Writings of Charles S. Peirce

Volume 2

Observers of the Solar Eclipse of 22 December 1870 near Catania inSicily. Standing fourth from the left is Charles S. Peirce, fourth fromthe right his father Benjamin; sitting in front of them is Herbert H. D.Peirce, Charles's younger brother. Photograph courtesy of Mrs. PeircePrince, Herbert's granddaughter.

Writings of

CHARLES S. PEIRCEA C H R O N O L O G I C A L E D I T I O N

Volume 21867-1871

EDWARD C. MOORE, EditorMAX H. FlSCH, Consulting Editor

CHRISTIAN J. W. KLOESEL, Senior Associate EditorDON D. ROBERTS, Associate EditorLYNN A. ZIEGLER, Textual Editor

Indiana University Press Bloomington

Preparation of this volume has been supported in part by grants from the Programfor Editions of the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federalagency, and the National Science Foundation. Publication of this volume was aidedby a grant from the Program for Publications of the National Endowment for theHumanities.

C E N T E R F O R

S C H O L A R L Y E D I T I O N S

^4N APPROVED EDITION

M O D E R N L A N G U A G E

A S S O C I A T I O N O F A M E R I C A

Harvard University Press holds the copyright to those parts of this volume that firstappeared in Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (Vols. 1-6 edited by CharlesHartshorne and Paul Weiss, 1931-1935; 7-8 by Arthur W. Burks, 1958); MoutonPublishers to those that first appeared in The New Elements of Mathematics byCharles S. Peirce (4 vols. in 5 edited by Carolyn Eisele, 1976). For those portions ofthe text reproduced from Thomas of Erfurt, GRAMMATICA SPECULATIVA (translatedby G. L. Bursill-Hall, 1972) and from Ockham's Theory of Terms: Parti of the SUMMALOGICAE (translated by Michael J. Loux, 1974), we gratefully acknowledge permissiongranted by the respective publishers, Longmans Group Ltd. (London) and Universityof Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, IN 46556).

Copyright © 1984 by Peirce Edition ProjectAll 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 informa-tion storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.The Association of American University Presses' Resolution on Permissions constitutesthe only exception to this prohibition.

Manufactured in the United States of AmericaLibrary of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

(Revised for volume 2)Peirce, Charles Santiago Sanders, 1839-1914.

Writings of Charles S. Peirce.

Vol. 2- : Edward C. Moore, editor . . . et al.CONTENTS: —V. 2. 1867-1871.Includes bibliographical references and indexes.1. Philosophy—Collected works. I. Moore, Edward C.

B945.P4ISBN 0-253-37201-1 (v. 1)ISBN 0-253-37202-X (v. 2) 4 5 6 7 8 02 01 00 99 98

1982 191 79-1993

Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis

Peirce Edition Project

Edward C. Moore, EditorMax H. Fisch, Consulting EditorChristian J. W. Kloesel, Senior Associate EditorDon D. Roberts, Associate EditorLynn A. Ziegler, Textual EditorJoan A. Vandegrift, Research Associate

Contributing Editors(Vol. 2)

Maryann AyimJacqueline BrunningC. F. DelaneyDonald R. KoehnDaniel D. MerrillRichard W. MillerRichard A. Tursman

Advisory Board

Jo Ann Boydston Vincent G. PotterArthur W. Burks Israel SchefflcrCarolyn EiseleKaren Hanson Manley ThompsonKenneth L. Ketner Richard A. TursmanKlaus Oehler President, Charles S.

Peirce Society

Thomas A. Sebeok

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Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments x

Introduction The Decisive Year and Its Early Consequences

Max H. Fisch xxiThe Journal of Speculative Philosophy Papers

C. F. Delaney xThe 1870 Logic of Relatives Memoir

Daniel D. Merrill xlii

1. /"The Logic Notebook/ 1

/THE AMERICAN ACADEMY SERIES/2. On an Improvement in Boole's Calculus of Logic 123. On the Natural Classification of Arguments 234. On a New List of Categories 495. Upon the Logic of Mathematics 596. Upon Logical Comprehension and Extension 707. Notes 87

8. [Venn's The Logic of Chance/ 989. Chapter I. One, Two, and Three 103

10. Specimen of a Dictionary of the Terms of Logicand allied Sciences: A to ABS 105

11. /Critique of Positivism/ 122

[THE PEIRCE-HARRIS EXCHANGE ON HEGEL/12. Paul Janet and Hegel, by W. T. Harris 13213. Letter, Peirce to W. T. Harris (24 January 1868) 143

xi

xix

xxi

xxxvi

23

5970

122

viii C O N T E N T S

14. Nominalism versus Realism 14415. Letter, Peirce to W. T. Harris (16 March 1868) 15416. What Is Meant by "Determined" 15517. Letter, Peirce to W. T. Harris (9 April 1868) 158

[THE JOURNAL OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHYSERIES;

