Charles Santiago Sanders Peirce
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Charles Santiago Sanders Peirce was the adopted name of
Charles Sanders Peirce Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism". Educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for t ...
(September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914), an American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist. Peirce's name appeared in print as "Charles Santiago Peirce" as early as 1890. Starting in 1906 he used "Santiago" in many of his own articles. There is no well-documented explanation of why Peirce adopted the middle name "Santiago" (Spanish for Saint James) but speculations and beliefs of contemporaries and scholars focused on his gratitude to his old friend
William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist, and the first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States. James is considered to be a leading thinker of the lat ...
and more recently on Peirce's second wife
Juliette Juliette is a feminine personal name of French origin. It is a diminutive of Julie. Notable people *Juliette (Canadian singer) (1926-2017), full name Juliette Augustina Sysak Cavazzi, Canadian singer and TV personality of the 1950s-1970s. known ...
(of unknown but possibly Spanish Gypsy heritage).


The stories and the evidence

Peirce in his later years became impoverished. It has been said (see below) that Peirce's motive for adopting "Santiago"—"St. James" in Spanish—as a middle name was gratitude to his old friend William James, who dedicated his ''Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy'' (1897) to Peirce, and arranged for Peirce during this period to be paid to give two series of lectures at or near Harvard—one in 1898, one of two in 1903. Then in 1907 James dedicated his ''
Pragmatism Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. ...
'' to the
nominalist In metaphysics, nominalism is the view that universals and abstract objects do not actually exist other than being merely names or labels. There are at least two main versions of nominalism. One version denies the existence of universalsthings th ...
John Stuart Mill John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, Member of Parliament (MP) and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he contributed widely to ...
and omitted Peirce from its list of references for further reading—yet also in that book (in Lecture 2, fourth paragraph) James credits Peirce as the originator of pragmatism. By that time, Peirce was already distinguishing his own scholastic realist brand of pragmatism as "
pragmaticism "Pragmaticism" is a term used by Charles Sanders Peirce for his pragmatic philosophy starting in 1905, in order to distance himself and it from pragmatism, the original name, which had been used in a manner he did not approve of in the "literary j ...
". Still, Peirce had increasing reason for gratitude. Each year from 1907 until James's death in 1910, James wrote to his friends in the Boston intelligentsia, asking that they contribute financially to help support Peirce, a fund which continued after James's death. Peirce reciprocated by designating James's eldest son as his heir should Juliette predecease him. The claim that Peirce adopted the middle name "Santiago" in gratitude to William James goes back at least to William James's wife Alice, quoted in 1927 by
F. C. S. Schiller Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller, Fellow of the British Academy, FBA (16 August 1864 – 6 August 1937), usually cited as F. C. S. Schiller, was a German-British philosopher. Born in Altona, Hamburg, Altona, Holstein (at that time member of the ...
In one of the last quinquennial catalogues, Peirce changed his middle name from Saunders to Santiago. It was long before I understood that it was a way of calling himself St. James, but there it stands Charles Santiago Peirce.
In ''Quinquennial Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates of Harvard University'', Peirce appears as "Charles Sanders Peirce" i
189018951900
an
1905
He appears as "Charles Santiago Sanders Peirce," "Charles S. Sanders Peirce," "Charles Sanders Peirce", i
1910
an
1915
''Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce'' (CP), Volume 5 in 1934 reprinted a comment by Peirce "Mr. Peterson's Proposed Discussion" complete with the name "Charles Santiago Sanders Peirce" appended, first published in ''
The Monist ''The Monist: An International Quarterly Journal of General Philosophical Inquiry'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of philosophy. It was established in October 1890 by American publisher Edward C. Hegeler. History Init ...
'' in 1906. The CP editors (
Charles Hartshorne Charles Hartshorne (; June 5, 1897 – October 9, 2000) was an American philosopher who concentrated primarily on the philosophy of religion and metaphysics, but also contributed to ornithology. He developed the neoclassical idea of God and ...
and Paul Weiss) added in a footnote, "The additional name Santiago, St. James in Spanish, was adopted by Peirce about this time, apparently in honor of his life-long friend, William James." Weiss also said much the same in the Peirce entry in the ''Dictionary of American Biography'', Volume 14, pp. 398–403
see p. 400
, in 1934. In 1935 Ralph Barton Perry wrote in ''The Thought and Character of William James'', v. 2, p. 436, that Peirce adopted "Santiago" as a name "presumably in honor of James". Others followed with the same idea expressed less conditionally, for example Peter SkagestadSkagestad does not remember his source 28 years later, but adds that the claim was uncontroversial at the time. See hi
