To erect a philosophical edifice that shall outlast the vicissitudes of time, my care must be, not so much to set each brick with nicest accuracy, as to lay the foundations deep and massive.
— Charles S. Peirce —
When exploring Peirce, the main difficulty is keeping it all together.
Peirce’s thought forms a dense web of ideas. Explaining one concept necessitates referencing several others, which in turn require further references to other ideas, and so on. One thing leads to another, which again leads to another, which again leads to another, and you’re lost.
Furthermore, there is no clear starting point or nucleus in Peirce’s thought. There is no explicit “main road” which to follow. And even if you were on the main road, you would constantly find yourself wandering through the beautiful back roads.
You can thus approach Peirce from countless different perspectives. Mathematical, phenomenological, esthetical, ethical, logical, semiotic, metaphysical, theological, physical, biological, psychological, sociological, and so forth.
Therefore, the hardest step with Peirce is the first one: to get started. To get the first vague idea about his thought. To get into this web of ideas. It is tough as Peirce’s thought evades simple definitions.
For this reason, one either becomes frustrated with Peirce’s thought and abandons it. Or one becomes lost in the immense semiotic maze losing the “big picture”. There is so much to explore both in and through Peirce, that we get caught in the web, like a fly, as we concentrate too much on the details.
As the vast philosophical system of Peirce can be daunting, it is common to try to detach one idea from Peirce and run away with it. But it doesn’t work that way. I’m of the opinion that you either take it all or you will end up misunderstanding Peirce.
You see, in spite of all of this apparent chaos, the web of thought is entirely coherent and logical. The challenge is to learn to comprehend this “big picture” — this comprehensive coherence.
It is difficult because, in order to understand the whole you have to understand the parts; and in order to understand the parts, you have to understand the whole.
Nevertheless, it is crucial. Without the big picture, you will most certainly get yourself stuck in to the web like a fly. However, in order to get a glimpse of that coherence, we have to enter the semiotic maze.
Entering the Semiotic Maze
We all enter the semiotic maze from different entrances. Everyone who becomes fascinated with Peirce’s thought finds some of his idea so admirable and attractive, that it pulls them into the maze.
Then we explore that idea, but soon we realize how that idea connects to myriad other ideas, which also must be grasped in order to explain the idea we find so admirable. We become confused. We dwell deeper into his thought, but at the same time we forget where we have been, how things connect to each other.
And then, we are lost. Sitting at the middle of the maze.
That is why, in this text I want to give you some signposts to guide you in your journey. Nevertheless, you will become familiar with the maze. It is just inevitable. It is part of the process.
Synechism — Continuous Reality
Peirce had many philosophical doctrines, but one of them is very essential — the idea of continuity. Peirce called this philosophical doctrine synechism, which is “the tendency to regard everything as continuous” (EP2: 1, 1893).
In other words, everything is connected. There is no possibility to detach something completely from everything else. Everything is part of the same shared continuum of reality: “Synechism denies that there are any immeasurable differences between phenomena.” (EP2: 3, 1893)
Most of us think dualistically. That is through opposites like individual/community, subject/object, mind/matter, internal/external, nature/culture, body/soul, and so forth. This is exactly the kind of thinking that Peirce regards as crude:
Synechism, even in its less stalwart forms, can never abide dualism, properly so called. (…) Dualism in its broadest legitimate meaning as the philosophy which performs its analyses with an axe, leaving, as the ultimate elements, unrelated chunks of being, (…) is most hostile to synechism. (EP2: 2, 1893)
Dualism divides the world into two separated chunks of being. For example, to mind and matter. Then it forms theories how these two separated beings could interact with one another.
It is at this point, that all kinds of problems and difficulties emerge. It is impossible to come up with a model that would be able to explain interaction, without there being something shared. Something more fundamental that would hold and connect everything together, i.e. a shared continuum. For instance, how to explain communication, without the idea that in communication our minds become literally welded together?
“All communication from mind to mind is through continuity of being.” (EP2: 3, 1893)
Now, recall how I said that the hardest step with Peirce is the first one, which was the decision to enter the semiotic maze. The second hardest step is to accept Peirce’s ideas, that seem very radical to us. For example, how about this idea concerning mind and matter:
“…what we call matter is not completely dead, but is merely mind hidebound with habits. It still retains the element of diversification; and in that diversification there is life.” (EP1: 331, 1892)
This is synechism. In death there is life. Your neighbors are, in a measure, you. Our culture is natural, and our nature is cultural.
