Charles Sanders Peirce By Lucy Clarke and Lucy Brownnutt

Who is Charles Sanders Peirce?

• Born September 10th 1839-april 19th 1914• American philosopher, logician,

mathematician and scientist • Sometimes known as the father of

pragmatism • A philosopher Paul Weiss called peirce “the

most original and versatile of American philosophers and Americas greatest logician”

What he did• He saw logic as the formal branch of semiotics (theory of

signs and symbols), of which he is a founder. As early as 1886 he saw that logical operations could be carried out by electrical switching circuits: the same idea was used decades later to produce digital computers.

• was the founder of American pragmatism- dealing with issues sensibly and practically whilst looking at both sides of the argument.

• Peirce graduated from Harvard in 1859 and received the bachelor of science degree in chemistry in 1863.

• Probably Peirce's best-known works are the first two articles in a series of six that originally were collectively entitled Illustrations of the Logic of Science and published in Popular Science Monthly from November 1877 through August 1878.

His key works

• graduated in 1859 and then went on to pursue a Masters degree in science in 1862. Then he obtained a bachelors degree in science four year later.

• Charles Sanders Peirce developed a theory of signs at almost the same time as Saussure. He called his theory, semeiotics. This meant that he discovered the similarities between an image and what it represents.

• After he died in 1914, He left a huge amount of works on a very wide range of topics e.g. logic, maths, astronomy and physics and philosophy

Quotes and what he wrote:“It is impossible not to envy the man who can dismiss reason, although we know how it must turn out at last.”

“The essence of belief is the establishment of a habit; and different beliefs are distinguished by the different modes of action to which they give rise.”

“It will sometimes strike a scientific man that the philosophers have been less intent on finding out what the facts are, than on inquiring what belief is most in harmony with their system.”

“Every new concept first comes to the mind in a judgment.”

“Bad reasoning as well as good reasoning is possible; and this fact is the foundation of the practical side of logic.”