Peirce's Philosophical Perspectives (American Philosophy) - Hardcover

Potter, Vincent G.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0823216152 ISBN 13: 9780823216154

Publisher: Fordham University Press, 1995

Synopsis

This collection focuses primarily on Peirce's realism, pragmatism, and theism, with attention to his tychism and synechism.

About this title

Review:

This collection of Father Potter's scholarly essays on Peirce builds on his groundbreaking Charles S. Peirce: On Norms and Ideals (CH, Dec'68). These essays run counter to many selective readings of Peirce, including those encouraged by his friend and champion, William James. The influence of Bernard Lonergan and John E. Smith on Potter is clear throughout. Potter brought several distinctive assets to his scholarship. First, his appreciation and understanding of medieval philosophy enriched his discussion of John Duns Scotus's influence on Peirce's "scholastic realism." Second, Potter's background in the history of science and mathematics generated careful discussions of Peirce's analysis of probability in physics and of the continuum in mathematics. Finally, Potter's knowledge of theology yielded fruitful explorations of Peirce's argument of God's reality as "vaguely like a man." Potter began the editing of this collection; Vincent Colapietro, a colleague, completed the task. Colapietro's introductory essay provides a useful orientation. This is not the first book about Peirce to read. However, it belongs in any library with more than a few introductory works on Peirce. The lack of an index is frustrating. Suitable for upper-division undergraduates as well as graduate students, faculty, and professionals.----Choice

From the Back Cover:

Peirce's Philosophical Perspectives brings together penetrating studies of the United States' greatest philosopher by a foremost expositor. It stands shoulder to shoulder with Potter's Charles S. Peirce: On Norms and Ideals, a study whose main emphases and central concerns have been corroborated by later developments in Peirce scholarship. The present collection focuses primarily on Peirce's realism, pragmatism, and theism, with attention also being paid to his tychism (or doctrine of objective chance) and synechism (or insistence upon the reality and irreducibility of continuity). In exhibiting the connections among these doctrines, the collection reveals a unity of its own. The essays themselves are readily accessible and lucid, though neither accessibility nor lucidity is purchased at the price of subtlety or vigor. Together they provide a first-rate account of what are a first-rank philosopher's signal contributions to contemporary debates about reality, knowledge, and God.

About this edition

• Publisher: Fordham University Press
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0823216152
• ISBN 13: 9780823216154
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 242