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PEIRCE, SEMEIOTIC, AND PRAGMATISM Max H. Fisch PEIRCE, SEMEIOTIC, AND PRAGMATISM Essays by MAX H. FISCH Edited by Kenneth Laine Ketner and Christian J. W. Kloesel Indiana University Press BLOOMINGTON © 1986 by Indiana University Press All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher The Association of American University Presses' Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition. Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging­in ­Publication Data Fisch, Max Harold, 1900­ Peirce, semeiotic, and pragmatism Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Peirce, Charles S. (Charles Sanders), 1839­1914­ Addresses, essays, lectures. 2. Pragmatism­Addresses, essays, lectures. 3. Semiotics­Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Ketner, Kenneth Laine. II. Kloesel, Christian J. W. III. Title. B945.P44F49 1986 85­42525 ISBN 0­253­34317­8 1 2 3 4 5 90 89 88 87 86 Page v Contents Preface vii Forms of Reference xi 1 Charles Sanders Peirce (1939) 1 2 Justice Holmes, the Prediction Theory of Law, and Pragmatism (1942) 6 3 Evolution in American Philosophy (1947) 19 4 Peirce at the Johns Hopkins University (1952) 35 5 Alexander Bain and the Genealogy of Pragmatism (1954) 79 6 Some General Characteristics of American Philosophy (1960) 110 7 A Chronicle of Pragmaticism, 1865­1879 (1965) 114 8 Philosophical Clubs in Cambridge and Boston (1964­65) 137 9 Peirce's Triadic Logic (1966) 171 10 Peirce's Progress from Nominalism toward Realism (1967) 184 11 Vico and Pragmatism (1969) 201 11 Peirce's Arisbe: The Greek Influence in His Later Philosophy (1971) 227 13 Peirce and Leibniz (1972) 249 14 Hegel and Peirce (1974) 261 15 American Pragmatism Before and After 1898 (1977) 283 16 Peirce's Place in American Thought (1977) 305 17 Peirce's General Theory of Signs (1978) 321 18 Just How General Is Peirce's General Theory of Signs? (1983) 356 19 The "Proof" of Pragmatism (1981) 362 20 Peirce as Scientist, Mathematician, Historian, Logician, and Philosopher (1976) 376 21 Peirce's Place in American Life (1982) 401 22 The Range of Peirce's Relevance (1983) 422 Bibliography 449 Index 455 Page vii Preface Charles Sanders Peirce (1839­1914) is widely regarded as the most profound native intellect to have appeared in the United States. A scientist and mathematician of international reputation, he produced many of the advances in logic (which he equated with semeiotic, the general theory of signs) that have made possible a number of further advances, ranging from computing and literary theory to history and philosophy of science. Peirce was the inventor of pragmatism, the only native American philosophical movement, which has had, and continues to have, a worldwide impact. Peirce conceived pragmatism as an aspect of his doctrine of the nature of scientific logic and method, a topic he studied both as a practicing scientist and as a philosopher throughout his long life. To distinguish the details of his doctrine from similar efforts, in later years he preferred the substitute name, 'pragmaticism'. In more than one sense, the field of Peirce studies is just beginning. Among its leading founders is Max Fisch. He has devoted nearly his entire life to the spirit and realization of Peirce's ideal of a scholarly community. The effects of his vast scholarship, plus his profound willingness to share its fruits, will long be felt by colleagues, friends, and scholars. Because his essays are widely consulted, yet have appeared in diverse places, we have persuaded him to allow us to prepare this collection of his principal writings on Peirce, semeiotic,* and pragmatism, so that they will be more accessible and even more widely consulted. Max Harold Fisch was born in Elma, Washington, on 21 December 1900. He graduated from James Russell Lowell High School in San Francisco in January 1919 and entered Butler College in Indianapolis a year and a half later. There he studied philosophy under Elijah Jordan, met Ruth Bales (whom he married in 1927), was ordained a minister of the Disciples of Christ, and graduated in 1924. He received his doctorate in 1930 from Cornell University's Sage School of Philosophy, two years after he had joined the Philosophy Department at Western Reserve University in Cleveland as an assistant professor. From 1942 to 1945 he was curator of the rare book collection of the Army Medical Library, and chief of its History of Medicine Division during the first half of 1946. In the fall of that year he joined the faculty of the University of Illinois as professor of philosophy. During his long tenure at Urbana, he achieved a number of distinctions, an important one being his guidance of a whole generation of younger Peirce scholars who came to pursue doctoral studies with him. After his so­called retirement in 1969, he spent several years occupying distinguished visiting professorships: at the State University