I Peirce and Harris in 1867

The first issue of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy (JSP) appeared in January of 1867. After a four issue run, W. T. Harris,Footnote 9 the Hegelian founder of the JSP,Footnote 10 wrapped up the volume with a preface that responded to criticisms of the journal's content. The two primary criticisms of the journal were (i) that too much of the journal's contents consisted of translationsFootnote 11 rather than original philosophical content and (ii) that the journal was ‘un-American’ since it focused upon the work of European, rather than American, authors. The first volume was, no doubt, choked-full of translations, but Harris stressed that the translations were important for American philosophy. For example, the translation of Leibniz's Monadology was the first time it appeared in English. In response to the charge that the JSP was ‘un-American’, Harris argued that if ‘American Thought’ was coextensive with those philosophers that Americans read, then the term referred to the philosophy of John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, Comte, Hamilton, and Cousin. ‘It is said,’ Harris wrote, ‘that of Herbert Spencer's works nearly twenty thousand have been sold in this country, while in England scarcely the first edition has been bought.’Footnote 12 And so, if the JSP was ‘Un-American’ because it did not reproduce ‘American thought’, then the JSP was un-American as the JSP was anti-Spencerian since its inception.Footnote 13 Nevertheless, Harris retorted that ‘American philosophy’ should not be understood as reflective of what Americans thought, but where American thought was going. As Harris put it, the JSP did not publish the works of philosophers who were representative of ‘American thought’ as it was, but who could facilitate the production of new ‘American thinkers’.Footnote 14 For Harris, the only way a truly distinctive group of American thinkers would materialize was through a ‘study of the greatest thinkers of all ages and all times’: the likes of Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, and Schelling.Footnote 15 Harris saw the importance of publishing translations for only when their works were fully digested would a ‘phalanx of American thinkers’ emerge.Footnote 16

In the same year (1867) that the JSP was born, Peirce was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (30 Jan) where he delivered five papers (12 March, 9 April, 14 May, 10 Sept., 13 Nov.). By November 1867 Peirce had obtained offprints of the first three papers, bundled them together with the title ‘Three Papers on Logic’, and sent a copy to Harris and others.Footnote 17 Harris's interest was piqued concerning the third of these essays, ‘On a New List of Categories’ and he wrote to Peirce in a 10 Dec 1867 letter ‘if I find time [I] will see whether I can review it properly in the next number of the Journal of Speculative Philosophy.’ Quite surprisingly, Harris understood part of what Peirce was driving at in his epically dense ‘New List’ and referred him to his own search for categories, a series of articles that Harris published in the JSP with the running title ‘Introduction to Philosophy’.Footnote 18 Accompanying his reply, Harris also sent Peirce the first three issues of the JSP. Upon receipt of the items, Peirce wrote to Harris on 1 January 1868, and noted that he was already subscribing to the JSP through a bookseller and that he had ‘read your “Introduction” as far as published and think it very good. Yet [I] totally disagree, since I act wholly in the interest of the understanding and do not beleive [sic] in the “reason” of your school, at all. I admit there is music in the logic of Hegel, but that is all I discover there.’ Peirce remarked further that he had drafted Harris a long letter on Hegel — most likely concerning Harris's discussion of Hegelian philosophy in issues 1 and 2 — but decided against sending it.Footnote 19

By 24 January 1868, Peirce had read the fourth issue of the JSP, which included Harris's ongoing Introduction and Harris's critical review of Paul Janet's Hegel. In the 24 January letter, Peirce congratulated Harris on the first volume of the JSP and directed a number of criticisms toward the intelligibility and plausibility of Hegel's philosophy.Footnote 20 Treating Harris as the defender of Hegel's philosophy, Peirce addressed five questions that focused on the following three key issues: (i) the meaning of abstraction, (ii) the identity of Being and Nothingness, and (iii) whether the burden of proof falls on those who affirm or deny the universal validity of the laws of logic. While Peirce wrote that his questions about Hegel's philosophy were not to be thought of as criticisms ‘but only as inquiries’, his style of raising these ‘inquiries’ could only be read as antagonistic as many were expressed in the form of a reductio ad absurdum.

