Chung-Ying Cheng

This book is based on my doctoral dissertation written at Harvard University in the year of 1963. My interest in Peirce was inspired by Professor D. C. Williams and that in Lewis by Professor Roderick Firth. To both of them lowe a great deal, not only in my study of Peirce and Lewis, but in my general approach toward the problems of knowledge and reality. Specifically, I wish to acknowledge Professor Williams for his patient and careful criticisms of the original manuscripts of this book. I also wish to thank Professor Firth and Professor Israel Scheffler for their many suggestive comments regarding my discussions of induc tion. However, any error in this study of Peirce and Lewis is completely due to myself. Chung-ying Cheng Honolulu, Hawaii March,1967 TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE V SUMMARY IX CHAPTER I: Introduction I I. Problem of Justifying Induction and Proposal for Its Dissolution I 2. Two Types of Recent Arguments for the Validity of Induction 3 Arguments from Paradigm Cases and Uses of Words 4 3.

In examining phenomenology as a base onto-generative hermeneutics I find the gradual movement from pure phenomenology in Husserl to an ontological phenomenology in Merleau-Ponty through Heidegger and Gadamer. I argue thus that there is an implicit connection between the phenomenological and the ontological. In order to bring out the desirable connection between the two we must have hermeneutic interpretation of one in terms of the other. This leads to the idea of onto-hermeneutic circle of phenomenology and ontology based on the integration of the four phenomenologies which represent a wider comprehension and deeper intuition. It is in terms of this wider comprehension and deeper intuition of reality I introduce the Chinese notion “ben-ti 本體” as “onto-generative” as well as onto-phenomenological. I suggest five principles as constituting the basic formulation of such a hermeneutic system as both theory and methodology: Principle of comprehensive observation ; Principle of objective reference 1 ; Principle of perception, reflection, and memory ; Principle of intersubjective understanding and interpretation based on ; and Principle of practical end and action.