Charles Sanders Peirce BiographyUSA Flag

Charles Sanders Peirce, Philosopher
Occup.Philosopher
FromUSA
BornSeptember 10, 1839
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
DiedApril 19, 1914
Milford, Pennsylvania, USA
CauseCancer
Aged74 years
Charles Sanders Peirce, born on September 10, 1839, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist. He is considered to be one of the greatest American philosophers and the founder of pragmatism. Peirce's work ranged from logic and semiotics to economics and physical science. He was also a prominent experimentalist who made important contributions to the fields of metrology and metrology.

Peirce was born into a prominent family of academics and scientists. His father, Benjamin Peirce, was a professor of mathematics and astronomy at Harvard University. His mother, Sarah Mills, was the daughter of a wealthy businessman who had an interest in science. Peirce showed his intellectual potential from an early age, and by the age of 16, he had taught himself the entirety of the six European languages of classical studies.

In 1859, Peirce graduated from Harvard with a bachelor's degree in chemistry. He then served as a topographer in the United States Coast Survey from 1859 to 1891, where he made significant contributions to the advancement of science in the fields of geodesy, spectroscopy, and gravimetry. He also worked on the design and testing of precision instruments used to measure time and distance.

Peirce returned to Harvard in 1863 to study philosophy, and while there, he became interested in logic and semiotics. He completed his doctoral dissertation in 1869 on "The Logic of Science". After earning his degree, Peirce took on several teaching positions, including at Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, Berkeley.

Peirce's work in philosophy was characterized by a pragmatic approach that sought to ground knowledge in the real world, rather than on abstract theories. Some of his most significant contributions to philosophy include the development of the pragmatic method, pragmatism as a theory of inquiry, and the Peircean classification of signs. Peirce's logic also influenced the development of modern symbolic logic.

Peirce's work had a profound impact on the development of American philosophy and the broader intellectual community. He was a founding member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In recognition of his contributions, he was awarded the Copley Medal by the Royal Society of London in 1902.

Peirce suffered from chronic health problems throughout his life and died on April 19, 1914, in Milford, Pennsylvania, at the age of 74. Although his work was sometimes overlooked during his lifetime, he is now recognized as one of the most significant American philosophers of the 19th century.

Our collection contains 10 quotes who is written / told by Charles.

Related authors: William James (Philosopher), Philo (Philosopher)

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10 Famous quotes by Charles Sanders Peirce

Small: Charles Sanders Peirce: It is impossible not to envy the man who can dismiss reason, although we know how it m
"It is impossible not to envy the man who can dismiss reason, although we know how it must turn out at last"
Small: Charles Sanders Peirce: Generality is, indeed, an indispensable ingredient of reality for mere individual exis
"Generality is, indeed, an indispensable ingredient of reality; for mere individual existence or actuality without any regularity whatever is a nullity. Chaos is pure nothing"
Small: Charles Sanders Peirce: Every new concept first comes to the mind in a judgment
"Every new concept first comes to the mind in a judgment"
Small: Charles Sanders Peirce: The final upshot of thinking is the exercise of volition, and of this thought no longe
"The final upshot of thinking is the exercise of volition, and of this thought no longer forms a part; but belief is only a stadium of mental action, an effect upon our nature due to thought, which will influence future thinking"
Small: Charles Sanders Peirce: It will sometimes strike a scientific man that the philosophers have been less intent
"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"
Small: Charles Sanders Peirce: All the evolution we know of proceeds from the vague to the definite
"All the evolution we know of proceeds from the vague to the definite"
Small: Charles Sanders Peirce: Doubt is an uneasy and dissatisfied state from which we struggle to free ourselves and
"Doubt is an uneasy and dissatisfied state from which we struggle to free ourselves and pass into the state of belief; while the latter is a calm and satisfactory state which we do not wish to avoid, or to change to a belief in anything else"
Small: Charles Sanders Peirce: The essence of belief is the establishment of a habit and different beliefs are distin
"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"
Small: Charles Sanders Peirce: Bad reasoning as well as good reasoning is possible and this fact is the foundation of
"Bad reasoning as well as good reasoning is possible; and this fact is the foundation of the practical side of logic"
Small: Charles Sanders Peirce: A quality is something capable of being completely embodied. A law never can be embodi
"A quality is something capable of being completely embodied. A law never can be embodied in its character as a law except by determining a habit. A quality is how something may or might have been. A law is how an endless future must continue to be"