Peirce's ‘inquiries’ could not have been read in good spirit for its addressee was not a detached interpreter of Hegel's work but was, instead, a strident defender of Hegel's philosophy. Harris, who had been studying Hegel since 1858, was fully convinced of both the truth and practical importance of Hegel's philosophy, and his St. Louis Movement had poured over Hegel's Logik under the guidance of Henry Conrad Brockmeyer with unparalleled devotion. For the members of the St. Louis movement, Hegel's philosophy was not merely the step beyond both Kant and New England transcendentalism, but it contained the keys to salvation itself.Footnote 21 St. Louis Movement member and biographer Denton Snider (Reference Snider1920: 119) recalls that his study of Hegel was totally absorbing: ‘I not only thought Hegel, but lived Hegel, was Hegel. All that I had ever known or done I Hegelized with a sort of desperation.’ Pochmann (Reference Pochmann1948: 12) writes that Harris and Brockmeyer had decided that ‘the future salvation of the nation lay in translating Hegel's Logic, for only Hegel could save the nation from itself.’ McCluskey (Reference McCluskey1958: 116) even goes so far as to write that for Harris, Hegel's philosophy had a personal religious dimension to it: ‘Harris had every intention of remaining a Christian, even though the Christianity he professed had more Hegel in it than Christ.’

Here then was Peirce informing Harris that the logic of Hegel was mere music, that his school lacked reason, and that he simply had five ‘inquiries’ concerning Hegel's philosophy for which he'd appreciate answers. So when Peirce concluded his 24 January letter by saying that he wouldn't mind if his questions were published provided he could remain incognito, Harris snatched the opportunity to defend Hegel from Peirce's so-called ‘inquiries’. Harris would do so by publishing Peirce's questions, along with Harris's critical replies, in the JSP as ‘Nominalism versus Realism’.Footnote 22

II Nominalism vs. Realism and the Metaphysical Basis of the Laws of Logic

‘Nominalism versus Realism’ set the stage for two paths of debate between Peirce and Harris.Footnote 23 The first concerned Hegel's philosophical vocabulary. The second, and the path we follow in this paper, was whether the universal validity of the laws of logic entailed a commitment to nominalism. Did the laws of logic have universal validity? Harris thought they did not, Peirce thought they did, and so the opening stage of their quarrel centered on deciding who bore the burden of proof. In ‘Nominalism versus Realism’, Peirce argued that since there is a prima facie presumption in favour of the common sense view that accepts the universal validity of the laws of logic, it is ‘more probable that subtle fallacies lurk in the Hegelian reasoning than that such fallacies lurk in all other reasoning whatsoever.’Footnote 24 Thus, Peirce argued that the onus lies on the Hegelians to show that the laws of logic lack universal validity rather than on a proponent of formal logic to show that they are, in fact, universal.

Harris responded by arguing that that the common-sense acceptance of the universality validity of the laws of logic (e.g., the principles of non-contradiction, identity, and excluded middle) entailed a nominalistic metaphysics, but nominalism was false. Thus, the laws of logic are not universally valid and so the onus falls on Peirce to show that they have such universality.

Harris's argument, however, requires some unpacking. First, for Harris, nominalism was a metaphysical theory that asserted that the individual, the immediate, and the independent were exhaustive of the real. In contrast to the realist, the nominalist took that which was general and universal as fictive. As a corollary, general terms purporting to refer to general objects and abstract terms purporting to refer to abstract objects were simply ‘flatus vocis’ (mere names) and did not refer to real generals or abstract things.Footnote 25

Second, Harris argued that nominalism was a false doctrine. If the nominalist takes all things to be individual and independent of everything else, nominalism must posit a thing's immediate and isolated being (what a thing is at a given time independent of its relation to everything else) as identical to its total being. For Harris, this equivalence showed the falsity of nominalism insofar as the nominalist cannot account for dynamic features of objects (e.g., motion, change, death, becoming, identity through change and, in general, development). For example, the nominalist cannot account for motion insofar as a body cannot move to where it already is as it is already there, nor can it move where it is not as this is to deny the nominalist thesis that a thing's immediate being is identical to its total being. Thus, the nominalist is either false or implausible (as the nominalist could bite the bullet and assert that bodies do not move).Footnote 26

