Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition, Volume 6. Charles S. Peirce

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СКАЧАТЬ of evolutionist speculation of mine. This has grown much….” When he wrote to Holden, he had already begun to write a book entitled One, Two, Three in which he would make a guess about the constitution of the universe and use his categories as the key to an all-encompassing system of philosophy (W5: sels. 47–50). After his move to Milford in 1887 this work would grow into his “A Guess at the Riddle” (sels. 22–28) and, although never finished, it would set the course for much of his subsequent thought. But as 1886 drew to a close, it was logic that was uppermost on Peirce’s mind. For a while he resumed work on a book on general logic (W5: sel. 54) which would evolve into his “How to Reason” of 1894. But as his insecurity with his career increased, his interest turned from the advancement of the science of logic to how he could use his specialty to make a living adequate to the demands of the lifestyle he and Juliette had set for themselves in Baltimore in the first months of their marriage. Peirce’s income had taken a serious hit with the loss of his lectureship at Johns Hopkins, and now that his Coast Survey salary was in danger, he had to find a substantial new source of income. He began writing elementary accounts of his logic of relatives (W5: sels. 55–56) and Boolean algebra (sel. 1), perhaps initially for a course of lectures he hoped to deliver at the University of Wisconsin, but at least in the latter case it is likely he had paying students in mind.

      Peirce entered 1887 with some confidence that he had found a way to survive his anticipated separation from the Survey. Were there not hundreds, nay, thousands of citizens abroad in the land in the greatest need of improving their reasoning skills? Would not a good course in reasoning, customized for individual capabilities and taught by a master logician, increase opportunities and, in general, better the lives of students—and thereby serve well the country as a whole? Could not one expect to attract large numbers of occasional students to sign up for a course of study that virtually guaranteed a high degree of self-improvement? Peirce was convinced that he had found a niche and that with clever marketing and efficient operations he could make good money with a correspondence course on the art of reasoning. He wrote to Cyrus W. Field, financier for the first transatlantic cable, that for years he had carried in his pocketbook a clipping quoting Field on the value of right reason: “My fortune was made by working a gold-mine, and that gold-mine is the power of right reason.” Peirce might not make a fortune, but surely he would make a good living.

      To set this promising plan into motion, Peirce needed capital. Brochures would have to be printed, lessons duplicated, typewriters purchased, assistants hired, and field-agents engaged. Peirce wanted fifteen hundred students and imagined that once things got rolling he would send out around five hundred letters a day. He would begin by advertising in popular magazines and would send out a hundred thousand circulars. He wrote to his cousin, Henry Cabot Lodge, and asked for a loan to get his scheme off the ground. Lodge declined and apparently with no other prospects Peirce decided to start up piecemeal. In May an advertisement for his course circular (reproduced on p. 14) ran in the Century Magazine and he sent circulars (sel. 2) to seven hundred people. He wrote to his brother James Mills (Jem) that he doubted he would attract “a single pupil from so small a number,” but letters of interest began to come in. Records for the course are very incomplete, so it is difficult to tell how many responded or exactly what the content of the course was, but it is clear that by the end of March Peirce had received more than fifteen inquiries and at least eight students had begun lessons. While far from what Peirce needed to make a living, and certainly not enough to let him resign from the Survey, the response was promising and indicated that a major promotional effort could succeed. Peirce imagined an army of agents dispersed throughout the country, all soliciting students to sign up for his course. He drew up directions for agents (sel. 5) which bring to mind the hucksterism of turn-of-the-century medicine peddlers or of modern telephone solicitors: “The levers upon which you have to rely are first, cupidity, second, shame, and third, fatigue.” Still, there is no doubt that Peirce believed he could deliver good value for the price of his course, and from what can be reconstructed from the fragments that remain (see sels. 3–13), that belief seems justified.

      Peirce’s plan for the correspondence course was set out in his circular (sel. 2) and his follow-up letter (sel. 3). The course would be divided into three parts—traditional logic, mathematical reasoning, and scientific reasoning—and the full course would require a minimum of one hundred and eighty letters. From the exercise sets that have survived—only a small part of the series Peirce had prepared—and from surviving student letters, it is possible to get a sense of what Peirce taught and how he interacted with his students. He seems to have gone to some lengths to address his students’ individual interests and capabilities, but it is likely that he was aiming too high. Certainly the reasoning exercises (sel. 9) and the three lessons in Boolean algebra with additional exercises (sels. 10 and 13) involved rather high-level logical content; there is a one-page fragment (in RL 100) that indicates that Peirce even hoped to convey some of his favorite philosophical ideas through his reasoning exercises. For example, the second exercise from the fragment gives a brief lesson in Peirce’s theory of signs:

      Let us use the word “sign” to mean anything which on being perceived carries to a mind some cognition or thought which is applicable to some object. Thus, I would call a portrait a sign. I would call a pointing finger a sign. I would call a spoken sentence a sign. I now ask you to make a list of a good many different kinds of signs, and to attempt to classify them according to their different modes of standing for their objects. To do this will require a good deal of thought.

      Such questions might well serve the purpose of evaluating student preparedness but they seem aimed at minds more elastic and capable than might be expected to turn out in the large numbers Peirce expected. Still, a letter he wrote at the end of March to J. M. Hantz of Northwestern University indicates continuing enthusiasm for his course and reveals no dissatisfaction with his initial students:

      It is my fate to be supposed an extreme partisan of formal logic, and so I began. But the study of the logic of relations has converted me from that error. Formal logic centers its whole attention on the least important part of reasoning, a part so mechanical that it may be performed by a machine, and fancies that that is all there is in the mental process. For my part, I hold that reasoning is the observation of relations, mainly by means of diagrams and the like. It is a living process. This is the point of view from which I am conducting my instruction in the art of reasoning. I find out and correct all the pupil’s bad habits in thinking; I teach him that reasoning is not done by the unaided brain, but needs the cooperation of the eyes and hands. Reasoning, as I make him see, is a kind of experimentation, in which, instead of relying on the intelligible laws of outward nature to bring out the result, we depend on the equally hidden laws of inward association. I initiate him into the art of this experimentation. I familiarize him with the use of all kinds of diagrams and devices for aiding the imagination. I show him just what part abstract thought has in the process—a quite subsidiary one.

      Peirce added that he assigns his students “a large number and great variety of exercises in dealing with real facts” and that “the invention of these exercises is the thing for which I hope to be remembered, for I believe they are destined to exert no little influence in the future.” In the years that followed, as Peirce used his exercise sets for other purposes, the package of exercises was broken up and dispersed. The small set that has been reassembled (sels. 9,10,13) is at best an indication of what Peirce was so proud of, as many of the exercises derive from other authors. Had Peirce’s students successfully worked their way through all of his lessons, they would likely have become the proficient reasoners he promised, but in the end no one ever finished the course. Peirce did carry on with a few students for a year or two, and later even tried to revive the course, but his lack of capital from the outset and his move to Milford in April thwarted any real chance for success.

      Still, in the spring of 1887, prospects seemed good, though Peirce’s circumstances were becoming more and more difficult. New York was an expensive place to live and Peirce’s salary from the Survey was barely enough to maintain a satisfactory lifestyle. With enough paying students he would have welcomed separation from the Survey, but with only a handful he could not afford to resign. Unfortunately, his Survey work, now confined to the reduction СКАЧАТЬ