Peirce’s View of Hegelianism

Abstract

Peirce always confronted the German perspective of phenomenology inherited from Kant’s works. He comments at length on the logic developed by German scholars, emphasizing its deep discrepancies with medieval tradition, with the reason shared by most of mankind and with the studies that, throughout centuries, the British have conducted on thought and its laws. To Hegel and those who, for a time, adopted his thought, Peirce dedicates lengthy observations. Always denouncing the flaws that, to his mind, such though contained, he scrutinized particularly the Hegelian logic without, however, ignoring the metaphysical (and thereby) the theological implications contained therein. Given the extended permanency of such concerns, the reading of Hegel and followers evolved alongside Peirce’s own thought.Seemingly harsher at first, albeit more confined to formal issues, the criticisms then slowly penetrated deeper issues involving concept dynamics, the elementary ways of being and the (seldom admitted) metaphysical and theological presuppositions of the respectable German thinker. The evolution of Peirce’s reading of Hegel’s works, and of those inspired by Hegel, enabled, in turn, to keep pace with the evolution of Peirce’s own thought. The first criticisms were confined to the inadmissible transgressions of the most elementary rules of sylogistics, certainly in favor of satisfying the psychological experience of the subjects in time. After the adoption of the logic of the relatives, resulting in the evolution of the inference concept itself and, primarily, after the development of Phaneroscopy and the reasoning for a new and more universal set of categories, the criticism directed towards Hegelian thought became less drastic, though perhaps, deeper.In the early twentieth century, Peirce overcame his initial idiosyncrasy towards Hegel and, reversing the trend, started to show more clearly his acknowledgment of the value of this philosopher’s thoughts, at the exact moment that Hegelianism, both in the German academia and within Anglo-American institutions, started to fall under a wave of disrepute as gratuitous as its hasty acceptance had been. At a more mature stage of his thought, Peirce recognized the proximity of his thought to the Hegelian proposition, notwithstanding a few logical errors always pointed out by him such as, and especially, the forced reduction of phenomenon to concept, to the detriment of the affirmative potentiality of being, and of the irreducible nature of existence to any generalization. A closer look at Peirce’s critical reading of Hegel’s work, and of the work of Hegelians such as Josiah Royce, even considering that it should be brief, given the convenient brevity of the period of exposure, will help towards a better appreciation of the differences between authors and of their coming together due, certainly, to the high regard in which they all hold phenomenon as an inherent object of knowledge.