With nominalism clarified and the falsity of the nominalist position argued for, the final step was to show that a proponent of the universal validity of the laws of logic (Peirce) was committed to nominalism. Harris was, no doubt, explicitly committed to this entailment as he wrote ‘to pre-suppose such a doctrine as formal logic presupposes, is to set up the doctrine of immediateness [nominalism] as the only true.’Footnote 27 And, Harris, the founder of a journal on ‘speculative’ philosophy,Footnote 28 argued that Peirce's zeal for logic expressed ‘the most profound and compendious statement of the anti-speculative standpoint as related to the Science of Pure Thought (Prima Philosophia), that we have seen.’Footnote 29 The entailment in question was forged by showing that the laws of logic can only be thought valid when an object is understood nominalistically. That is, on Harris's account, logical laws like the principle of contradiction are valid only when we assume the nominalist viewpoint since propositions of the form ‘Not (P and not-P)’ or ‘it is not the case that water is both liquid and not liquid’ are true only if things are treated as though they were in a fixed state. In contrast, the laws of logic lack validity when objects are understood as having the dynamic features which the nominalist, in privileging the immediacy and independence of things, is committed to denying. To see why the laws of logic breakdown when objects are understood dynamically, consider that if the identity of an object is partly determined by what it is at a given moment and partly determined by what it will be in future moments, then the state of an object can change from one state to another. For example, while water is, at a current moment, liquid, it is also not-liquid insofar as it can change to a vapour or a solid (not a liquid) when it is heated or cooled.Footnote 30 Thus, Harris asserted that the principle of non-contradiction ‘not (Pa and not Pa)’ is not universally true as ‘water is liquid and water is not liquid’ is a true statement.Footnote 31

So, in response to Peirce's claim that since the laws of logic are recommended by common sense and the onus is on the Hegelian to show that such laws are not universally true, Harris argued that common sense gets things wrong. While there may be prima facie reasons for thinking the laws of logic are true, speculative philosophy shows, upon closer inspection, the metaphysical basis of this commitment is flawed.Footnote 32 A commitment to formal logic entails nominalism and since nominalism is a false doctrine, the commitment to the universal validity of such laws is misplaced.

In Harris's mind, Peirce's appeal for an argument that makes Hegel's attack on the laws of logic had been clarified and so speculative (Hegelian) philosophers had met their burden of proof. In addition, Harris had polarized the debate between Peirce and himself. Where Peirce was formalistic, Harris (and his JSP) accepted Hegel's context-infused dialectic. Where Peirce accepted the dictates of common sense, Harris thought reality could only be revealed through a speculative insight. Where Peirce was a nominalist of an extreme stripe, taking isolated individuals as exhausting reality, Harris was a realist who took a commitment to these so-called individuals to entail a denial of all dynamism in the world. The onus was now on Peirce to show how the laws of logic could have universal validity on nominalistic grounds. Peirce was up for the challenge for he wrote Harris saying that ‘I have already devoted some attention to that subject. I cannot say what I think in less than three articles of the Journal’.Footnote 33 Harris was sufficiently interested and Peirce set to work in writing the ‘three articles’ for the 1868 and 1869 issues of the JSP.Footnote 34

III Peirce's Realism and His ‘Proof’ of the Universal Validity of the Laws of Logic

Peirce took up Harris's challenge to defend the universal validity of the laws of logic in three essays published in the JSP: ‘Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man’ (QCCF), ‘Some Consequences of Four Incapacities’ (SCFI), and ‘Grounds of Validity of the Laws of Logic: Further Consequences of Four Incapacities’ (GVLL). Peirce argued for a number of philosophical theses in these texts and several fine exegetical and critical overviews of the JSP series do them justice.Footnote 35 The focus of this section concerns, instead, how, at least in outline, Peirce responded to Harris's charge that he could not prove the universal validity of the laws of logic. What we find striking about Peirce's response, as we will sketch here and explore in further sections, is that Peirce appears to concede the point that the laws of logic cannot be explained on nominalist grounds. That is, under pressure from Harris, he appears to abandon nominalism for realism.

