Peirce and the threat of nominalism
By: Paul Forster
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Cambridge; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 259
ISBN-13: 9780521118996
Subjects: Nominalism
Description: "Charles Peirce, the founder of pragmatism, was a thinker of extraordinary depth and range - he wrote on philosophy, mathematics, psychology, physics, logic, phenomenology, semiotics, religion and ethics - but his writings are difficult and fragmentary. This book provides a clear and comprehensive explanation of Peirce's thought. His philosophy is presented as a systematic response to 'nominalism', the philosophy which he most despised and which he regarded as the underpinning of the dominant philosophical worldview of his time. The book explains Peirce's challenge to nominalism as a theory of meaning and shows its implications for his views of knowledge, truth, the nature of reality, and ethics. It will be essential reading both for Peirce scholars and for those new to his work"--

"Charles Peirce, the founder of pragmatism, was a thinker of extraordinary depth and range - he wrote on philosophy, mathematics, psychology, physics, logic, phenomenology, semiotics, religion and ethics - but his writings are difficult and fragmentary. This book provides a clear and comprehensive explanation of Peirce's thought. His philosophy is presented as a systematic response to 'nominalism', the philosophy which he most despised and which he regarded as the underpinning of the dominant philosophical worldview of his time. The book explains Peirce's challenge to nominalism as a theory of meaning and shows its implications for his views of knowledge, truth, the nature of reality and ethics. It will be essential reading both for Peirce scholars and for those new to his work"--
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 247-254) and index.
Table of contents: title: 1. Nominalism as demonic doctrine; title: 2. Logic, philosophy and the special sciences; title: 3. Continuity and the problem of universals; title: 4. Continuity and meaning: Peirce's pragmatic maxim; title: 5. Logical foundations of Peirce's pragmatic maxim; title: 6. Experience and its role in inquiry; title: 7. Inquiry as self-corrective; title: 8. Theories of truth: Peirce versus the nominalists; title: 9. Order from chaos: Peirce's evolutionary cosmology; title: 10. A universe of chance: foundations of Peirce's indeterminism; title: 11. From inquiry to ethics: the pursuit of truth as moral ideal.