The Pragmatism Reading Group is held on Mondays at 11am–12noon (from 20 October) in the Board Room.
Organiser: Niall Roe (nrr32)
Michaelmas Term 2025: Illustrations of the Logic of Science
This term we will be reading C.S. Peirce's 1877–78 Popular Science Monthly series: Illustrations of the Logic of Science. This series is made up of six papers, listed below. For our first six meetings, we will read these papers in order. For our final meeting, we will consider how the series hangs together. For this final meeting we will be aided by Peirce's own reflections on Illustrations, written in the last decade of his life.
The Illustrations papers are based on drafts from 1872, written in the midst of the Metaphysical Club discussions from which Pragmatism is said to have originated. However, substantial portions of the published versions were drafted while Peirce was overseas on assignment for the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, in the midst of scientific investigation. I hope in our meetings we can explore both of these contexts. The first two papers – The Fixation of Belief and How to Make our Ideas Clear – are often read as an introduction to pragmatism. This is due in part to William James, who in 1898 referred to them as the first printed articulation of the idea (James, 1898, What Pragmatism Means). Here we will read them in light of the series they introduce. When Illustrations is read as a whole it presents a wide ranging, nuanced and informed discussion on the nature of scientific investigation.
The main readings are available in a nicely edited volume, and as originally published. I suggest reading from the edited volume.
Reading schedule
20 October: The Fixation of Belief
27 October: How to Make our Ideas Clear
3 November: The Doctrine of Chances
10 November: The Probability of Induction
17 November: The Order of Nature
24 November: Deduction, Induction, and Hypothesis
[Note: this meeting will be held in Seminar Room 1]
1 December: Reflection on the series as a whole (specific reading TBD)