C. S. Peirce and the Deconstruction of Tradition

Book excerpt: What professional philosophy needs most today is a new and fresh imagination. Only this will enable a move away from the traditional positions and schools such as realism, idealism, pragmatism, and empiricism. Nothing much will happen in philosophy as long as its main object is the defense of a position expressed in history. As this book argues, there is no thinker better positioned to overcome this impasse than Charles Sanders Peirce, who, through emancipation from the intellectual fortifications of the past, made a fresh imagination spring forth. This text ably guides the reader through the work and thought of Peirce. It first analyses his dialogue with the traditions of philosophy and semiotics, from Aristotle to the present day, before moving on to a close study of Peirce’s own ontology, epistemology and logic.