Pragmatism with a More Scientific Spirit

The role of Charles Peirce as the father of pragmatism has long been misunderstood, even though he revised and restated his position several times. In his first exposition of pragmatism in 1877-1878, he emphasized that pragmatism was a method of understanding the meaning of concepts based on practical effects. This exposition had some traces of psychologism, which led to common misunderstandings. In sporadic revisions between 1891 and 1902, Peirce rejected the idea of understanding the meaning of concepts based on individual actions and mental feelings and instead emphasized the importance of understanding the general meaning of concepts through communal inquiry. In his third exposition in 1903, he emphasized that pragmatism was a logical method based on normative sciences and equated it with abduction. In his fourth and final exposition between 1905 and 1907, he analyzed general phenomena based on semiosis and focused on understanding the meaning of signs rather than concepts that presuppose the action of signs. By analyzing these four expositions, it can be seen that Peircean pragmatism has anti-psychological features and emphasizes the scientific exploration of the community to analyze universal phenomena, making it a more scientific pragmatism.