of New York at Buffalo during 1969­70, the University of Florida 1970­71, and Texas Tech University as Visiting University Professor during 1973­75, where he made important contributions to the two­year­old Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism. Ruth Fisch died *For the spelling and pronunciation of 'semeiotic', see the opening paragraphs of "Peirce's General Theory of Signs." Page viii July 9, 1974, and one year later, or fifty­one years after he had left Butler College, Max returned to Indiana as adjunct professor of philosophy and as general editor of the newly formed Peirce Edition Project at Indiana University at Indianapolis. He is now senior editor of the Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition, whose plan he first drafted more than a decade ago and whose projected twenty volumes it is his dream to see realized. Professor Fisch's chief other dream, and work that spans nearly half a century, concerns the Italian philosopher of history Giambattista Vico. That work began in earnest in 1939 when he visited Naples for the first time. In 1944 he published the standard translation of Vico's Autobiography with Thomas Bergin and contributed to it a monumental introduction. The same team produced a translation of Vico's New Science in 1948. He returned to Vico's city as a Fulbright scholar in 1950­51, and during that visit he presented to Croce and Santayana copies of his Classic American Philosophers. He also represented the University of Illinois in the founding conference of the International Association of Universities, serving on its administrative board until 1955. He was president of the Western Division of the American Philosophical Association in 1955­56, and in 1960­61 of the Charles S. Peirce Society. During the spring of 1958, under the auspices of the U.S. Department of State, he lectured at eleven universities in India, and immediately afterward went to Tokyo where he spent the academic year 1958­59 as a Fulbright professor of American philosophy at Keio University, which was then celebrating its centennial year. In 1976 he was made an Official Knight of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, and in 1978­79 he served as president of the Semiotic Society of America. Since 1977 he has been president of the Charles S. Peirce Foundation. In 1959 the Philosophy Department of Harvard University invited him to undertake a biography of America's great scientist, logician, and philosopher, Charles Sanders Peirce. Since then he has spent time in Cambridge nearly every year, especially in Houghton and Widener libraries and the Harvard University Archives. Until 1974 he was always accompanied by his wife who had, he later said, "a much more dependable memory than mine" and whose contributions to rearranging and ordering both the Benjamin and Charles Peirce papers have yet to be widely appreciated. While working in the Harvard libraries, they met another eminent Peirce scholar, the historian of mathematics and science, Carolyn Eisele, then and now a close friend and valued colleague. This volume is dedicated to the memory of Ruth Alice Bales Fisch. Carolyn Eisele writes: In remembrance of dear Ruth, the happy union of scholar, wife, mother, and friend. Her devotion to the Peircean cause was an inspiration and challenge to her co­workers, and made possible much of the collaborative efforts in the re­creation of this vital chapter in American intellectual history. Max Fisch's heroic efforts to complete the gigantic undertaking to which Ruth had also given so much of her life serve as testimony to the continuing influence of her dedicated partnership. Page ix All of Max Fisch's writings are marked by meticulous research, and they go far beyond the boundaries of a single volume. What is contained here is but a part, yet an important one, of his published scholarship. The appended bibliography will allow interested students to pursue his complete research to date. Although from the beginning we focused upon his essays on Peirce, semeiotic, and pragmatism, there were still too many to fit within the covers of a single volume. Consequently, several important essays directly related to our topics had to be excluded. Fortunately, those are still in print and are readily available.* We decided to include the first selection because we thought it noteworthy that Professor Fisch's first serious publication on Peirce should come exactly one hundred years after the latter's birth. The significance of the other selections, which together represent the bulk of his most important writings on Peirce, semeiotic, and pragmatism, will easily be recognized and appreciated. Readers in search of an essay that, perhaps better than any other, presents Fisch's own philosophic views are advised to consult "The Critic of Institutions," preferably in the volume edited by Bontempo and Odell.

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