Peirce’s ‘Prescision’ as a Transcendental Method

Abstract

In this Paper I interpret Charles S. Peirce's method of prescision as a transcendental method. In order to do so, I argue that Peirce's pragmatism can be interpreted in a transcendental light only if we use a non-justificatory understanding of transcendental philosophy. I show how Peirce's prescision is similar to some abstracting procedure that Immanuel Kant used in his Critique of Pure Reason. Prescision abstracts from experience and thought in general those elements without which such experience and thought would be unaccountable. Similarly, in the Aesthetics, Kant isolated the a priori forms of intuition by showing how they could be abstracted from experience in general, while experience in general cannot be thought without them. However, if Peirce's and Kant's methods are similar in this respect, they reached very different conclusions.

The Dismissal of ‘Substance’ and ‘Being’ in Peirce’s Regenerated Logic

“…Then, by noticing that if we really are to find 'substances' somewhere we should rather look for feelings, Peirce suggests a process philosophy of feeling. 28 This last point calls for further investigation, of a metaphysical kind. The present paper opens the way for it, by shedding light on the logical grounds of such a metaphysical enterprise.…”

“…Whether or not it really represents the most valuable work of Peirce's in logic, as well as the apex of his philosophical production, has been put into question (see [42, p. 66], [54]). 7 On the debate about what kind of deduction Peirce is performing, whether it is transcendental, metaphysical, or how to define it [see also 11,16,28,41].…”

Peirce Reading Kant

“…Toutefois, s'il est vrai que la méthode employée par Peirce consisterait plutôt en une abstraction de type « préscisive », théorisée dans son article « Une nouvelle liste de catégories » [W2.49-59], on peut rétorquer que cette méthode a tous les traits d'une déduction analogue à celle de Kant [Gava 2011]. Gartenberg a démontré que la préscision peircienne remplit tout à la fois les fonctions de déduction métaphysique et transcendantale des catégories, puisqu'elle les met au jour et les justifie en même temps [Gartenberg 2012].…”