Charles Sanders Peirce

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist. The son of a mathematics professor in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he began studying mathematics, natural sciences, philosophy, and languages at Harvard at the age of 16. In the 1870s, as a member of the Cambridge Metaphysical Club, he developed key ideas of pragmatism, notably in the essay “How to Make Our Ideas Clear.” Peirce understood pragmatism primarily as a method for clarifying the meaning of concepts through scientific inquiry. From around 1905, he called his semiotic version “pragmaticism.” His ideas were published mainly in essays and lectures rather than in a single systematic major work.