While the JSP essays proceed with an attack on several non-inferential faculties claimed to belong to human beings, we begin our sketch of Peirce's argument with the second JSP essay: SCFI. There Peirce begins the essay by summarizing four key results (denials) from QCCF:

From these four denials, Peirce, in SCFI, detailed a number of consequences, but only two consequences are particularly relevant here. First, Peirce claimed that one consequence of the first three denials is that we have no conception or actual perception of an image (something that is absolutely determinate in all respects). That is, images or singulars are incognizable. Second, Peirce argued that given that we have no conception of the absolutely incognizable, we should adopt the hypothesis that all of our conceptions correspond to something that is cognizable to some degree.Footnote 36

Given the four denials and the two consequences noted above, Peirce concluded SCFI with an argument for realism. He argued that since there is a meaningful conception of reality and there is no meaningful conception of that which is incognizable, reality must be potentially cognizable to some degree. Second, insofar as ‘the real’ is cognizable, it cannot be singular since, as the two consequences above noted, we have no conception of that which is singular or determinate in every respect. Thus, if reality is potentially cognizable and that which is singular is not cognizable, Peirce concluded that reality itself must be general to some degree. Thus, only the realist can sustain a meaningful conception of reality.

In the third and final essay of Peirce's JSP series (GVLL), Peirce attempted to make good on his promise to Harris by proving how the laws of logic have universal validity.Footnote 37 His argument proceeded as follows. First, the forms of the logical laws of deductive reasoning cannot be genuinely doubted. If what is asserted by ‘Every M is P’ is that anything for which we can predicate ‘M’, we can also predicate ‘P’, then if ‘S is M’, no one can genuinely doubt ‘S is P’. Second, the scope of the logical laws is not limited to abstract (formal) objects but applicable to real things. Since, as the argument above noted, generals are real — i.e., some instance of ‘Every M is P’ signifies something real —, the validity of the laws of logic extends beyond the merely formal sphere to reality itself. That is, the validity of these laws is applicable to the things which the general statements signify. Third, and finally, Peirce argued that various objections directed at the validity of deductive reasoning are unconvincing.Footnote 38

What we find striking in Peirce's argument for the universal validity of the laws of logic is not the persuasiveness of his proof but how the outline of his argument seems to reflect a shift in his thinking about the underlying metaphysical commitments required by the logician. That is, Peirce's argument seems to switch the initial terms of the debate as Peirce does not show that the universal validity of the laws of logic rest on nominalistic grounds. Instead, he appears to abandon nominalism for realism, and this abandonment seems to be the result of pressure put on him from Harris's Hegelian-based attacks.

There has been a long-standing debate about the status of Peirce's early metaphysical commitments, specifically over whether Peirce was a realist prior to 1868. There are two central views.Footnote 39 First, there is the Nominalist-to-Realist view held by Max Fisch (Reference Fisch1967: 159; cf. W2: xxvi) and Frederick Michael (Reference Michael1988). This position contends that Peirce was a nominalist early in his career as he denied the reality of universals outside of the mind (Ontological Claim) and that although the late Peirce was committed to an extreme scholastic realism, the early Peirce shifted from a nominalist ontology to a realist ontology in 1868 (Fisch) or in 1881 (Michael) (the Developmental Claim). Evidence cited in support of Peirce's early nominalism includes a variety of pre-1868 passages (including the drafts of the JSP series) where Peirce utters pro-nominalist remarks, including at least two where Peirce explicitly denied the reality of universals by calling qualities ‘fictions’ framed for the purposes of philosophizing (1967: 163; W2: 175, 180, 181; cf. W1: 287, 307, 312, 360). In addition, around this same time period, Peirce expressed his allegiance to a number of nominalistic doctrines, e.g., the frequency theory of probability (Fisch Reference Fisch1967: 160-161; cf. W2: 98-99; Burks Reference Burks1964).Footnote 40

If the reconstruction of the Peirce-Harris exchange given above is correct, one piece of evidence that would further support the Nominalist-to-Realist view is that if Peirce was a realist prior to 1868 then one would expect him to deny Harris's characterization of him as an extreme nominalist. That is, since Peirce doesn't deny this charge in correspondence with Harris, one can only conclude that Peirce shifted his position from nominalism to realism under pressure from Harris.

