Lexington Books
Pages: 358
•
Trim: 6½ x 9⅜
978-1-4985-1023-3 • Hardback • October 2016 • $143.00 • (£110.00)
978-1-4985-1024-0 • eBook • October 2016 • $135.50 • (£105.00)
Aaron Bruce Wilson is instructor and assistant chair in philosophy at South Texas College.
Introduction
Chapter 1: Empiricism—History and Analysis
Chapter 2: Empiricism without Nominalism
Chapter 3: Cartesianism and the Rise of Modern Empiricism
Chapter 4: The Associationist Step toward Pragmatism
Chapter 5: The Reidian Strand: Common Sense and Perception
Chapter 6: Peirce’s Account of Perception
Chapter 7: Semeiosis, Truth, and Inquiry
Chapter 8: Empiricism and Philosophical Inquiry
Concluding Remarks
Wilson devotes his first chapter to a critical survey of the history of empiricism. His survey is remarkably thorough.... [Pierce's] idea that we have to start with the methods, opinions, and prejudices we actually have, and then improve them in the course of critical inquiry, is, I think, the right one to take, and it deserves to be better known. Wilson's book will be helpful for this.... [I]t is the best, most informative book on Peirce's whole system that I have read.
— Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
Wilson’s book provides a comprehensive discussion of Peirce’s take on empiricism, and firmly situates him within that tradition. As such it provides a rich antidote to works that emphasize Peirce’s Kantian roots. Wilson’s discussions of Reid’s influence on Peirce are particularly insightful, shedding valuable light on Peirce’s critical common-sensism and his take on the relation between perception and knowledge.
— Cornelis de Waal, Indiana University
In this book, Aaron Wilson attempts to reconcile the empiricist, naturalist tendencies in Peirce with his more speculative metaphysical leanings. He makes a strong argument against the traditional “two-Peirce” view of many scholars in favor of one that sees his metaphysical theses as empirical hypotheses, supported by evidence from the natural and psychological sciences of his time—a scientifically-informed philosophy. In this regard, his objective idealism is not so much a speculative effort as an interesting empirical abduction. Wilson argues convincingly that the result is a distinctive form of empiricism that avoids many of its more traditional and persistent problems.
— James Jakób Liszka, State University of New York, Plattsburgh