Peirce on the Uses of History

Habit, Gesture and the History of Ideas

“…If you cannot theorize about the past, you cannot learn what it 'parades' or betrays, so the question arises as to how it can 'rationally' affect the ideas of the present, since for Peirce the past "exerts power on us by brute force." (Viola, 2020, p. 98) [16]. Even more, we are unable to test which influences of the past will survive and will be 'effective' (that is, which ones will become actual-present) in the future.…”

“…With regard to the second point, we would like to point out some important exceptions that are useful for the present study, such as Viola's (2020) account of the 'use' of history provided by Peirce [16], in which habit plays a primary role (and to which we will return later at length), and Bourdieu's emphasis throughout all of his work on the temporal dimension of habit, clearly outlined in his Logic of Practice:…”

“…Moreover, Peirce's approach to the theory of knowledge contains an inherently historical dimension. Viola cites two important references: first, the tribute Wiener pays to Peirce for his own work in the history of ideas-he in fact places the American philosopher on the highest rung, comparable only to the inventor of the discipline, Lovejoy (2020, p. 6) [16]; and second, Nathan Houser argues that precisely by virtue of his being an experimental scientist Peirce knows that ideas do not have a beginning and an end, nor are they created, and therefore that they represent a chain that must be investigated diachronically (Viola 2020, p. 137) [16]. 3 The problem is not resolved, however.…”

“…6 Peirce's ontology of historicity rests precisely on the attempt to see signs, habits, and laws as growing, living things. His pragmatism is "a sort of instinctive attraction for living facts" (Viola 2020, p. 73) [16] "In seeking in The Order of Things to write a history of the episteme, I was still caught in an impasse. What I should like to do now is to try and show that what I call an apparatus is a much more general case of the episteme; or rather, that the episteme is a specifically discursive apparatus, whereas the apparatus in its general form is both discursive and non-discursive, its elements being much more heterogeneous" (Foucault 1977, pp.…”

Between bets and rational choices

“…Different degrees of uncertainty emerge in each of these histories, seen through their objective characteristics. They arise through Peirce's realism suggesting an ontology that conditions an epistemology -the uncertainty of signs comes not from the structure of logic or language, but from the very nature of objects -there is 22 For an analysis of how Peirce himself addressed the topic of history in his writings, see also Viola (2020). a confrontation of two histories that share the same ideality of the universe of mind but differ in the intensity with which the three constitutive categories of reality are interrelated.…”