18. Questions on Reality 16219. Potentia ex Impotentia 18720. Letter, Peirce to W. T. Harris (30 November 1868) 19221. Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for

Man 22. Some Consequences of Four Incapacities 21123. Grounds of Validity of the Laws of Logic 242

24. Professor Porter's Human Intellect 27325. The Pairing of the Elements 28226. Roscoe's Spectrum Analysis 28527. [The Solar Eclipse of 7 August 1869] 29028. Preliminary Sketch of Logic 29429. /The Logic Notebook/ 29830. The English Doctrine of Ideas 302

/LECTURES ON BRITISH LOGICIANS;31. Lecture I. Early nominalism and realism 31032. Ockam. Lecture 3 31733. Whewell 337

/PRACTICAL LOGIC;34. Lessons in Practical Logic 34835. A Practical Treatise on Logic and Methodology 35036. Rules for Investigation 35137. Practical Logic 35338. Chapter 2 356

39. Description of a Notation for the Logic of Relatives 35940. A System of Logic 43041. [Henry James's The Secret of Swedenborg/ 43342. Notes for Lectures on Logic to be given 1st term

1870-71 439

144

155

193211

359

242

273

433

Contents

43. Bain's Logic 44144. Letter, Peirce to W. S. Jevons 44545. [Augustus De Morgan] 44846. Of the Copulas of Algebra 45147. [Charles Babbage] 457

/•THE BERKELEY REVIEW;48. [Eraser's The Works of George Berkeley7 46249. [Peirce's Berkeley Review], by Chauncey Wright 48750. Mr, Peirce and the Realists 490

APPENDIX51. Letter, J. E. Oliver to Peirce 492

Editorial Notes 499Bibliography of Peirce's References 555Chronological List, 1867-1871 564Textual Apparatus

Essay on Editorial Method 569Explanation of Symbols 582Textual Notes 584Emendations 586Word-Division 629

Index 632

448

457

462487490

555564

586

632

ix

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Preface

In an assessment of Charles Peirce as a philosopher, Ernest Nagelwrote that "there is a fair consensus among historians of ideas thatCharles Sanders Peirce remains the most original, versatile, and com-prehensive philosophical mind this country has yet produced."1 Al-though Peirce published a wide variety of papers and reviews, hepublished only one major work (Photometric Researches, Leipzig,1878) and that was not in philosophy. In 1923, Morris R. Cohenedited a volume, collecting two series of Peirce's published papers,under the title of Chance, Love and Logic, but it was not untilHarvard University Press published volumes 1 through 6 of the Col-lected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce from 1931 to 1935 under theeditorship of Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss and volumes 7 and8 in 1958 under the editorship of Arthur W. Burks that Americanphilosophers began to be aware of the range and depth of Peirce'swork.

Although Peirce is best known as the founder of the philosophicaldoctrine known as pragmatism, it is becoming increasingly clear thatthe philosophical problems that interested him the most were thoseof the scientist. Peirce's father, Benjamin Peirce (1809-1880), was adistinguished professor of mathematics and astronomy at HarvardUniversity; Peirce himself received a bachelor of arts degree fromHarvard in 1859, a master of arts in 1862, and a bachelor of sciencein chemistry in 1863.

He was employed for over thirty years by the United States Coastand Geodetic Survey as a scientist. In 1963 the Survey commissionedthe CSS Peirce. At that time the Director of the Coast and GeodeticSurvey, Rear Admiral H. Arnold Karo, wrote me that, "In addition

'Ernest Nagel, Scientific American, 200(1959):185.

xi i P R E F A C E

to being a logician and philosopher, Peirce made many importantscientific and technical contributions to the Coast and Geodetic Sur-vey during his thirty years of service in the bureau."

Incidental to his work for the Coast Survey, Peirce worked as anassistant at the Harvard Observatory from 1869 to 1872 and madea series of astronomical observations from 1872 to 1875 of whichSolon I. Bailey says, "The first attempt at the Harvard Observatoryto determine the form of the Milky Way, or the galactic system, wasmade by Charles S. Peirce. . . . The investigation was of a pioneernature, founded on scant data."2

Peirce made major contributions also in mathematics and logic.C. I. Lewis has remarked that, "The head and front of mathematicallogic is found in the calculus of propositional functions, as developedby Peirce and Schroder. . . ."3

Peirce invented, almost from whole cloth, the study of signs.Ogden and Richards say that, "By far the most elaborate and deter-mined attempt to give an account of signs and their meanings is thatof the American logician C. S. Peirce, from whom William James tookthe idea and the term Pragmatism, and whose Algebra of DyadicRelations was developed by Schroder."4

Peirce was elected a member of the American Academy of Artsand Sciences (1867), the National Academy of Sciences (1877), theLondon Mathematical Society (1880), and the New York Mathemati-cal Society (later the American Mathematical Society) (1891), but hispersonality traits were such that he often offended men of eminenceand he had difficulty obtaining an academic appointment. He taughtfor a few years at The Johns Hopkins University and gave severalseries of public lectures at Harvard and in Boston. Through 1891most of his income came from his work for the Coast and GeodeticSurvey. In the 1880s he inherited enough money to buy a farm houseand sixty acres of land along the Delaware River near Milford, Penn-sylvania. He lived there from 1888 until his death in 1914. He diedin the greatest poverty, unknown except to a few friends. Upon hisdeath his unpublished manuscripts were obtained by Harvard Uni-

Harvard Observatory. Monograph No. 4 (New York: McGraw Hill, 1931), pp. 198-99.3.C. I. Lewis and C. II. Langford, Symbolic Logic (New York: Century, 1932), p.

