Studies in Philosophy and Education (2005) 24: 167177

DOI 10.1007/s11217-005-3842-3

Springer 2005

VINCENT COLAPIETRO, TORJUS MIDTGARDEN and TORILL STRAND

INTRODUCTION: PEIRCE AND EDUCATION:

THE CONFLICTING PROCESSES OF LEARNING
AND DISCOVERY

The revival of American pragmatism has attracted widespread

attention and debate, even within the international community of
philosophers of education. Among others, Jim Garrison and Alvin
Neiman in the newly published Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of
Education claim pragmatism to be an ideal philosophy for any eld
of theory and practice, including the eld of education1. Nevertheless,
despite the growing interest, the distinct contribution of Charles
Sanders Peirce (1839 1914) is partly neglected. Yet, since Peirce is
widely credited as the founder of pragmatism, we hope that this
special issue will contribute to make his philosophy better known.
Peirce came to philosophy with a rigorous training in the natural sciences and tried to use this training as an aid in transforming philosophical inquiry into a scientic or experimental
endeavor wherein deductive arguments play a subordinate role
(Colapietro, 1998). We nd at the heart of experimental investigation (at least, as far as the thoroughgoing experimentalist Peirce
was concerned) the task of framing and testing hypotheses. Peirce
called the logical process by which hypotheses are framed (or
guesses made) by the name of abduction (see, e.g., CP 6.525). In
our actual investigations, the role of deduction is that of deriving
the necessary implications from our conjectures, so that these
guesses might be brought to the test of experience. This role is,
accordingly, subordinate to that of abduction and also to that of
experience in determining which of our hypotheses is tenable. No
amount of speculation can take the place of experience (CP
1.655).

Garrison, Jim and Alven Neiman (2003). Pragmatism and Education. In: Blake,
N., Smeyers, P., Smith, R., and Standish, P. (eds.). The Blackwell Guide to the
Philosophy of Education (pp. 2137). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

168

COLAPIETRO ET AL.

He went so far as to claim his own philosophy may be described

as the attempt of a physicist to make such conjecture as to the constitution of the universe as the methods of science may permit, with
the aid of all that has been done by previous philosophers (CP 1.7).
This emphasis is, however, likely to generate a misimpression, for it is
likely to convey the image of Peirce as an ally of those forms of
positivism which are militantly hostile to metaphysics. In truth, the
cast of Peirces mind was as boldly speculative as it was insistently
experimental. Some readers (e.g., Justus Buchler, W. B. Gallie,
Thomas Goudge, and even to some extent Christopher Hookway)
have judged there to be a logical inconsistency between Peirces
pragmatic, experimental temper and his architectonic, speculative
bent. Others (T.L. Short, Sandra Rosenthal, Carl Hausman, Douglas
Anderson, and Vincent Colapietro) see no such inconsistency here,
contending that no absolutely sharp line can be drawn between science and metaphysics. They also tend to agree with Peirces insistence
that Whether we have an anti-metaphysical metaphysics or a prometaphysical metaphysics, a metaphysics we are sure to have. And
the less pains we take with it the more crudely metaphysical it will be
(EP 1,108; cf. CP 1.129).
Even so, Peirce claimed to have come to the study of philosophy
not for its teachings about God, Freedom, and Immortality, but
intensely curious about Cosmology and Psychology (CP 4.2). In the
course of his life, however, he did reect upon the nature of divinity,
the complex constitution of human autonomy, and the possibility of
immortality. But the focus of his concern tended to be methodological and, in the broad sense in which he used the word, logical.2 As
much as anything else, he was preoccupied with methods of inquiry
appropriate for the diverse subjects to which human beings have
devoted their critical, interrogative attention. He conceived his work
to be a quest of quests, an inquiry into the nature, forms, and
prospects of inquiry. This quest was nothing less than a historically
informed, systematically articulated, and formally normative account
2

Peirce suggests, the proper sphere of any science in a given stage of development of science is the study of such questions as one social group of men [and
women] can properly devote their lives to answering [CF. 1.236]; and it seems to me
that in the present state of our knowledge of signs, the whole doctrine of the classication of signs and of what is essential to a given kind of sign, must be studied by
one group of investigators. Therefore, I extend logic to embrace all the necessary
principles of semeiotic ... (CP 4.9). Logic, envisioned as a theory of inquiry,
embraces semeiotic, dened as a truly general theory of signs.

