Crystal-Clearness: For the Second-Rates

Mathias Girel (1)

1 La République des savoirs : Lettres, Sciences, Philosophie

In one of his contributions to The Nation, Peirce claims that ―Crystal clearness, such as we justly require in mathematics, in law, in economics, is in philosophy the characteristic of the second-rates.‖ The statement might seem paradoxical enough: isn't Peirce the author of How to Make our Ideas Clear (hereafter: HMIC), the seminal paper for the pragmatist tradition, a paper that is sure to be included in each and every anthology of American thought? How can clearness then be ―the characteristic of the second-rates‖? I take it that these perplexities arise only in a superficial reading of HMIC and that the present quote tells quite a lot about Peirce's doctrine and style.My first section concerns the method one should adopt in philosophy according to Peirce and explains in part why belief and doubt play such an important role in the Illustrations series. The second one concerns the kind of problems Peirce felt attracted to and how we can make sense of what he says about the ―"strongest" thinkers.

Mots clés: Clearness; Philosophy; Illustrations; Pragmatism; Style; Obscurity; Method; Doubt; Belief; Peirce; Charles Sanders

Domaines: Philosophie

Mathias Girel. Crystal-Clearness: For the Second-Rates. Thellefsen, T.; Sorensen, B. The Peirce Quote Book Charles Sanders Peirce in His Own Words, 14, de Gruyter, pp.169-176, 2014, Semiotics, Communication and Cognition, 9781614516415. ⟨hal-01390266⟩