21.4.C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards, The Meaning of Meaning (London: Routledge

and Kegan Paul, 1949), p. 279.

Solon I. Bailey, The History and Work of Harvard Observatory, 1839-1927,

Preface x

versity. Difficulties in editing the cartons of manuscripts protractedthe process of making the papers generally available to scholars.Only in 1964 were most of these handwritten papers reproduced inmicrofilm by the Harvard University Microreproduction Service.The series, titled "The Microfilm Edition of the Charles S. PeircePapers in the Houghton Library of Harvard University," consistedoriginally of thirty rolls of microfilm which were later supplementedby two additional rolls from the papers and a six-roll selection fromPeirce's professional correspondence, making thirty-eight rolls in all.Richard S. Robin's Annotated Catalogue of the Papers of Charles S.Peirce (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1967) and his"The Peirce Papers: A Supplementary Catalogue" (Transactions ofthe Charles S. Peirce Society 7[1971]:37-57) serve as guides to thatedition.

The writings Peirce himself published run to approximatelytwelve thousand printed pages. At five hundred pages to the volume,these would make 24 volumes. The known manuscripts that he leftunpublished run to approximately eighty thousand handwrittenpages. If, on the average, two manuscript pages yield a book page,it would take 80 additional volumes for the unpublished papers andwould require 104 volumes for his complete works.

Every previously printed edition of Peirce's writings might there-fore fairly be entitled "Selected Papers," with a subtitle indicatingthe scope of the selection. The present edition is no exception. Whatfollows here is a statement of the aims and the editorial policies thathave determined the selections for this edition.

The general aim of our edition is to facilitate the study of thedevelopment of Peirce's thought. We believe that it is important toknow how a philosopher arrives at his conclusions. For that reasonthe present edition is chronological. It brings into a single chronologi-cal order papers published by Peirce and papers which he left un-published. With the exception of papers read at conferences, paperspublished appear in our volumes as of the dates of their publication.Papers left unpublished appear as of the dates of their compositionwhen Peirce himself dated them or when their dates can be deter-mined from other evidence. In the case of papers datable only withina year or two, we permit ourselves some latitude in placing them inrelation to dated papers.

The second principal aim of our edition is to make it as easy aspossible to determine the degree of coherence and systematic unity

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which Peirce's thought had at each stage of its development. Accord-ingly, we depart from the chronological arrangement wherever it isnecessary in order to present every series of papers as a unit, uninter-rupted by other papers published or composed between the first andlast of a series. And, with very few exceptions, we publish no ex-cerpts. We hope by these procedures to preserve the integrity ofevery effort Peirce made to give an orderly and more or less compre-hensive exposition of his views.

Our third principal aim is to include as high a proportion ofpreviously unpublished papers as our other aims permit. We shall beable to attain our first and second aims only by including some mate-rial published by Peirce himself or included in previous letterpresseditions. However, in all cases of material not published by Peircehimself, we have returned to the original manuscripts and editedthem anew. With material which Peirce published, we have re-turned to the original printing. In our edition as a whole, we aim atone-half to two-thirds new material, not previously published. Inanother sense, however, we expect that nearly everything in ouredition will seem new in virtue of the fresh context provided for itby our single chronological sequence.

One further word as to the aims of our edition. Recently anincreasing proportion of the readers of Peirce come to him fromsemiotics, the general theory of signs, and think of him as one of thefounders of that science; often as the founder, or at least as theAmerican founder. Peirce from the beginning conceived of logic ascoming in its entirety within the scope of the general theory of signs.All of his work in logic was done within that framework. At first heconceived of logic as a branch of a branch of semeiotic (his preferredspelling). For a time in his fifties he distinguished a narrow and abroad sense of logic. In the broad sense logic was coextensive withsemeiotic. Eventually he abandoned the narrow sense. The compre-hensive treatise on which he was working in the last decade of hislife was entitled "A System of Logic, considered as Semeiotic." Ouredition will be the first to give prominence to this development andto facilitate the tracing of it in detail.

We come finally to the question of how the actual selecting of ourparticular "Selected Papers of Charles S. Peirce" is done. In general,(a) by giving preference to his more philosophical writings in logicand metaphysics; (b) by including fewer selections from his technicalscientific, mathematical and historical writings; and (c) by giving