Charles Sanders Peirce

Charles Sanders Peirce was born in September 1839 and died five months before the guns of August 1914. He is perhaps the most important mind the United States has ever produced. He made significant contributions throughout his life as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, geodesist, surveyor, cartographer, a historian of science, a lifelong student of medicine, and, above all, a philosopher, whose special fields were logic and semiotics. He is widely credited with being the founder of pragmatism. In terms of his importance as a philosopher and a scientist, he has been compared to Plato and Aristotle. He himself intended Òto make a philosophy like that of Aristotle.Ó In this edition Brent refines his interpretation of PeirceÕs thought and character based on new research, and has added a glossary and a detailed chronology. ÒBrent . . . has given us a full and compelling account of PeirceÕs troubled career and a wealth of persuasive arguments and plausible inferences (what Peirce called ÔabductionsÕ) to help explain it.Ó ÑScience ÒJoseph BrentÕs splendid biography of Charles S. Peirce (1839Ð1914) dispels much of the mystery that has surrounded the difficult life and career of AmericaÕs greatest philosopher.Ó ÑAmerican Historical Review ÒThis outstanding book, the first full-scale biography of Peirce, illuminates both PeirceÕs life and his philosophy.Ó ÑLibrary Journal Ò. . . an extraordinary, inspiring portrait of the largely forgotten Peirce, a progenitor of modern thought who devised a realist metaphysics and attempted to achieve direct knowledge of God by applying the logic of science.Ó ÑPublishers Weekly Ò. . . a forceful and beautifully written account of the life and work of Peirce . . . places the demonic aspects of PeirceÕs personality in their proper social and psychological contexts.Ó ÑSemiotica ÒBrentÕs book is a great example of biographical writing. The final essay, ÔThe Wasp in the Bottle,Õ is astonishingly good, a masterpiece.Ó ÑCharles Hartshorne