THE CONFLICTING PROCESS OF LEARNING AND DISCOVERY

169

of objective inquiry (the sort of endeavor exemplied by the dramatic

success of various branches of natural science). Intimately associated
with oering such an account of inquiry, Peirce articulated a general
theory of signs (using semeiotic as the name to designate this newly
identied eld of experimental investigation). The principal purpose
for which Peirce designed and developed his theory of signs however
does not exhaust the possible uses to which this comprehensive theory
might be put. Indeed, the power and fecundity of Peirces semeiotic
are most evident in coming to realize the extent to which this theory
illuminates elds of inquiry other than the one for which he designed
it, not least of all the eld of education.
Peirces pragmatism was rst enunciated as a maxim to facilitate
the conduct of inquiry.3 As such, its purpose was to force philosophers and other investigators to break out of the circle of words and
to clarify the meanings of their terms through explicit reference to
human experience (in particular, what things disclose themselves to
be in our experiential encounters and transactions with them). But
the pragmatist character of his philosophical project extends far
beyond the narrow scope of this particular maxim. It extends at least
to arming the primacy of practice, of the historically evolved and
evolving activities of somatic, social, and fallible actors. This does not
mean that theory is subordinated to practice; rather it means that
theory itself names a family of practices, related to countless other
practices having a markedly dierent character from that of our
theoretical endeavors. In other words, Peirce strove to do justice to
both the irreducibly dierent character of theoretical inquiry and the
limited authority of the highly dierential perspective of the theoretical inquirer. For the sake of theory, inquiry cannot be subordinated to what are ordinarily called practical concerns or exigencies.
Peirce is so driven to protect the integrity of theory that he asserts:
True science is distinctively the study of useless things. For the
useful things will get studied without the aid of science. To employ
those rare minds on such work is like running a steam engine by
burning diamonds (CP 1.76).
For the sake of humanity, however, the highly dierential perspective of the theoretical inquirer should not be granted the cultural
3

In what is most likely his most famous essay, How to Make Our Ideas Clear,
Peirce formulated his maxim in this fashion: Consider what eects, that might
conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to
have. Then, our conception of these [experiential eects] is the whole of our conception of the object (CP 5.402).

170

COLAPIETRO ET AL.

authority to discredit common sense or such historically important

practices as traditional religious worship and artistic innovation. In
particular, the appeal to science (the form of theory accorded the
most prestige and authority within Peirces culture and indeed our
own) should not be wielded as a weapon against religion. The varieties of human experience those owing from the irreducible heterogeneity of human practices ought to be treated with the utmost
respect. Hence, while Peirce was a champion of science, he was not an
ideologue of this practice. His pragmatism is, far more than even
many of his most sympathetic interpreters seem to realize, pluralistic
(however, see Rosenthal, 1994). For it embraces the plurality of
practices and, among this plurality, selects theoretical inquiry as an
extended family of historical practices deserving his lifelong study.
His critical commonsensism (see, e.g., CP 5.439.) and sentimental
conservatism (see, e.g., CP 1.661) are accordingly intertwined with
Peirces pragmatism, in the broad sense suggested here.
Peirce was, at once, a deeply traditional thinker and a radically
innovative one. He identied tradition as an indispensable resource
for eective innovation and, in turn, innovation (at least as it results
from an ongoing, immanent dissatisfaction with some specic aspect
of an inherited practice) as a way the present can pay homage to its
past. What is distinctive about Peirces pragmatism, especially vis-a`vis William James, is its emphasis upon the communal character of
human practices, while what is distinctive about his pragmatism,
especially vis-a`-vis John Dewey, is a more acute sensitivity to the
deeply traditional roots of even our most innovative practices.
Insofar as the revival of pragmatism continues to inuence debates in
education, then, it seems especially important to hear the voice of
Peirce in its diering emphases and valorizations.
During the last 60 years, however, the ways of reading Peirce have
changed in several respects. While in the 1940s and 1950s Peirces
pragmatism was primarily regarded as the precursor of logical
empiricism, Peirce-scholars have more recently reconstructed from
his work a broader conception of learning than that involved in
testing and conrming scientic theories. For philosophers of education it is important to note that the dierent ways of reading Peirce
are to a large extent due to dierences in exegetic focus.
By emphasizing Peirces early work in epistemology (186869),
and also his early pragmatic writings (187778), one might still tend
to see his relevance restricted to issues concerning the justication of
cognitive claims in science. This way of reading Peirce is typical of

