Charles Sanders Peirce quotes - page 6

Any character or proposition either concerns one subject, two subjects, or a plurality of subjects. (Charles Sanders Peirce)
Such signs are always abstract and general, because habits are general rules to which the organism has become subjected. View quote
Charles Sanders Peirce
Feelings, by being excited, become more easily excited, especially in the ways in which they have previously been excited. The consciousness of such a habit constitutes a general conception. View quote
Charles Sanders Peirce
The hypothesis of God is a peculiar one, in that it supposes an infinitely incomprehensible object, although every hypothesis, as such, supposes its object to be truly conceived in the hypothesis. View quote
Charles Sanders Peirce
All nature abounds in proofs of other influences than merely mechanical action, even in the physical world. View quote
Charles Sanders Peirce
Their avowedly undefinable position, if it be not capable of logical characterisation, seems to me to be characterised by an angry hatred of strict logic, and even some disposition to rate any exact thought which interferes with their doctrines as all humbug. View quote
Charles Sanders Peirce
The law of habit exhibits a striking contrast to all physical laws in the character of its commands. View quote
Charles Sanders Peirce
I call a sign which stands for something merely because it resembles it, an icon. Icons are so completely substituted for their objects as hardly to be distinguished from them. View quote
Charles Sanders Peirce
Philosophy, as I understand the word, is a positive theoretical science, and a science in an early stage of development. View quote
Charles Sanders Peirce
It seems to me a pity they should allow a philosophy so instinct with life to become infected with seeds of death in such notions as that of the unreality of all ideas of infinity and that of the mutability of truth, and in such confusions of thought as that of active willing (willing to control thought, to doubt, and to weigh reasons) with willing not to exert the will (willing to believe). View quote
Charles Sanders Peirce
A certain maxim of Logic which I have called Pragmatism has recommended itself to me for diverse reasons and on sundry considerations. Having taken it as my guide for most of my thought, I find that as the years of my knowledge of it lengthen, my sense of the importance of it presses upon me more and more. (Charles Sanders Peirce)
An "Argument" is any process of thought reasonably tending to produce a definite belief. An "Argumentation" is an Argument proceeding upon definitely formulated premisses. View quote
Charles Sanders Peirce
Time with its continuity logically involves some other kind of continuity than its own. View quote
Charles Sanders Peirce
Our whole past experience is continually in our consciousness, though most of it sunk to a great depth of dimness. View quote
Charles Sanders Peirce
When a man is about to build a house, what a power of thinking he has to do, before he can safely break ground! View quote
Charles Sanders Peirce
To suppose universal laws of nature capable of being apprehended by the mind and yet having no reason for their special forms, but standing inexplicable and irrational, is hardly a justifiable position. Uniformities are precisely the sort of facts that need to be accounted for. View quote
Charles Sanders Peirce
The first category, then, is Quality of Feeling, or whatever is such as it is positively and regardless of aught else. View quote
Charles Sanders Peirce
A serious student of philosophy will be in no haste to accept or reject this doctrine; but he will see in it one of the chief attitudes which speculative thought may take, feeling that it is not for an individual, nor for an age, to pronounce upon a fundamental question of philosophy. That is a task for a whole era to work out. View quote
Charles Sanders Peirce
Chance is First, Law is Second, the tendency to take habits is Third. Mind is First, Matter is Second, Evolution is Third. View quote
Charles Sanders Peirce
They probably share those current notions of logic which recognise no other Arguments than Argumentations. View quote
Charles Sanders Peirce
First is the conception of being or existing independent of anything else. Second is the conception of being relative to, the conception of reaction with, something else. Third is the conception of mediation, whereby a first and second are brought into relation. (Charles Sanders Peirce)
The actual world cannot be distinguished from a world of imagination by any description. Hence the need of pronoun and indices, and the more complicated the subject the greater the need of them. View quote
Charles Sanders Peirce
Feeling which has not yet emerged into immediate consciousness is already affectible and already affected. View quote
Charles Sanders Peirce
All the monads except as serve as intermediaries for the connections have distinctive designations. View quote
Charles Sanders Peirce
If the sensation that precedes the present by half a second were still immediately before me, then on the same principle, the sensation preceding that would be immediately present, and so on ad infinitum. View quote
Charles Sanders Peirce