Quotes by Charles Sanders Peirce

“It is important to understand what I mean by semiosis. All dynamic action, or action of brute force, physical or psychical, either takes place between two subjects, — whether they react equally upo...”

“I define a Sign as anything which is so determined by something else, called its Object, and so determines an effect upon a person, which effect I call its Interpretant, that the latter is thereby ...”

“It has never been in my power to study anything, — mathematics, ethics, metaphysics, gravitation, thermodynamics, optics, chemistry, comparative anatomy, astronomy, psychology, phonetics, economics...”

“The definition of definition is at bottom just what the maxim of pragmatism expresses.”

“By an object, I mean anything that we can think, i.e. anything we can talk about.”

“The entire universe is perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs.”

“Any character or proposition either concerns one subject, two subjects, or a plurality of subjects. For example, one particle has mass, two particles attract one another, a particle revolves about ...”

“If the sign were not related to its object except by the mind thinking of them separately, it would not fulfil the function of a sign at all. Supposing, then, the relation of the sign to its object...”

“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. Such are the diagram...”

“I have taken pains to make my distinction of icons, indices, and tokens clear, in order to enunciate this proposition: in a perfect system of logical notation signs of these several kinds must all ...”

“Now, to say that a lot of objects is finite, is the same as to say that if we pass through the class from one to another we shall necessarily come round to one of those individuals already passed; ...”

“As the mathematics are now understood, each branch — or, if you please, each problem, — is but the study of the relations of a collection of connected objects, without parts, without any distinctiv...”

“A pair of statements may be taken conjunctively or disjunctively; for example, It lightens and it thunders, is conjunctive, It lightens or it thunders is disjunctive. Each such individual act of co...”

“Of the fifty or hundred systems of philosophy that have been advanced at different times of the world's history, perhaps the larger number have been, not so much results of historical evolution, as...”

“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 posi...”

“The only possible way of accounting for the laws of nature and for uniformity in general is to suppose them results of evolution. This supposes them not to be absolute, not to be obeyed precisely. ...”

“The one primary and fundamental law of mental action consists in a tendency to generalisation. Feeling tends to spread ; connections between feelings awaken feelings; neighboring feelings become as...”

“The law of habit exhibits a striking contrast to all physical laws in the character of its commands. A physical law is absolute. What it requires is an exact relation. Thus, a physical force introd...”

“The old dualistic notion of mind and matter, so prominent in Cartesianism, as two radically different kinds of substance, will hardly find defenders to-day. Rejecting this, we are driven to some fo...”

“The one intelligible theory of the universe is that of objective idealism, that matter is effete mind, inveterate habits becoming physical laws. But before this can be accepted it must show itself ...”