•  11
    In the Posterior Analytics Aristotle contrasts demonstrations with syllogisms through signs. In the Prior Analytics he defines a sign as a demonstrative premise. One is thus led to ask: is a sign a demonstration? This book reconstructs the history of the notion of "demonstration through signs" from roughly the third through to the thirteenth century. It examines the work of Aristotle's Greek, Arabic, and Latin commentators, both within and outside the tradition of the Posterior Analytics.
  •  13
    Frege: A fusion of horizontals
    Theoria 89 (5): 690-709. 2023.
    In Die Grundgesetze der Arithmetik (I, §48), Frege introduces his rule of the fusion of horizontals, according to which if an occurrence of the horizontal stroke is followed by another occurrence of the same stroke, either in isolation or “contained” in a propositional connective, the two occurrences can be fused with each other. However, the role of this rule, and of the horizontal sign more generally, is controversial; Michael Dummett notoriously claimed, for instance, that the horizontal is “…Read more
  •  8
    Peirce on Vagueness and Common Sense
    Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 59 (2): 127-166. 2023.
    Abstract:"Issues of Pragmaticism" (1905) contains the only published version of Peirce's doctrine of "critical common-sensism." One of the claims of that doctrine is that common sense beliefs are invariably vague. In this paper, we seek to explain this claim. We begin by providing a philological reconstruction of the drafts of "Issues of Pragmaticism" and a comparison of Peirce's several, successive expositions of critical common-sensism across those drafts. Then we examine Peirce's theory of va…Read more
  •  5
    Peirce on Assertion: Preface to the Symposium
    Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 57 (2): 205-209. 2021.
    ARRAY
  •  58
    Peirce and the Unity of the Proposition
    Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 50 (2): 201. 2014.
    The problem of the unity of the proposition—what distinguishes a proposition from a mere list of constituents, so that the former is able to say something while the latter is not?—is as old as philosophy. It is evoked at the end of Plato’s Sophist, where the Stranger affirms that when one makes a statement “he does not merely give names, but he reaches a conclusion by combining verbs with nouns” ; and it is discussed by Aristotle in De Interpretatione, where it is said that since “falsity and tr…Read more
  •  58
    “Logic, considered as Semeiotic”: On Peirce's Philosophy of Logic
    Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 50 (4): 523. 2014.
    In his later years, Peirce devoted much energy to the project of a book on logic, whose intended title was “Logic, considered as Semeiotic.” That the science of logic is better considered as semeiotic is indeed one of the most fundamental tenets of Peirce’s mature philosophy of logic. But what is the primary motivation for considering logic as semeiotic and what advantages did Peirce see in doing so? If logic is to be considered as semeiotic, this can only mean that its objects and their functio…Read more
  •  5
    Rhemata
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 61 (4): 553-568. 2023.
    The article offers an analysis of Peirce's notion of “rhema.” It examines and explains Peirce's definition of the rhema; it identifies and solves two problems that are direct consequences of the definition. The first problem is that proper names, while classified as rhemata, do not satisfy Peirce's definition of the rhema. The second problem is that Peirce also calls “rhemata” the results of propositional analysis that however do not satisfy his own definition of the rhema. Peirce himself solves…Read more
  •  15
    Pragmatism and Logic
    European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 15 (1). 2023.
    The paper seeks to explain in what sense pragmatism was for Peirce a doctrine of logic. It is argued that pragmatism is a doctrine of logic for Peirce because its maxim, the pragmatic maxim, is a maxim of the methodeutic of abduction, i.e., concerns the method of selecting hypotheses for experimental testing. The paper also connects this idea to Peirce’s 1913 thesis according to which pragmatism contributes to the security but not to the uberty of reasoning. The connection consists in that by ex…Read more
  • 8 chapters are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
  • Diagrammatic Representation and Inference. Diagrams 2022 (edited book)
    with V. Giardino, S. Linker, S. Burns, J. M. Boucheix, and P. Viana
    Springer. 2022.
  •  13
    Peirce’s claims that methodeutic “concerns abduction alone” and that “pragmatism contributes to the security of reasoning but hardly to its uberty” are explained. They match as soon as a third claim is taken into account, namely that “pragmatism is the logic of abduction,” not of deduction or induction. Since methodeutic concerns abduction and not deduction or induction, it follows that pragmatism is a maxim of methodeutic. Then, since pragmatism contributes to the security of reasoning but not …Read more
  •  21
    Peirce on Proper Names
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 59 (3): 483-510. 2021.
    ARRAY
  •  10
    An analysis of Existential Graphs–part 2: Beta
    Synthese 199 (3-4): 7705-7726. 2021.
    This paper provides an analysis of the notational difference between Beta Existential Graphs, the graphical notation for quantificational logic invented by Charles S. Peirce at the end of the 19th century, and the ordinary notation of first-order logic. Peirce thought his graphs to be “more diagrammatic” than equivalently expressive languages for quantificational logic. The reason of this, he claimed, is that less room is afforded in Existential Graphs than in equivalently expressive languages f…Read more
  •  40
    Peirce on Symbols
    Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 103 (1): 169-188. 2021.
