From the Chain to the Cable: Peirce's Theory of Inquiry Through His Metaphors

LXIX Estudios Filosoficos 229-251, 2020

25 Pages Posted: 13 Oct 2020

See all articles by Susan Haack

Susan Haack

University of Miami - School of Law; University of Miami - Department of Philosophy

Date Written: 2020

Abstract

Peirce’s work is replete with marvelous metaphors; and many of these metaphors are philosophically deep and illuminating. My initial reflections on the role of metaphor in philosophical inquiry will draw on Peirce’s ideas both about the relation of thought and language and about vagueness, indeterminacy, and precision. Then I explore Peirce’s theory of inquiry, starting with some important metaphors from his extraordinarily fertile critique of Cartesianism); and next turn to the deep and subtle metaphors that inform Peirce’s mature understanding of doubt, the spirit of inquiry, the method of experience and reason, the community of inquirers, and the impediments we put in our own way. And finally, by way of conclusion, I explore some significant advantages of Peirce’s approach over the epistemology predominant in the philosophical mainstream today, showing that, in this as in so much, he was ahead of our time as well as of his own.

Keywords: Peirce, Metaphor, Theory of Inquiry, Perception, Logic, Epistemology

Suggested Citation

Haack, Susan, From the Chain to the Cable: Peirce's Theory of Inquiry Through His Metaphors (2020). LXIX Estudios Filosoficos 229-251, 2020, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3679570

Susan Haack (Contact Author)

University of Miami - School of Law ( email )

P.O. Box 248087
Coral Gables, FL 33146
United States
305-284-3541 (Phone)
305-284-6506 (Fax)

University of Miami - Department of Philosophy ( email )

P.O. Box 248054
Coral Gables, FL 33124-4670
United States

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