C. S. Peirce Manuscripts

1909 March 26 9:30 AM Meaning 2 among friends of the writer by the name he had proposed for it, which was "Pragmatism". It has been generally acknowledged for the last half century, at least, that no man's philosophy can be well-understood until one knows how he came by it; and since the writer has had more that than the usual difficulty in fulfilling the always difficult task of rendering his philosophical position clear, it seems well that he should make a clean breast of his philosophical life in the following paragraphs.

I was born in 1839 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, my father being recognized as the leading foremost American mathematician. His house might almost be said to have been a rendez-vous of the leading men of science of the country, or, at any rate for those

1909 March 26 7:30 PM Meaning 3

of them who cultivated the exact sciences. Agossig came in every day without ringing, and standing in the porch hall, would call "Ben!". Davis (or [Fuer?] Luieutennant in the Navy and past Rear Admiral would pace up and down with my father by the hour. Bache came twice every year; Joseph Henry only occasionally; but Seand [P?.] Walker and Benjamin A[p?]th[o?]rp [w?]ould very intimetily; Josiah P. [Bo?]oke and Stevey Hunt often; Wolcott [G?]ibbs sometimes, John and Joseph Lec[u?]mte (and once John C. Lec[o?]mte) for for long visits. [U?]riah B[o?]yden and Alvan Clarke would come sometimes.

1909 March 27 5:30 PM Meaning

betical order brought me into intimacy with a noble-hearted, sterling charactered young gentlemen, Horation Paine, almost the only real companion I have ever had, in the sense of not only being interested in the ideas that interested me but also disposed to think along the very paths of thought that I myself pursued. He and I occupied almost all our leisure together in reading and discussing Shiller's Aesthetische Poriefe which was being the first book philosophical work I ever read, took a hold upon me made an indelible impression upon me.

I may here mention that I am naturally deficient in aptitude for language. When a new bit of slange comes into vogue, I am about the last person who ? discovers what it means, and when I come to do so, it is by requesting somebody to explain it to me. I am very fequently in its? such doubt about the shade of meaning of some common word, such

Meaning 2 The aim of reasoning is to find out, from the consideration of matters and things already known, something else that we had not before known.

Consequently, reasoning is good if it be calculated to give a true conclusion from true premises; but otherwise it is bad. Thus, the question is purely one of fact and not of thinking or of any disposition to think in one way rather than another. Let A stand for the antecedently as summed state of things asserted in the collective premiss, and C for the consequent state of things assented in the conclusion to be consequent upon A. Then, the whole question is whether or not, to the extent the reasoning supposes, [whether it {carat: "professes to"} be necessary reasoning, or probably, or advantageous in the long run,] it be true that A is realized in fact, C will be realized in fact, too. If so, the inference is valid; if not, it is invalid fallacious. It is not, in the least, the goal

Meaning 3 question, whether the reasoning persuades or convinces the mind; whether when the premises are once accepted, we feel inclined, however irresistibly, to accept the conclusion; as some German logicians of high renown maintain that it is. [If the reader asks me how I can convince him of the correctness of {carat: "this"} any position, I reply that I have no need of convincing him, since his own firm conviction already coincides with mine, whether he be he aware of it, or not. You doubtless remember an experience common to every high-school boy. I cannot be so sure about the girls, never having been a high-school girl myself. Some One of your com rades brought you a piece of algebraic work, and asked you if it was correct. You examined it and said it was. Your school-fellow said it would be such a terrible thing for him if it were wrong, that he begged you to [P......] it through once more and very carefully you did so, and pronounced it perfectly satisfactory. He asked you to write on the paper a solemn oath that {carat: "the reasoning"} was free from the least flow, you did so. Then

Meaning 4 fact and not a question of thinking. Set A be the {carat: "factualization?"}premises of the conclusion then Then he showed you that one thing clearly implies in its conclusion was that 2=3. Therupon, you remember, you blushed and admitted that through the reasoning entirely satisfied your mind, and you could see no {carat: "find no"} [f...] flaw in it, yet it could not be sound; and that I know is just what you would confess in analogous eased to-day. I know it, because I know you to be so perfectly candid and free from any guile or [mond.r.us] false pretension. Now if you reply that an argument's leading from true premises to a false conclu sion, though it is sure sign of its being unsatisfactory, is not what the fallacious character consists in, I shall infer that you are either a Lawyer or a catholic priest or some other character occupy some other position outside the pale of {carat: modern} sciences, which has accustomed habituated you to satisfying the minds of others and, when, as far as possible, your own too with distinctions like these and I shall ask you be obliged to ask you whether you conceive that this

629

Ms. 629 STUDIES IN THE MEANINGS OF OUR THOUGHTS What is the Aim of Thinking? Considered in Two Chapters. Chapter I. The Fixation of Belief. I. [.e..] people care to study logic: each deems himself fully competent already to distinguish a good argument from a bad one. (I notice, however, that it is generally agreed that anything like infallibility in that respect is an extremely rate gift, almost limited to one happy possessor, as to the identity of whom...)

We come to the full possession of the power of drawing inferences the best of all our faculties; and though the pure eyes {carat: "of reason"} of many children have a penetration that they are apt to lose during their teens, yet it this is the one sense

630

1909 March 22 Ms. 630 Meaning 1 STUDIES OF MEANING. PRAGN On a Useful Maxim of Thinking. This Essay, in two chapters, which appeared {carat: "without its titles, was first published as two articles"} in the Popular Science Monthly, for Nov. 1877, and Jan. 1878, contains the first formulation of this a principle which the writer had urged for some {carat: "half a dozen"} years {carat: "or so,"} upon is philosophical friends, under the name of Pragmatism. It attracted no particular {carat: "great"} attention, though a French version by the author was printed in the Revue Philosophique. But some years later Professor William James, brought this matter before the philosophic world, and pressed it {carat: "(pressing it, indeed,"} further than Mr. Peirce, continues to acknowledge, not the existence, but yet the reality, of the Absolute, as set forth, for example by Royce) able to approve; and in this form has become a real foreign {carat: "Pragmatism has taken a prominent place in"} philosophy of today. It {carat: "The essay"} is here reprinted, with insignificant omissions and corrections, just in its original form with the exception of the posts evolved between heavy square brackets, which are due to the writer's deeper study of the subject during the generation that has elapsed since his first.