THE CONFLICTING PROCESS OF LEARNING AND DISCOVERY

171

Jurgen Habermas and Karl-Otto Apel, although they stress with

Peirce a pragmatic basis for scientic knowledge in terms of long
term learning processes in the community of scientic investigators.
By shifting the focus to Peirces metaphysical system in the early
1890s one gets a dierent picture developed by Carl R. Hausman
(Charles S. Peirces evolutionary philosophy, 1993). Attention is now
on the alleged instinctual basis for making correct guesses in life as
well as in the forming of scientic hypotheses; Peirce even suggests
that human creativity is anchored in the very evolution of laws in
nature. Along these lines of thought, educational processes, including
moral development in individuals, would reect evolutionary and
cosmic processes.
Peirces later semiotic, however, oers other ways of conceptualizing educational processes. By focusing on works from shortly after
the turn of the 20th century Helmut Pape (Erfahrung und Wirklichkeit
als Zeichenprosess, 1989) has insisted that Peirces semiotic notion of
cognitive agency is primarily spelled out, not in terms of a community
of scientic investigators, but in terms of an individual subject
learning from ordinary, everyday life experience. On this interpretation, Peirce analyzes the ways in which individual learning processes
are conditioned by a language system, as well as signs of other kinds.
Yet, such conditioning is no mere constraint; already the early Peirce
held that men and words reciprocally educate each other (CP 5.313)
and he now investigates how our linguistic (and other semiotic)
capacities are resources for becoming educated.
However, educational processes should also be situated in social
space. Thus, Peircescholars and semioticians interested in social
interaction and human communication have criticized Peirces
semiotic for its abstractness and generality. Although K.-O. Apel has
suggested how Peirces semiotic might be appreciated in hermeneutical terms, the fact that Peirce more often than not provides highly
formal analyses of signs and sign processes has made him less
assessable for those coming from the continental side in philosophy.
Nevertheless, Jrgen Dines Johansen has taken pains to show how a
dialogic model of semiosis may be extracted from Peirces work
(Dialogical Semiosis, 1993). Taking such scholarship seriously, philosophers of education may consider Peirces semiotic as a suitable
framework for analyzing educational processes in terms of a Socratic,
moral, or cultural dialogue.
Peirce never explicitly addressed education as an autonomous
eld of theory and practice. But as shown in Torill Strands

172

COLAPIETRO ET AL.

introduction to Barbara Thayer-Bacon and Torjus Midtgardens

essays he addressed the topic of higher education in a few minor
publications. In these texts, which should be read in the context of
Peirces normative logic of science, he discusses the aims and means
of higher education, making the assertion that the function of a
university is the production of knowledge (Peirce, 1880/1958, p.
334). The aim of higher education is to improve the students
logical power and knowledge of method (Peirce, 1882/1958, p.
337). Peirce sums up his 1882 petite on Liberal Education in this
way:
In short, my view is the true one, a young man wants a physical education and an
aesthetic education, an education in the ways of the world and a moral education,
and with all these logic has nothing in particular to do; but so far as he wants an
intellectual education, it is precisely logic that he wants; and whether it be in one
lecture room or another, his ultimate purpose is to improve his logical power and his
knowledge of methods. To this great end a young mans attention ought to be
directed when he rst comes to the university; he ought to keep it steadily in view
during the whole period of his studies; and nally, he will do well to review his whole
work in the light which an education in logic throws upon it (Peirce, 1882/1958, p.
337).