    The goal of this paper is a reassessment of Peirce’s doctrine of symbol. The paper discusses a common reading of Peirce’s doctrine, according to which all and only symbols are conventional signs. Against this reading, it is argued that neither are all Peircean symbols conventional, nor are all conventional signs Peircean symbols. Rather, a Peircean symbol is a general sign, i. e., a sign that represents a general object.
  •  22
    Icons, Interrogations, and Graphs: On Peirce's Integrated Notion of Abduction
    Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 56 (1): 43. 2020.
    The Syllabus for Certain Topics of Logic is a long treatise that Peirce wrote in October and November to complement the material of his 1903 Lowell Lectures. The last of the eight lectures was on abduction, first entitled “How to Theorize” and then “Abduction.” Of abduction, the Syllabus states that its “conclusion is drawn in the interrogative mood ”.1 This is not the first time that Peirce associates abduction to interrogations,2 but the statement is significant because it is the first time th…Read more
  •  26
    Peirce on the justification of abduction
    Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 84 12-19. 2020.
  •  22
    Notational Differences
    Acta Analytica 35 (2): 289-314. 2020.
    Expressively equivalent logical languages can enunciate logical notions in notationally diversified ways. Frege’s Begriffsschrift, Peirce’s Existential Graphs, and the notations presented by Wittgenstein in the Tractatus all express the sentential fragment of classical logic, each in its own way. In what sense do expressively equivalent notations differ? According to recent interpretations, Begriffsschrift and Existential Graphs differ from other logical notations because they are capable of “mu…Read more
  • Diagrammatic Representation and Inference10th International Conference, Diagrams 2018, Edinburgh, UK, June 18-22, 2018, Proceedings (edited book)
    with Peter Chapman, Gem Stapleton, Amirouche Moktefi, and Sarah Perez-Kriz
    Springer-Verlag. 2018.
  •  63
    Peirce's Continuous Predicates
    Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 49 (2): 178. 2013.
    A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.As is well known, according to Charles S. Peirce one of the principal tasks of logic is the analysis of reasoning. This was indeed the explicit purpose of his logical algebras and graphical logic, and Peirce often credits himself with possessing a special gift for logical analysis. Yet he surprisingly also holds that “absolute completeness of logical analysis is no less unattainable [than] is omniscience. Carry it as far as you please, and something will alwa…Read more
  •  8
    Peirce, philosophe du langage
    Cahiers Philosophiques 150 (3): 91-110. 2017.
    Cet article soutient que s’il existe une philosophie du langage chez Peirce, il faut la chercher dans sa conception de la grammaire spéculative. Je reconstitue l’évolution de la grammaire spéculative de Peirce dans la période 1894- 1906, et je montre que, tandis que dans les années 1890 la grammaire spéculative est considérée comme une théorie de la proposition, Peirce la conçoit dès 1903 comme une classification générale des signes, incluant une théorie des actes de langage tout à fait pionnièr…Read more
  •  16
    Aristotelian Abductions: A Reply to Flórez
    Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 55 (2): 185. 2019.
    In a brilliant article published in a past issue of the Transactions, Jorge A. Flórez examines Peirce’s theory of the origin of abduction in Aristotle. In the article Flórez makes two substantial points. In the first place, he argues that Peirce’s theory of the origin of abduction in the 25th chapter of the second book of the Prior Analytics is mistaken, because in that chapter Aristotle discusses first-figure syllogisms with a dialectic or contingent minor premise, and not, as Peirce thought, s…Read more
  •  35
    Peirce on assertion and other speech acts
    Semiotica 2019 (228): 29-54. 2019.
    Journal Name: Semiotica Issue: Ahead of print
  • Habits of Reasoning: On the Grammar and Critics of Logical Habits
    with Ahti-Veikko Pietarinen
    In Myrdene Anderson & Donna West (eds.), Consensus on Peirce’s Concept of Habit, Springer Verlag. 2016.
  •  32
    Analysis and decomposition in Peirce
    Synthese 198 (1): 687-706. 2018.
    Peirce seems to maintain two incompatible theses: that a sentence is multiply analyzable into subject and predicate, and that a sentence is uniquely analyzable as a combination of rhemata of first intention and rhemata of second intention. In this paper it is argued that the incompatibility disappears as soon as we distinguish, following Dummett’s work on Frege, two distinct notions of analysis: ‘analysis’ proper, whose purpose is to display the manner in which the sense of a sentence is determi…Read more
  •  54
    Eco and Peirce on Abduction
    European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 10 (1). 2018.
    This paper argues that Umberto Eco had a sophisticated theory of abductive reasoning and that this theory is fundamentally akin to Peirce’s both in the analysis and in the justification of this kind of reasoning. The first section expounds the essentials of Peirce’s theory of abduction, and explains how Peirce moved from seeing abduction as a kind of reasoning to seeing it as a stage of the larger process of inquiry. The second section deals with one of Eco’s paradigmatic examples of abduction, …Read more