Charles S. Peirce

Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
Born	September 10, 1839 in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Died	April 19, 1914 (aged 74) in Milford, Pennsylvania
Nationality	American
Fields	Logic, mathematics, statistics,philosophy, metrology,chemistry, experimental psychology economics,linguistics, history of science
Institutions	Johns Hopkins University
Alma mater	Harvard University
Religious stance	Episcopal (unconventional)

Charles Sanders Peirce (/ˈpɜːrs/, like "purse"; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism". He was educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for 30 years. Today he is appreciated largely for his contributions to logic, mathematics, philosophy, scientific methodology, and semiotics, and for his founding of pragmatism.

An innovator in mathematics, statistics, philosophy, research methodology, and various sciences, Peirce considered himself, first and foremost, a logician. He made major contributions to logic, but logic for him encompassed much of that which is now called epistemology and philosophy of science. He saw logic as the formal branch of semiotics, of which he is a founder, which foreshadowed the debate among logical positivists and proponents of philosophy of language that dominated 20th century Western philosophy; additionally, he defined the concept of abductive reasoning, as well as rigorously formulated mathematical induction and deductive reasoning. As early as 1886 he saw that logical operations could be carried out by electrical switching circuits; the same idea was used decades later to produce digital computers.

In 1934, the philosopher Paul Weiss called Peirce "the most original and versatile of American philosophers and America's greatest logician."Webster's Biographical Dictionary said in 1943 that Peirce was "now regarded as the most original thinker and greatest logician of his time."Keith Devlin similarly referred to Peirce as one of the greatest philosophers ever.