Addressing the aims and means of an intellectual education, Peirce

points to logic as the prime endeavor. However, logic here
denotes a broad, general study, comprising not only logic in the
formal sense, but also a general theory of signs and a theory of
scientic methods. Accordingly, Peirces conception of a Liberal
Education may be recognized as parallel to the medieval conception
of Bildung, while the study of logic should make the students able to
keep an overview, a superior perspective, to go beyond the strict rules
and narrow borders of the artes liberales, the dierent subject
matters or sciences taught at the university. An intellectual education should thus improve the students logical power and his
knowledge of methods, regardless in whichever lecture room it
happens. Consequently, Peirces conception of Liberal Education
is close to his conception of common sense, or sensis communis, in
terms of a critical commonsensism. A liberal education is about the
university students dedicating themselves to the knowledge-producing culture of a university4.

4
See Peirces review of Clark University (Peirce, 1900/1958, pp. 331334), discussed in Strands Peirce on Education: Nurturing the First Rule of Reason.

THE CONFLICTING PROCESS OF LEARNING AND DISCOVERY

173

So, Peirce should not be read as a way of providing any narrow

model of education or some rigid educational recipes. Rather,
Peirces philosophy should be interpreted as part of a long-lasting
philosophical discourse, all from the ancient paideia, through the
medieval notion of Bildung,5 to the modern conceptions of emancipation and empowerment.6 Consequently, as the various authors of
these articles clearly points out, Peirces most signicant contribution
to the philosophy of education is not his explicit texts on higher
education, interpreted as some guiding principles on what and how to
educate. Peirces most valuable contribution is rather his semeiotics,7
or in other words, his general logic. To Peirce, semeiotic is an analytical study of sign relations. The aim is to detect what must be the
characters of all signs and what would be true of signs in all cases
(CP 2.227). Refusing a mentalist account of signs and embracing
everyday experience as philosophically relevant, Peirce holds that all
thought is in sign. Hence, as signs are socially shared habits of minds,
Peirces philosophy comes forward as a fruitful contribution to the
5

In Pragmatism and Peirces denition of the Purpose of a University Torjus

Midtgarden points to the way in which Peirces semiotic trivium is based on the
model of a medieval trivium. While pointing to the fact that Peirce stresses the
reciprocal dependency and continuity between the life-world and scientic practices,
Peirces discussion exposes a Humboltian ideal of Bildung. Peirces notion of Bildung
is also at the heart of Jim Garrisons Curriculum, Critical Common-Sensism,
Scholasticism, and the growth of Democratic Character and Vincent Colapietros
Cultivating the Arts of Inquiry, Interpretation, and Criticism.
6
The German philosopher Karl-Otto Apel (1995) holds that an essential
advantage of Peirces semeiotic is the concomitant theories of a meaning critical
realism and the normative-procedural relatedness of all possible criteria of truth to a
consensual theory of truth (p. iii). After recognizing a neo-Marxist social philosophy,
and thus admitting the societal shortcomings of pragmatism, Apel closes his book on
Peirce with the statement that Marxism ... will have to learn from Pragmatism to
overcome the spirit of dogmatism [...]. This will have to be replaced by the spirit of
the communication and experimentation community that Peirce and Dewey had in
mind (p. 196). Barbara Thyer-Bacon, in her Discussion of Peirces Denition of a
University, also points to some empowering aspects of a Peircean pragmatism,
while simultaneously questioning some socio-political limitations in Peirce.
7
Peirce denes semeiotic, the study of sign relations, as the analytic study of the
essential conditions to which all signs are subjects (EP 2,327). Peirces semeiotic
trivium consists of speculative grammar, critic, and speculative rhetoric. Speculative
grammar studies the conditions for the various forms of meaning and signs. Critic
studies the relations between signs and their preferred objects; i.e. the conditions for
the truth of signs. Speculative rhetoric studies the relation between sign and interpretant, the method, or the production of knowledge itself.

