Christopher Hookway, “The Pragmatic Maxim: Essays on Peirce and Pragmatism” (Oxford UP, 2012)

In Conversation: An OUP Podcast · Jul 1, 2013 · 1h 4m

Charles Sanders Peirce was the founder of the philosophical tradition known as pragmatism. He is also the proponent of a distinctive variety of pragmatism that has at its core a logical rule that has come to be known as “the pragmatic maxim.” According to this maxim, the meaning of a concept or a proposition is ultimately to be defined in terms of the “sensible” and “practical” effects it would produce in the course of experimental action. That is, of course, a crude articulation. But, according to Peirce, the view of meaning that the maxim articulates has vast philosophical implications…