Dissertation Abstract

C. S. Peirce's revision of Kant's transcendental analytic

by

Dennis Bradley Knepp

Degree: Ph.D.

Year: 2001

Pages: 278

Institution: Washington University;

Advisor: Robert Barrett

Source: DAI, 62, no. 11A (2001): p. 3814

Standard No: ISBN: 0-493-45445-4

This dissertation is the first scholarly attempt to connect Peirce's early logical developments, his analysis of experience, and his derivation of the categories into one coherent system. By doing so, I am able to show how Peirce used his developments in logic to revise Kant's Transcendental Analytic. It is my belief that his analysis of experience as an instance of a hypothetical inference results in a derivation of the categories without transcendental idealism since the derivation starts from a position of fallible realism and is verified through induction rather than a transcendental deduction. This dissertation is the first scholarly work to argue that the early Peirce was a realist—that is, that his three categories of qualities, objects and representations are the categories of the world itself.