Para uma construção normativo-realista do pragmatismo de C. S. Peirce

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation is to construct the growth of the idea of normativity in C. S. Peirce’s philosophy. The value of the normative sciences arose late in his career, however its roots can be traced from early on (1860s). The method is diachronic; the interpretation assumes the coherent and growing character of Peirce’s thought; and his understanding of logic is taken as a common thread. Chapter 1 is the Introduction itself. Besides setting the stage (plan, line of interpretation, and method), I explore what in Portuguese we call the “cipoal” (“a place where lianas grow”) of pragmatism, meaning the intricate field to where this “school of thought” has been quite ironically relegated. Chapter 2 addresses Peirce’s early theory of cognition and his proposal that logic and the method of science are grounded on a “social principle”. I explore the ideas of continuity, inferential nature of thought, sign, incognizable, logical socialism, falibilism, and synechism; as well as Peirce’s idealistic and scholastic conception of reality (the Final Opinion). The upshot of this Chapter is the mingling of the ideas of sociality and reality as the basis of logical reasoning. Chapter 3 moves on to what has been called the “practical side of logic”, and presents Alexander Bain’s definition of belief; Peirce’s reworking of it in view of the problem of fixation; and his proposal of the Pragmatic Maxim. The central idea of Chapter 3 is the emergence of a voluntary, or intentional conception of belief (via Bain), which later appears as a possible inkling to the ideas of purpose, self-control, and the normative character of logic itself. Chapter 4, the last chapter, traces the evolution of Peirce’s thinking about ethics in particular, from dismissing it as a “useless” kind of knowledge in the second half of the 1890s to reviewing it as a major philosophical concern in the 1900s. I will show how his distinct positions appear to correlate with his theory of the categories. While a diachronic approach will be especially necessary here to correct some common efforts to resolve the inconsistencies in Peirce’s moral theory, a categorical account becomes essential to perceive its inner coherence and to support the view that Peirce moved from a nominalist to a realist position in ethics. After an introductory description of the theory of the categories, I enter into the developmental analysis of Peirce’s conceptions of ethics. After reviewing the evolution of his positions, I attempt to offer, with the help of Peirce’s diagram of the degenerate forms of Thirdness, a sub-categorical account of the “threefold” notion of the normative ideal: a notion focused on his three phenomenological categories (feeling, action, and cognition), which perhaps avoids the dichotomies of moral philosophy. I conclude that Peirce’s original version of pragmatism not only was contrary to the individualistic, subjectivist, and nominalist interpretation from the start; but, mostly, I conclude that there are inklings of the importance of the ideas of sociality, reality, and teleology early on; and that these ideas have grown up into a seldom explored realistic-normative pragmatism. Peirce’s arquitectonic provides a continuous teleology towards developing possibilities.