In contrast to the Nominalist-to-Realist view, there is what we call the ‘Standard View’ held by the likes of Boler (Reference Boler1980), Roberts (Reference Roberts1970), Goudge (Reference Goudge1950:95-103), Skagestad (Reference Skagestad1981:67-69), Lane (Reference Lane2004), and others. This view contends that Peirce was a realist early in his career as he accepted the reality of universals, but denied that they exist in the same sense as concrete particulars (the Ontological Claim). In addition, this view takes the early Peirce to be a scholastic realist that developed into a more extreme form of realism as Peirce's career progressed (the Developmental Claim). The most straightforward evidence for both the ontological and developmental claims of the Standard View comes from Peirce's own account of his philosophical development. Peirce attests that despite his many revisions to his realism, he has ‘never been able to think differently on that question of nominalism and realism’ (CP1.20, 1903) and that ‘never, during the thirty years [1863-1893] in which I have been writing on philosophical questions, have I failed in my allegiance to realistic opinions and to certain Scotistic ideas.’Footnote 41

The central difficulty for the Standard View has been how to explain away the passages where Peirce directly avows nominalism. Proponents of the Standard View reply in two stages. First, they argue that Peirce did not have a clear understanding of the different types of realism available. Early on, Peirce understood the ‘realistic’ position as falsely asserting that universals have the same kind of reality as that of concrete particulars, i.e. universals were real but were in no way relative to the mind.Footnote 42 John Boler (Reference Boler1963:25) vividly puts this point when he writes that Peirce did not think ‘that you can find generals in the sense that an archeologist finds vases.’ Next, proponents of the Standard View argue that it was only when Peirce began reading Duns Scotus more intently and scholastic philosophy more broadly that he came to distinguish his own brand of realism from the realism that takes universals to be existent entities.Footnote 43 As such, the purported shift from nominalism to realism by Peirce does not amount to a change in ontological commitments; rather, it is simply a reclassification of himself as a realist given a clearer understanding of the landscape of theories.

IV Harris’ Extreme Realism and the Nominalist Badge

Why didn't Peirce shirk the nominalist badge that Harris pinned to him? If we follow the Standard View on Peirce's early realism, we ought to contend that at the time of the debate with Harris, Peirce understood ‘realism’ to refer to the position that universals are real in the same way that concrete things are real, viz., as concrete things. Since Peirce was not a realist in this sense, it makes sense for him not to accept this position. We think, however, more can be said on this issue. In particular, we think better sense can be made of why Peirce didn't explicitly deny ‘nominalism’ when Harris's Hegelian-inspired realism is considered.

In contrast to nominalism, Harris subscribed to a Hegelian-inspired realism that asserted that only universals are actual.Footnote 44 Universals were not, on Harris's account, Platonic (abstract) entities existing outside of space and time qua ideal forms but rather that which exists through space and time. That is, real universals are diachronic structures of objects that ‘preserve [a thing's] identity, amid the changing and variable’ (1868b:177) and should be understood as ‘[t]hat which abides in the process of origination and decay’ (W2:149). With this understanding of the universal, Harris argued that where nominalism denigrates that which is universal for the individual, a full-blown realism denigrates the individual for that which is universal. ‘The Universal or Generic’, Harris wrote, ‘may be said to be the only true existence.’Footnote 45 And, where the nominalist devalued the status of general objects as merely figments of the mind, Harris took particulars as that which lacked reality as they were merely instantiations of a more complex, dynamic being. That is, it was particulars that lacked reality as they could not be conceived as being independent from the larger complex, more dynamic and diachronic being. This lack of independency was, in part, partly due to the fact that no understanding of the whole could be gained through an aggregation of particulars but also due to the fact that the fleeting nature of particulars exemplified their non-reality: ‘[t]he self-determining is what we believe in, and it alone exists, while the fleeting show whose reality rests on contradiction is (and this not Hegelian merely, but older than Plato) a mingling of Being and non-Being’.Footnote 46 Finally, where the nominalist devalued general terms as simply useful devices for referring to individuals, Harris understood individual terms as abstractions involving a selective (limited) attention to some aspect of the universal. All abstractions of this variety were, according to Harris, false.Footnote 47

So if Harris took the goal of speculative philosophy in general to advocate realism (the view that only generals exist) and undermine nominalism (the view that only individuals exist)Footnote 48 and he took Peirce to be the most anti-speculative (and thereby nominalist) philosopher to date, then if the early Peirce was not a nominalist as the Standard View contends, why didn't he shirk the nominalist badge pinned to him by Harris? The short answer is because Peirce was neither a realist nor a nominalist in the way that Harris defined the terms. On the one hand, Harris's Hegelian-inspired realism went too far in denying reality (in a certain sense) to particulars. On the other, the nominalist position went too far in denying any kind of reality to generals.

