bursary from the Royal Institute of Philosophy. I am very grateful for both. Finally, I’d like to express my gratitude to my parents, Graeme and Valerie Black, who have been incredibly supportive of my research. iii Abbreviations Citations from Collected Papers are of the form CPx.y, where x denotes volume x, and y denotes paragraph y. Citations from the two volumes of Essential Peirce, the seven volumes of the Writings of Charles Peirce, and the four volumes of New Ele- ments of Mathematics are all of the form Ax:y, where A denotes the abbreviation, x the volume, and y the page. Citations of Peirce’s manuscripts are of the form Rx.y, where x is the manuscript number, and y is the page if available. Citations of The Published Works of Charles Sanders Peirce is of the form PWx.y, where x is the catalogue number and y is the page if available. I have attempted to cite from Writings and the two volumes of Essential Peirce wherever possible. In addition, I have attempted wherever possible to include a date with my citations of Peirce. If the work in question was published during Peirce’s lifetime I use the date of first publication, if not, I use the date that it was written (if available). Other citation practices should be self-explanatory. CP Charles Sanders Peirce (1931–35, 1958). Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Ed. by Paul Weiss and Charles Hartshorne (Vols. 1–6). Ed. by Arthur W. Burks (Vols. 7–8). 8 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. EP Charles Sanders Peirce (1992, 1998). The Essential Peirce: Selected Philo- sophical Writings. Ed. by Nathan Houser and Christian Kloesel (Vol. 1). Ed. by The Peirce Edition Project (Vol. 2). 2 vols. Bloomington: Indiana Univer- sity Press. ILS Charles Sanders Peirce (2014). Illustrations of the Logic of Science. English. Ed. by Cornelis De Waal. Chicago: Open Court. LW John Dewey (1985). The Later Works of John Dewey, 1925-1953. Ed. by Jo Ann Boydston. 17 vols. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois Uni- versity Press. v vi Abbreviations NM Charles Sanders Peirce (1976). The New Elements of Mathematics. Ed. by Carolyn Eisele. 4 vols. The Hague: Mouton. PW Charles Peirce (2012). The Published Works of Charles Sanders Peirce. Ed. by Kenneth Laine Ketner. url: http://www.pragmaticism.net/works/. R Richard Robin (1967). Annotated Catalogue of the Papers of Charles S. Peirce. url: http://www.iupui.edu/~peirce/robin/robin.htm. RLT Charles Sanders Peirce (1992). Reasoning and the Logic of Things: The Cambridge Conferences Lectures of 1898. Ed. by Kenneth Laine Ketner. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. W Charles Sanders Peirce (1982–). Writings of Charles S. Peirce. Ed. by The Peirce Edition Project. 8 vols. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Contents Abbreviations v Contents vii Introduction 1 1 The Hierarchical Classification of the Sciences 7 1 Motives and Outcomes of Peirce’s Classificatory Project ............ 9 2 Peirce’s Conception of the Sciences ..................................... 16 3 Relations Between Sciences ............................................. 26 4 Two Pragmatist Worries ................................................. 32 2 Cenoscopy, Idioscopy, and First Philosophy 41 1 Characterising Cenoscopy ............................................... 44 2 Cenoscopy as First Philosophy .......................................... 55 3 Contemporary Alternatives ............................................. 79 3 True Propositions and the Aim of Inquiry 91 1 The Truth-Inquiry Link ................................................. 93 2 The Contextualist Account of Truth.................................... 102 3 Truth in Baldwin’s Dictionary .......................................... 110 4 Peirce’s Semeiotic Account of the Proposition ......................... 113 5 The Truth and the Absolute Truth ..................................... 121 6 Pragmatism and the Absolute .......................................... 145 4 Peirce’s Abductive Metaphysics 153 1 Metaphysics in the Hierarchy of the Sciences ......................... 155 2 Metaphysics and Abduction ............................................. 177 3 Two Options for Peircean Metaphysics................................. 182 vii viii Contents 5 Peircean Metaphysics and Contemporary Pragmatism 193 1 Price’s Pragmatist Rejection of Metaphysics .......................... 194 2 Contextualist Peircean Metaphysics and ‘Representationalism’.... 198 3 Peirce, Price, and Brandom on Modality............................... 206 Conclusion 219 Bibliography 223 Introduction Pragmatism has a difficult relationship with metaphysics. On one hand, the prag- matists direct their attention towards the concrete details of our practices, often at the expense of traditional philosophical concerns. Some even take the primary aim of pragmatism to be the end of metaphysics (e.g. Seigfried 2001; Rorty 1979). Attention to ourselves and our practices can encourage the thought that there is no story to be told about the world as it is independently of us. On the other hand, many classical and contemporary pragmatists have tried to produce meta- physical work consistent with their pragmatist scruples.1 This thesis offers an ac- count of Peirce’s conception of metaphysics and critically compares it with some recent, anti-metaphysical, pragmatist positions. It is hoped that focusing on the basic strategy that Peirce attempts to carry out in his metaphysics, rather than on his detailed first-order metaphysical proposals, will enable us to come to a better understanding of its contemporary viability. This study, since it is concerned with Peirce’s understanding of the role and function of metaphysics, will focus primarily on Peirce’s later work. Peirce’s creat- ive work on first-order metaphysical issues largely occurs in his Monist Metaphys- ical Series (1891–1893), and in some earlier material, including A Guess at the Riddle (1887–1888). This work will sometimes be referred to in order to illustrate Peirce’s conception of the task of metaphysics.2
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