Logic, ethics and the ethics of logic

Abstract

Peirce wrote this in 1902 as part of his “Minute Logic”, a major book project from his later, officially unemployed, years. The editors of EPII note that the book was so named “to reflect the minute thoroughness with which [Peirce] planned to examine every relevant problem” (xiv), and that within a year it ran to hundreds of pages. This vast project gave Peirce the opportunity to think in intricate detail about the architectonic structure of his thought. This groundwork bore much fruit: notably in Peirce’s 1902 grant application to the Carnegie Institution, still one of the best guides to the way Peirce’s mature thought would have unfolded had he been given access to resources commensurate with his abilities, and the 1903 Harvard lectures on pragmatism where (despite struggles with James over scope and purpose) he managed to distil into seven evening lectures a new philosophical system of brilliance and power, with many outlines previously unknown in the history of philosophy.