November 7, 2009
post to peirce-l
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at gmane archive.
in ''The Road of Inquiry'', 1981, p. 234: "After James' death in 1910, Peirce began signing his own name Charles Santiago Sanders Peirce, thereby canonizing his old friend 'Santiago,' i.e. St. James";
John Deely John Deely (April 26, 1942 – January 7, 2017) was an American philosopher and semiotician. He was a professor of philosophy at Saint Vincent College and Seminary in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Prior to this, he held the Rudman Chair of Grad ...
in the editorial introduction, dated 1994, to the CP electronic edition: "Charles S. Peirce (the 'S' stands for 'Sanders' by Baptism and later for 'Santiago' as Charles' way of honoring William James)...."; James Hoopes in ''Community Denied'', 1998, p. 30: "Peirce responded gracefully to James's aid and even adopted in old age the name "Santiago" (Saint James) as a tribute to his benefactor"; and Joseph Brent in ''Charles Sanders Peirce: A Life'', 2nd ed. 1998, pp. 315–16, indicating the same connection, saying that Peirce took the name "Santiago" in May 1909, and adding an endnote: "MS 318". But Peirce was mentioned in print as Charles Santiago Peirce in 1890, 1891, and 1892, years before James's publicizing him and helping him to get lectures and funds. Kenneth Laine Ketner (1998,Ketner, Kenneth Laine (1998), ''His Glassy Essence: An Autobiography of Charles Sanders Peirce'', Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville, TN, 416 pages, hardcover. Uses a fictional framing device, but most of the book presents Peirce's own words and the words of his family and friends. p. 280) cited the 1890 case (and credited Joseph Ransdell for bringing it to his attention) of the heading "Peirce, Charles S(antiago)", which stood above a list of 15 well known C. S. Peirce papers in 11 publications starting o
p. 710
in the bibliography for Volume 1 of Ernst Schröder's ''Vorlesungen über die Algebra der Logik'' (1890). See also for exampl
p. 65
of the ''Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik'', v. XXIV for 1892, published 1895. It also came to light that the mathematician Ventura Reyes y Prósper referred to Peirce's middle name as "Santiago" in letters and two papers (1891 and 1892) and wrote in a footnote to the 1892 paper: "Although it may seem strange, his first name is in English and his second is in Spanish; I do not know why." For the letters and papers, see Jaime NubiolaJaime Nubiola is head of
(GEP),
University of Navarra, Spain.
and Jesús Cobo, "The Spanish Mathematician Ventura Reyes Prósper and his connections with Charles S. Peirce and
Christine Ladd-Franklin Christine Ladd-Franklin (December 1, 1847 – March 5, 1930) was an American psychologist, logician, and mathematician. Early life and education Christine Ladd, sometimes known by her nickname "Kitty", was born on December 1, 1847, in Winds ...
" Joseph Brent (author of ''Charles Sanders Peirce: A Life'' (1993, 1998), history professor emeritus, University of the District of Columbia) claimed to have found, in Manuscript 318, Peirce explaining his motive as being to honor William James, but other scholars did not find it there; Brent suspected a mixup across manuscript numbering systems. The Peirce manuscript material comes to more than 100,000 pages. The claim of a "Santiago"-James connection had long been uncontroversial. The possibility remains that Peirce in effect revived his (earlier adopted) middle name "Santiago" during some later years (see below) in gratitude to James; but no confirmatory manuscript or publication has been brought to light. In Manuscript 1611 (1903), in a biographical form for a manuscript directory and a biographical dictionary of the ''Men of Science in the United States'', Peirce wrote:
(I am variously listed in print as Charles Santiago Peirce, Charles Saunders Peirce, and Charles Sanders Peirce. Under the circumstances a noncommittal S. suits me best)
(Peirce authored the entry " Peirce, C(harles) S" (except for the notability star supplied by the editor) in ''American Men of Science'', 1906, first edition, sometimes called Volume 1
p. 248
In the 1910 second edition, it became "Peirce, C(harles) S(antiago Sanders)"; see below.) In publications of his own articles, Peirce began using "Santiago" in 1906, when he used "Santiago Sanders"—both middle names together—in his ''
The Monist ''The Monist: An International Quarterly Journal of General Philosophical Inquiry'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of philosophy. It was established in October 1890 by American publisher Edward C. Hegeler. History Init ...
'' articles; but not in his 1908 ''Hibbert Journal'' article (nor in some other publications at the time): * In 1906 in ''The Monist'' v. XVI, n. 1, January, "Mr. Peterson's Proposed Discussion"
p. 151
* In 1906 in ''The Monist'' v. XVI (misprinted "VI"), n. 4, October, "Prolegomena To an Apology For Pragmaticism"
p. 546
* In 1908 in ''The Monist'' v. XVIII, n. 2, April, "Some Amazing Mazes
p. 241
("Charles S. S. Peirce"). * In 1908 in ''The Monist'' v. XVIII, n. 3, July, "Some Amazing Mazes (Conclusion), Explanation of Curiosity the First"
p. 461
* In 1908 in ''Hibbert Journal'' v. VII, n. 1, October, "
A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''aes'' ...
": "C. S. Peirce" on pp
90

