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Very good article summarising some achievements of Charles S. Peirce. This is impressive: > The importance and range of Peirce’s contributions to science, math

Very good article summarising some achievements of Charles S. Peirce. This is impressive: > The importance and range of Peirce’s contributions to science, mathematics and philosophy can be appreciated partially by recognising that many of the most important advances in philosophy and science over the past 150 years originated with Peirce: the development of mathematical logic (before and arguably better eventually than Gottlob Frege); the development of semiotics (before and arguably better than Ferdinand de Saussure); the philosophical school of pragmatism (before and arguably better than William James); the modern development of phenomenology (independently of and arguably superior to Edmund Husserl); and the invention of universal grammar with the property of recursion (before and arguably better than Noam Chomsky...). > Beyond these philosophical contributions, Peirce also made fundamental discoveries in science and mathematics. A few of these are: the shape of the Milky Way galaxy; the first precise measurement of the Earth’s gravity and circumference; one of the most accurate and versatile projections of the 3D globe of the Earth onto 2D space; the chemistry of relations and working out the consequences of the discovery of the electron for the periodic table; the axiomisation of the law of the excluded middle, or Peirce’s Law: ((P→Q)→P)→P); existential graphs and the transformation of mathematics into an (quasi-)empirical component of studies on cognition; one of the first studies of the stellar spectra, particularly the spectral properties of argon; the invention of the then most accurate gravimetric pendulum; the first standardisation of the length of the metre by anchoring it to the length of a wavelength of light (which he figured out via his own experiments in multiple stations around Europe and North America). I wanted to share a classic dialogue put together by Susan Haack, "We Pragmatists..." Peirce and Rorty in Conversation—using only the philosophers' actual words—contrasting Peirce's pragmatism with Rorty's of ~100 years later. It's like night and day, with Peirce = day! It gives a very good sense of how they talked and their wide differences. And it's very funny. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312041697_We_Pragmatists_Peirce_and_Rorty_in_Conversation_2005 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/312041697_We_Pragma...

YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
>> (...) the development of mathematical logic (before and arguably better eventually than Gottlob Frege) (...) Frege and Peirce worked out similar aspects of mathematical logic in around the same years. Peirce's work was better known for a while through the work of Ernst Schröder, but then Frege's work became equally known through the work of Bertrand Russel. It's difficult to say which of the two influenced their contemporaries the most, but it's clear that no one person (and not Frege and Peirce together) fully deserves the credit for "the development of mathematical logic". "Arguably" one could claim such "firsts" all the way back to Leibnitz, but what is the point of that? In my opinion, in the paragraph you quote, the linked article indulges itself with some hero worship which ultimately demeans the value of its subject. It makes Peirce sound like some kind of famous guru. In my experience, this kind of thing is common in American writings and almost entirely absent from European work, an interesting divide that it may be worth exploring in depth. The following article is an attempt at a timeline of the development of first-order logic by different authors: The Emergence of First-Order Logic https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-firstorder-emergence/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-firstorder-emergenc...
- yesenadam 5y ago
  > then Frege's work became equally known through the work of Bertrand Russel I'm no expert, but you missed the part where Peirce was written out of the history of logic entirely for most of the 20th C[0], I guess due to the centrality of Frege/Russell in the Anglo/analytic tradition. The article doesn't seem to me to claim that "one person fully deserves the credit". "What is the point of that"? I guess to be able to give readers new to Peirce, in a couple of paragraphs, an idea of the breadth and importance of his work. I'm not sure how the article "ultimately demeans the value of its subject", if you mean Peirce. It's not a technical journal article, but a "learn how awesome Peirce was!" article, and begrudging Peirce such articles seems a little, well, more goblyny than queennely. Thanks for the interesting article! [0] in English, at least, I mean.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
    Well, I'm equal parts goblyn and queenne so you must be wrong :P I don't know if it's right to say that Peirce was "written out" of the history of logic, no less "entirely". Personally, as a student of logic, I get my knowledge from sources that are neither Frege, nor Peirce, nor recognisably derived from either one's work. A lot of water has gone under the bridge and modern mathematical logic is something that neither of the two would recognise as their own. On the other hand, I note that the way I was taught to think about quantifiers (by my thesis advisor, during my PhD) was decidedly Peirce-ian: informally, that ∀ is the big-and and ∃ is the big-or of all variable instantiations to entities in the domain of discourse. So I don't think anything was really written out. >> Thanks for the interesting article! You're welcome. For once, an article on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy that I can read without having studied philosophy. Usually I get bogged down in unexplained jargon very quickly.
    - yesenadam 5y ago
      Sorry, I seem to have failed to communicate what I meant. I meant that in accounts of the history of logic that I saw as a student, say books published in English 1940s-1990s, Peirce was not mentioned. Then when I learnt his importance, that became a very noticeable and annoying omission, which thankfully seems to have started to be corrected in recent decades. I don't see how where you get your logic, or the state of modern logic, or whether the way you were taught to think was Peircian, at all bears on whether Peirce was unfairly omitted from the history of logic.

YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago

>> (...) the development of mathematical logic (before and arguably better eventually than Gottlob Frege) (...) Frege and Peirce worked out similar aspects of mathematical logic in around the same years. Peirce's work was better known for a while through the work of Ernst Schröder, but then Frege's work became equally known through the work of Bertrand Russel. It's difficult to say which of the two influenced their contemporaries the most, but it's clear that no one person (and not Frege and Peirce together) fully deserves the credit for "the development of mathematical logic". "Arguably" one could claim such "firsts" all the way back to Leibnitz, but what is the point of that? In my opinion, in the paragraph you quote, the linked article indulges itself with some hero worship which ultimately demeans the value of its subject. It makes Peirce sound like some kind of famous guru. In my experience, this kind of thing is common in American writings and almost entirely absent from European work, an interesting divide that it may be worth exploring in depth. The following article is an attempt at a timeline of the development of first-order logic by different authors: The Emergence of First-Order Logic https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-firstorder-emergence/ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-firstorder-emergenc...

yesenadam 5y ago
> then Frege's work became equally known through the work of Bertrand Russel I'm no expert, but you missed the part where Peirce was written out of the history of logic entirely for most of the 20th C[0], I guess due to the centrality of Frege/Russell in the Anglo/analytic tradition. The article doesn't seem to me to claim that "one person fully deserves the credit". "What is the point of that"? I guess to be able to give readers new to Peirce, in a couple of paragraphs, an idea of the breadth and importance of his work. I'm not sure how the article "ultimately demeans the value of its subject", if you mean Peirce. It's not a technical journal article, but a "learn how awesome Peirce was!" article, and begrudging Peirce such articles seems a little, well, more goblyny than queennely. Thanks for the interesting article! [0] in English, at least, I mean.
- YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
  Well, I'm equal parts goblyn and queenne so you must be wrong :P I don't know if it's right to say that Peirce was "written out" of the history of logic, no less "entirely". Personally, as a student of logic, I get my knowledge from sources that are neither Frege, nor Peirce, nor recognisably derived from either one's work. A lot of water has gone under the bridge and modern mathematical logic is something that neither of the two would recognise as their own. On the other hand, I note that the way I was taught to think about quantifiers (by my thesis advisor, during my PhD) was decidedly Peirce-ian: informally, that ∀ is the big-and and ∃ is the big-or of all variable instantiations to entities in the domain of discourse. So I don't think anything was really written out. >> Thanks for the interesting article! You're welcome. For once, an article on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy that I can read without having studied philosophy. Usually I get bogged down in unexplained jargon very quickly.
  - yesenadam 5y ago
    Sorry, I seem to have failed to communicate what I meant. I meant that in accounts of the history of logic that I saw as a student, say books published in English 1940s-1990s, Peirce was not mentioned. Then when I learnt his importance, that became a very noticeable and annoying omission, which thankfully seems to have started to be corrected in recent decades. I don't see how where you get your logic, or the state of modern logic, or whether the way you were taught to think was Peircian, at all bears on whether Peirce was unfairly omitted from the history of logic.