Sellars and Peirce on Truth and the End of Inquiry

Cathy Legg (Deakin University )

ABSTRACT

It's interesting to ponder why Wilfrid Sellars never counted himself a pragmatist, although his scientific realism greatly resembled Charles Peirce's in its anti-representationalism and its future-directed understanding of truth. Sellars did attempt to reckon with Peirce in his later (1968) book "Science and Metaphysics" - explicitly critiquing Peirce's account of truth for leaving "the ‘would-be’ of the acceptance ‘in the long run’ of propositions by the scientific community without an intelligible foundation”, and thus allegedly resting in blind faith in future convergent belief. I consider this discussion, and argue that what Sellars charges Peirce’s philosophy with missing is in fact provided by Peirce's semiotics, which effectively coordinates the real order and the order of signification within the very structure of the proposition as he understands it. 

BIO

Dr. Catherine Legg teaches philosophy at Deakin University in Melbourne. Her main research interests lie in the philosophies of mind, language, and logic, where she works to bring the distinctive ideas of pragmatist Charles Peirce into mainstream debates; she also has research profiles in AI and education. She is current editor of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s “Pragmatism” entry. In 2008, she inaugurated the field of 'cat metaphysics' with the assistance of the late Bruce, who had a ‘personal chair’. This remains something of a niche area.

Zoom link available on request to Sean Bowden ([email protected])