174

COLAPIETRO ET AL.

ways of reading educative processes, meaning the conicting processes of learning and discovery.
The very rst article in this collection Jim Garrisons Curriculum, Critical Common-Sensism, Scholastiscism, and the Growth of
Democratic Character reveals the ways in which Peirces pragmaticism hosts a valuable notion of democratic Bildung. Reading
Peirces 1905 essay, Issues of Pragmaticism, Garrison identies
critical common-sensism and Scotistic realism as the two primary
products of Peirces pragmaticism. After an in-depth analysis and
discussion, Garrison concludes by arguing that rationality itself is but
the form and structure of poetic creation.
The next two articles illustrate the ways in which Peirces semeiotic
may serve as a useful framework for the reading of the educative
processes of learning and discovery. Mats Bergman, in C. S. Peirces
Dialogical Conception of Sign Processes, provides an excellent
study of Peirces semeiotic, while examining the contention that the
central concepts of Peirces semeiotic are inherently communicational. Bergman argues that a Peircean approach avoids the pitfalls of
objectivism and constructivism, as it neither pictures the sign-user as
a passive recipient nor as an omnipotent creator of meaning. Consequently, Bergman draws attention to Peirces semeiotic as a fruitful
perspective on learning processes.
Taking the Meno paradox, or the learning paradox, as a starting
point, Saami Paavola and Kai Hakkarainen argue in Three
Abductive Solutions to the Meno Paradox that Peirces notion of
abduction provides a way of dissecting the processes of learning and
discovery. To Peirce, abduction, as a way of creative inferences,
guessing, or free play with ideas, is the only form of inference that
generates new knowledge. Paavola and Hakkarainen present three
complementary perspectives on abduction: First, abduction as a sort
of guessing instinct or expert-like intuition, where unconscious clues
are important. Second, abduction as a form of inference, where a
strategic point of view is essential. Third, abduction as a part of
distributed cognition and mediated activity, where the interaction
with the material, social, and cultural environment is emphasized.
Drawing on, among others, Karl-Otto Apels reading of Peirces
normative logic of science, Torill Strand contends that Peirces
method of inquiry may be fruitful in sorting dogmatism from pragmatism. In Peirce on Educational Beliefs, she elaborates on educational beliefs as mediated, socially situated and future-oriented,
and points to Peirces method of inquiry as a scientic ethos. To

THE CONFLICTING PROCESS OF LEARNING AND DISCOVERY

175

Peirce, the method is not judged by the conclusions it leads to or the

knowledge it may produce. Rather, the method is held to be fruitful
due to the norms guiding the inquiry: (1) The Pragmatic principle, (2)
The Social Principle, (3) Fallibilism and (4) Abduction. In sum, a
Peircean conception of educational research, theory building and
practice should be characterized as a mutual commitment towards
shared processes of joint learning.
In the next article, Peirce and the Art of Reasoning, Doug
Anderson draws attention to Peirces virtually unknown 1887 circular
for his correspondence course on The Art of Reasoning. Reading
this circular, Anderson nds not surprisingly that the study of
logic stood at the center of Peirces liberal arts education. However,
as Peirces notion of logic embraces creativity and the practice of
observation and imagination, Peirces course foreshadowed a number
of developments within the twentieth century curriculum theory.
First, the belief that non-traditional students should be educated.
Next, the claim that the art of critical reasoning was important to all
theoretical practices. Third, that the art of reasoning was important
to the overall growth of a person.
Peirces conception of the growth of a person is at the heart of the
next article. Here, Michael Ventimiglia in Tree Educational Orientations: A Peircean Perspective on Education and the Growth of
the Self explores Peirces notion of growth, before discussing three
dierent educational orientations which tend to foster or frustrate
this growth. He concludes that the growth of the student depends,
rst, upon the educators intentions and, next, upon an appropriate
mediation between freedom and constraint in the educational setting.
Ventimiglia reveals that a commitment to such an orientation has to
be characterized as a resistance towards the narrowing ends of
business-minded educational institutions. Thus, his argument goes
well together with Peirces, as Peirce eagerly holds that the utilitarian
function of higher education by all means should ...be put out of
sight (CP 1.641).
The three essays under the joint heading Peirce on Education
Torill Strands Peirce on Education: Nurturing the First Rule of
Reason, Barbara Thayer-Bacons Discussion of Peirces Denition
of a University, and Torjus Midtgardens Pragmatism and Peirces
Denition of the Purpose of a University discuss Peirces texts on
the denition and function of a university. In the introductory piece,
Strand presents Peirces few texts on higher education before arguing
that to Peirce, the agenda seems to be the education of the rst rule

