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59 Letters to William James, 1897–1910

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Correspondence
Ein Kapitel aus dem Buch Correspondence

 

R L 224, Houghton Library. This chapter traces the profound yet strained intellectual partnership between Peirce and James, oscillating between camaraderie and collision. Across 13 years of correspondence, Peirce meticulously articulates his pragmaticism as a corrective to James’s psychologised pragmatism, insisting on logic’s exact nature to help rewire James’s “anti-mathematical mind”. Central are expositions of existential graphs—Peirce’s happiest logical discovery—and critiques of Josiah Royce’s logical schemes, framed through discussions of triadic categories and relational algebra. Amid technical discussions, Peirce’s personal struggles surface: financial ruin, Juliette’s failing health, and the race to publish his System of Logic before incipient old age silences him. Throughout their lives, James emerges as both a lifeline and philosophical antagonist, the bond weathering Peirce’s despair at academia’s indifference and his defiant quest to vindicate real, philosophical truths against the mechanistic language of thought. The letters crystallise pragmatism’s schism—Peirce’s architectonic precision versus James’s experiential pluralism— and their shared race against mortality.

 

R L 224, Houghton Library. This chapter traces the profound yet strained intellectual partnership between Peirce and James, oscillating between camaraderie and collision. Across 13 years of correspondence, Peirce meticulously articulates his pragmaticism as a corrective to James’s psychologised pragmatism, insisting on logic’s exact nature to help rewire James’s “anti-mathematical mind”. Central are expositions of existential graphs—Peirce’s happiest logical discovery—and critiques of Josiah Royce’s logical schemes, framed through discussions of triadic categories and relational algebra. Amid technical discussions, Peirce’s personal struggles surface: financial ruin, Juliette’s failing health, and the race to publish his System of Logic before incipient old age silences him. Throughout their lives, James emerges as both a lifeline and philosophical antagonist, the bond weathering Peirce’s despair at academia’s indifference and his defiant quest to vindicate real, philosophical truths against the mechanistic language of thought. The letters crystallise pragmatism’s schism—Peirce’s architectonic precision versus James’s experiential pluralism— and their shared race against mortality.

Heruntergeladen am 8.5.2026 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110766325-010/html?lang=de
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