Paper three, “Peirce’s First Pragmatic Papers, 1877-1878” (23-33), is a brief yet
tantalizing study in intellectual biography. As is suitable from the author’s culture, it focuses
on an aspect of the “French connection” in Peirce’s life. Peirce travelled to France, spoke
French fluently and wrote in it often. In 1904 he was given the great honour of election as
foreign associate to the French academy of science.
This paper compares French and English versions of well-known and seminal
papers, “How To Make Our Ideas Clear” and “The Fixation of Belief” (both published in
Revue Philosophique, 1878-79). It demonstrates subtle inflections and differences of
meaning that resulted from changes in language and audience. It also outlines the possible
historical influence of French politics, including the Paris Commune and libertarian thought,
on the social philosophy of “The Fixation of Habit.”
The result is no arcane or dry hermeneutic, but something representative of a type of
intellectual biography that integrates very particular circumstances and events of a
subject’s professional and personal life, with the content of their ideas. Such an approach
makes a lot of sense for a pragmatist who argued ideas need to be assessed in terms of
their outcome or communication in sign acts. As detailed as it is, what is frustrating about
the paper remains its strength: its specialism and concision. How many other digressive
narrative sequences, involving Peirce’s work at Johns Hopkins, with the Metaphysical Club,
in travels to Europe, in the Coastal Survey or while at Arisbe, await further analysis?
A sense of concision and brevity is shared with other papers, and it is not really a
judgement on the anthology to note as much: within and between papers many different
themes and points are made, seemingly in passing. These cannot all be taken up with the
constraints or purposes of the present volume, yet we are tempted on occasions to want
more development.
Part Two is “devoted to Peirce’s theory of signs” (35). It takes up themes introduced
in the first part directly. The organization of the First and Second section is thus very clear:
having clarified the philosophical background, the focus is on distinct features of semiotic
theory. “Sign: Semiosis and Representamen” and “Sign: the Concept and its Use” focus
immediately on themes that Deledalle regards as central to a pragmatic understanding of
Peirce. A sign has two aspects or “acceptations”: the sign object (representamen) and the
sign action (semiosis) (37). These two aspects function with an effect that is conceived as
the interpretant, third acceptation of the sign.