For Peirce, the nominalism-realism debate was over ‘whether laws or general types are figments of the mind or real’, whether ‘laws and types are objective or subjective’,Footnote 49 and whether all abstraction is merely of a logical (subjective) nature or whether certain abstractions could be grounded in reality. While the realist and nominalist agreed that our thinking involves general ideas, Peirce saw their dispute as boiling down to whether the object of thought involved any real generality.Footnote 50 To answer this question, it was necessary, for Peirce, to clarify what might be meant by ‘reality’ or ‘real objects’. If ‘real objects’ refers to the unintelligible external cause of cognition—i.e., those objects located entirely outside of the mind—then, according to Peirce, only individuals are real and ‘the nominalistic answer must be given to the question concerning universals.’Footnote 51 But, Peirce claimed, ‘reality’ can be understood in a different (more idealistic) way.Footnote 52 Rather than understanding ‘real object’ as referring exclusively to the efficient cause of cognition, Peirce claimed that it also referred to the object represented by the final opinion of an indefinitely extended inquiry. Insofar as all thought is general, the real object of this final opinion was general. Such a position, Peirce argued, was realistic as could ward off a number of nominalistic objections. For instance, if, according to the nominalist, this object of this final opinion was deemed ‘illusory’, then, per the assumption that reality is cognizable to some degree, some further inquiry should be able to uncover this illusion. But, per the hypothesis that the object is that of the final opinion, no further correction is forthcoming. Thus, the object of the final opinion is real and insofar as it is a representation of thought, it is general. If, according to the nominalist, the object of this opinion was ‘subjective’, then there should be variation of opinion between different subjects. But, per the hypothesis that the object is the final opinion of the community of inquirers, the object of the final opinion is not relative to any particular subject even though it is relative to a multitude of different minds.Footnote 53

For Peirce then, insofar as we have a meaningful, cognizable notion of reality, the realistic answer should be given. But this realistic answer did not, like Harris's Hegelian-inspired realism, carry with it a complete denial of all aspects of nominalism. In contrast to Harris who argued for the non-reality of particulars as their being depended upon the reality of universals, the early Peirce accepted the nominalistic-sounding insight that there could be no generals without particulars: ‘[t]he great argument for nominalism is that there is no man unless there is some particular man.’Footnote 54 In short, Peirce accepted the nominalist claim that true abstractions were grounded in particular things. While true abstract and general propositions provide evidence, in Peirce's view, for a realistic interpretation of generals, it is at the same time true that the symbolizing and abstracting activity of the intellect always operates upon individual things that instantiate those generals.Footnote 55 From these two insights into the nature of knowledge, Peirce could neither avoid ‘realism’ (= generals have some type of reality) nor totally reject ‘nominalism’ (= individuals are real existents). But, apart from Peirce's understanding of these labels, his overall position amounted to a refined form of traditional realism rather than a version of nominalism.

So it is now clear why Peirce did not flatly deny the charge of nominalism. If ‘realism’ meant Harris's Hegelian realism—a position that denies both the existence of particulars and the reality of abstractions—then Peirce was not a realist in this sense.Footnote 56 Peirce was sensitive to the nominalist claim that there were no generals without particulars and he never denied that singulars exist, even though they were incognizable.Footnote 57 This conclusion, we think, supports the Standard View on Peirce's early realism in a way not previously recognized. Namely, where proponents of the Standard View explain Peirce's reluctance to embrace realism insofar as he took the position to entail that universals were concrete existent things, we additionally contend that this reluctance was due to Harris's striking rejection of particulars altogether. The early Peirce's realization that he was a realist required at least two clarifications on his part. The first was how a realist could be committed to the reality of generals without taking generals to be concrete things like chairs, tables, and vases. The second was how a realist could nevertheless be committed to the reality of generals while not rejecting any mode of existence to particular (or singular) things.