Toward a pragmatic clarification of materiality and animacy: the materials of life and the life of those materials

Abstract

Materiality or what some theorists prefer to identify as materials have increasingly become the topic of discussion and investigation. While these authors have taken pains to specify what they mean by such terms, the topic calls for greater clarification than it has yet received. This makes it an ideal candidate for the three-tiered clarification championed by C. S. Peirce in “How to Make Our Ideas Clear” and ever after used by him to render, for the purpose at hand, his own ideas adequately clear. Just as he took absolute certainty to be unattainable, he judged absolute clarity to be beyond our reach. Even so, he offered his pragmatic maxim as the highest level of conceptual clarification. For countless purposes, adherence to this maxim enables us to clarify our ideas adequately. While he is emphatic in pointing out the shortcomings of abstract definitions (the second or intermediate level of clarity), he is appreciative of the value of such definitions, of what are for the most part verbal definitions (for, in an abstract definition, we are translating a word or expression into other words). If we take the successful practices of the experimental inquirer, however, then we readily see the need to translate our words not primarily into other words but into habits of action. Moreover, the first level of clarity (that of tacit familiarity) is all too often slighted or altogether ignored. This grade of clearness is however far more important than commentators and, on occasion, even Peirce seem to appreciate. Hence, this article is an attempt to clarify the meaning of materiality and cognate terms, using Peirce’s suggestions for how to carry out this task. It highlights the need for pragmatic clarification, but without denigrating the value of either tacit familiarity or abstract definitions. My hope is to show, in a single stroke, the power of Peirce’s methodological suggestions and the meaning of several elusive terms.