Vagueness of Reality
The impossibility to draw sharp distinctions between phenomena leads to vagueness. In which point does a hill change into a valley? Now, obviously there is no unambiguous answer to this question. Maybe we could narrow the area a bit, but in the end the answer will always be fuzzy.
This is again one of the things that frustrates people. There are no simple unambiguous answers with Peirce. But again, take the second step, adopt the Peircean metaphysics, and the frustration is gone.
Of course there can’t be any unambiguous clear-cut answers, as the reality itself is continuous and, therefore, more or less vague. So, everything is a bit fuzzy. But this is not a result of incoherence or contradiction. Things are indefinite, because our cosmos is indefinite.
Peirce described his logic as the “logic of vagueness” and that is also an apt description of his whole thought. Vague, but thoroughly logical. Like a spider web.
Vagueness also has significant implications for how we understand knowledge and inquiry.
Fallibilism — Living with Conjectures
Peirce is truly postmodern in the sense that he unequivocally denies the possibility of absolutely certain knowledge. Our knowledge is always provisional and speculative. Future inquiry may, and most certainly will, change our current beliefs.
Therefore, we can never be sure that we know the Truth. We must always be prepared to abandon our beliefs, if/when they turn out to be false. Peirce calls this philosophical doctrine fallibilism.
“Now as no experiential question can be answered with absolute certainty, so we never can have reason to think that any given idea will either become unshakably established or be forever exploded.” (EP2: 2, 1893)
There is then no possibility of constructing an unmovable static foundation, onto which the philosophical edifice is erected. Rather we are building the edifice on shifting sands. This changes the architectural nature of the philosophical system.
Modern philosophy wanted to base everything on a one foundational corner stone. Since then the philosophers have been arguing over which corner stone to choose. Until this day, nobody has found the right stone.
Peirce, on the other hand, alters the whole plan. Instead of anchoring the system on a single foundation, he created a philosophical structure that holds itself together. The dynamic tension between the categories, inside an overarching logic and coherence keeps the edifice together.
It is like a spider web. It must have tension, but it is perfectly ordered and logical. It is anchored in many different twigs and branches, so that if one of them breaks, the web adapts and finds a new anchor point.
The Philosophy of this Publication
What pulled me into Peirce’s thought was originally his semiotics. Then slowly but surely the wholeness of his thought began to unravel. I understood, how it was actually a deep worldview with very tangible and practical consequences — if embodied and lived.
This is exactly the thing I seek to convey to you. I want to convey and inquire, what it is like to think and live through the Peircean framework.
I am by no means some ultimate expert on this, as I am also learning everyday. Moreover, fallibilism teaches us, how we can never be fully satisfied with out current state of knowledge. There is always room for improvement.
But the semiotic maze can be overwhelming. To minimize this, I try to simplify Peirce’s ideas as best as I can, and keep my posts relatively short. I intend to present one idea, or even just an aspect of an idea. Give you an insight and some food for thought.
Where I would like to expand on some idea, I’ll just write a new post, which I will link to the particular concept or idea. This way this publication should be, hopefully, almost like a Wikipedia page, with lots of cross-references, forming an icon of Peirce’s thought. Like a spider web.
Thank you for reading! Consider subscribing to the publication and sharing it with your friends. And please leave a comment below.
Sincerely,
Markus
This morning, as I sipped coffee on my firescape, and observed my blooimg empress tree, I saw in the sunlight fine, silvery light flashing in what appeared as a spiderr's web which had been quite invisible untill the sun revealed it's presence. And I re-remembered this event as I read your post. The spider's web. Yes. A very good metaphor for Peirce's abductive powers. Logical, vague and poetic. Thanks!
Nice post. I didn’t yet get around to reading Peirce, but I think I may have hit upon some of the same «core» concepts you discuss here. Synechism and continuity, I discuss as tension, immersion and holism in several contexts in my last three essays:
Experience and Immersion -https://tmfow.substack.com/p/experience-and-immersion
The Plurality of Experience
- https://tmfow.substack.com/p/the-plurality-of-experience
A View of Reality as a Whole - https://tmfow.substack.com/p/a-view-of-reality-as-a-whole
Would be great to hear your thoughts given your interest and knowledge of Peirce’s work