176

COLAPIETRO ET AL.

of reason. In the next essay, Thayer-Bacon, as a feminist, pragmatist, and cultural studies scholar, addresses Peirces denition of a
university. Thayer-Bacon embraces the ways in which Peirces
notions of fallibilism and critical common-sensism oer marginalized
and colonialized people a position of privilege, while regretting the
more senior Peirces redrawing of a split between theory and practice. In the third essay, Torjus Midtgarden reads Peirces 1900
review of Clark University in light of Peirces changing conceptions
of pragmatism, while arguing that Peirces late pragmatism denes a
locus for Bildung that moves the social, or political, aspects more to
the front.
In the very last article Cultivating the Arts of Inquiry, Interpretation, and Criticism: A Peircean Approach to Educational
Practices Vincent Colapietro holds that Peirces relevance to issues
of education is to be found in his modest, yet powerful characterizations of subjectivity and agency. While Jim Garrison in his article
concludes that rationality, to Peirce, is but the form and structure of
poetic creation, Vincent Colapietro aims at going one step farther by
exploring a Peircean approach to educational practices. Since our
capacities to learn from experience are at the heart of Peirces philosophy, a Peircean approach would be to assist the cultivation of
these capacities, when doing justice to Peirces profound appreciation
for the aesthetic and the imaginative. A Peircean education will thus
be aiming at the continuous enhancement of our innate ability to
transform our understanding, including our self-understanding.
Consequently, education is not a preparation for life, rather life an
opportunity to become educated. Or, as Peirce insists; surely the
purpose of education is not dierent from the purpose of life (Peirce,
1900/1958, p. 333).
REFERENCES
Apel, K.O. (1995). Charles S. Peirce. From Pragmatism to Pragmaticism. Amherst:
University of Massachusetts Press.
Colapietro, V. (1998). Transforming philosophy into a science. American Catholic
Philosophical Quarterly, LXXII(2), 245278.
Garrison, J. & Neiman, A. (2003). Pragmatism and education. In N. Blake,
P. Smeyers, R. Smith and P. Standish (Eds), The Blackwell guide to the philosophy
of Education (pp. 2137). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Peirce, C.S. (1880/1958). Fourth of July address, Paris. In Philip P. Wiener (Ed),
Charles S. Peirce: Selected writings. Values in a universe of change (pp. 334335).
New York: Dover.

THE CONFLICTING PROCESS OF LEARNING AND DISCOVERY

177

Peirce, C.S. (1882/1958). Logic and liberal education. In Philip P. Wiener (Ed),
Charles S. Peirce: Selected writings values in a universe of change (pp. 336337).
New York: Dover Publications.
Peirce, C.S. (1900/1958). Clark University, 18891899: Decennial celebration. In
Philip P. Wiener (Ed), Charles S. Peirce: Selected writings values in a universe of
change (pp. 331334). New York: Dover Publications.
Peirce, C.S. (19311958). Collected papers, 8 vols. In C. Hartsthorne & P. Weiss (Ed)
(Vols. 16) and A. Burks (Vols. 78). Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
The volume and paragraph number, seprated by a point, follows CP references.
Peirce, C.S. (19921998). The essential Peirce: selected philosophical writings. 2 vols.
In N. Houser & C. Kloesel (Eds) (vol. 1), & The Peirce edition project (vol. 2).
Bloomington: Indiana University Press. The volume and page number follows EP
references .
Rosenthal, S. (1994). Charles Peirces pragmatic pluralism. Albany, NY: SUNY
Press.

Department of Philosophy
Pennsylvania State University
240 Sparks Building,
University Park, PA 16802
USA
E-mail: vxc5@psu.edu