112
* in 1909 in ''The Monist'' v. XIX, n. 1, January, "Some Amazing Mazes, A Second Curiosity"
p. 45
* in 1910 in ''American Men of Science'', 2nd edition (sometimes called "Volume 2"), "Peirce, C(harles) S(antiago Sanders)"
p. 364
frame, Juliette and Charles by the well at their home, Arisbe, in 1907.
Paul Carus Paul Carus (; 18 July 1852 – 11 February 1919) was a German-American author, editor, a student of comparative religion
, editor of ''The Monist'' during those years, called Peirce "Charles S. S. Peirce" in 1910 in "On the Nature of Logical and Mathematical Thought", ''The Monist'', v. XX, no. 1, pp. 33–75, on p
43
and p
45
and again in "Non-Aristotelian Logic", ''The Monist'', v. XX, no. 1 on pp
158
and 159. In ''His Glassy Essence'' (1998), p. 279ff, Kenneth L. Ketner speculates that Peirce's second wife Juliette was of Spanish Gypsy origin, and that the middle name "Santiago" was Peirce's way of "informally ... paying tribute to his wife ... and to her cultural origins as a Spanish woman who was a Gitano, or Spanish Gypsy of Andalusia." It involves the movement of
Gypsies The Romani (also spelled Romany or Rromani , ), colloquially known as the Roma, are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group, traditionally nomadic itinerants. They live in Europe and Anatolia, and have diaspora populations located worldwide, with sign ...
into Spain along the pilgrimage to
Santiago de Compostela Santiago de Compostela is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The city has its origin in the shrine of Saint James the Great, now the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, as the destination of the Way of St ...
,
Santiago's being the patron saint of Spain, Juliette's being in Spain at the time when Peirce's friend and colleague Schröder's ''Logik'' was published, and other reasons. In November 2007, Jaime Nubiola endorsed Joseph Ransdell's view that "It is simply a mystery at this point".See Nubiola'
November 3, 2007
post to peirce-l. (Lyri
link to said post
sometimes malfunctions.


Notes


External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Peirce, Charles Santiago Sanders Charles Sanders Peirce Fictional characters introduced in 1890