Classification of the sciences (Peirce)

The philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) did considerable work over a period of years on the classification of sciences (including mathematics). His classifications are of interest both as a map for navigating his philosophy and as an accomplished polymath's survey of research in his time. Peirce himself was well grounded and produced work in many research fields, including logic, mathematics, statistics, philosophy, spectroscopy, gravimetry, geodesy, chemistry, and experimental psychology.

Philosophers have done little work on classification of the sciences and mathematics since Peirce's time. Noting Peirce's "important" contribution, Denmark's Birger Hjørland commented: "There is not today (2005), to my knowledge, any organized research program about the classification of the sciences in any discipline or in any country". As Miksa (1998) writes, the "interest for this question largely died in the beginning of the 20th century". It is not clear whether Hjørland includes the classification of mathematics in that characterization.

In 1902 and 1903 Peirce elaborates classifications of the sciences in:

However, only in the "Detailed Classification" and the Carnegie application does he discuss the taxa which he used, which were inspired by the biological taxa of Louis Agassiz.

In 1902, he divided science into Theoretical and Practical. Theoretical Science consisted of Science of Discovery and Science of Review, the latter of which he also called "Synthetic Philosophy", a name taken from the title of the vast work, written over many years, by Herbert Spencer. Then, in 1903, he made it a three-way division: Science of Discovery, Science of Review, and Practical Science. In 1903 he characterized Science of Review as:

...arranging the results of discovery, beginning with digests, and going on to endeavor to form a philosophy of science. Such is the nature of Humboldt's Cosmos, of Comte's Philosophie positive, and of Spencer's Synthetic Philosophy. The classification of the sciences belongs to this department."

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