Peirce on Limiting the Pragmatic Maxim

Posted on July 15, 2008
Filed Under Peirce, Philosophy | 1 Comment

The Pragmatic Maxim is fairly well known I think.

“Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.” (CP 5.258)

The question is how far one can take this.

I think that Peirce intended this solely as a kind of verificationalist principle. Related to but not identical with the kind of verificationalism one found among the positivists. The big difference, of course, is that Peirce felt one could verify universals and also thought one could do the same with most metaphysical claims.

However the way the Pragmatic Maxim was used was often extended such that the “practical bearings” were interpreted very broadly. That is meaning became tied to how we’d react to an idea. That was quite beyond what Peirce ever intended though.

“But a thinker must be shallow indeed if he does not see that to admit a species of practicality that consists of one’s conduct about words and modes of expression is at once to break down all bars against the nonsense that pragmatism is designed to exclude.” (CP 5.23)

What Peirce meant with his Pragmatic Maxim was that meaning (predication) was caught up with the activities we’d use on an object to generate a certain set of descriptions. That is our acting (or possible acting) on an object generates a kind of descriptions. So to say something is hard is wrapped up with certain operations on the object which lead us to say it is hard.

Related posts:

  1. Peirce on Reference
  2. Peirce, Heidegger and Ready at Hand
  3. The Problem with Metaphysics
  4. Peirce and Things
  5. Strength of Belief
  6. Peirce on Truth

Comments

One Response to “Peirce on Limiting the Pragmatic Maxim”

Just to add, in a way Peirce didn’t just feel we could verify universals. Rather he felt that any verification was always about a general. And generals as signs could act and thus were real. So in a sense all we can verify are kinds of universals.

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