Philosophia Mathematica Advance Access published January 19, 2012

Philosophia Mathematica (III) 00 (2012), 17.

Charles S. Peirce. Philosophy of Mathematics: Selected Writings of

Charles S. Peirce. Matthew E. Moore, ed. Bloomington and Indianapolis:
Indiana University Press, 2010. ISBN 978-0-253-35563-8 (hbk); 978-0253-22265-7 (pbk). Pp. xli + 290.
Reviewed by Thomas McLaughlin
The importance of C.S. Peirce as a philosopher of mathematics has long
been less than a matter of consensus. For a goodly portion of the twentieth century, those who championed his stature in this regard were rather
few, and his significant if admittedly not numerous contributions to
mathematics per se (e.g., his independent proof of the Frobenius theorem
on associative division algebras with real scalars) went largely overlooked. Gradually, however, the work of scholars such as Brady, Herron,
Herzberger, Levy, Putnam, and Roberts (the list is by no means exhaustive) brought Peirces writings in the area to the more respectful, if not
always concurring, attention of a wider audience. The volume here under
review provides a substantial and nicely ordered set of extracts displaying
Peirces ideas, showing in particular the lengthy evolution of his thought
on what seems to have been for him the most central and nagging problem: how to understand continuity. That he ever reached an understanding
of it fully satisfactory to himself is somewhat unclear, and even less clear
is how much of what he had to say about it can be dealt with by the mathematician in the ways in which mathematicians are accustomed to dealing
with things; but the reader of the volume will at least know by the end of
it what the struggle was, and perhaps have a glimmer of what can be done
to mathematize the metaphysics, if indeed that is a goal to be pursued.
Constructing an accurate and helpful review of the book is a matter of some delicacy at which we hope to fail not too badly, given the
rather unusual character of Peirces thought and the close manner in which
the editorial commentaries are dovetailed with the stream of twenty-nine
selections from the Peirce corpus. Those selections are not arranged in a
totally chronological manner, though they are roughly chronological in
blocks; they are grouped, rather, to stress points of emphasis and lines of
development in Peirces thinking. At the outset, Moore provides a lengthy
and meticulously referenced overview of the project. This overview, in
addition to offering a bit of comparison and contrast between Peirces

Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism and Department of Mathematics and Statistics,

Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas 79409, U.S.A. thomas.mclaughlin@ttu.edu
C The Author [2012]. Published by Oxford University Press.
Philosophia Mathematica (III) Vol. 00 No. 0 
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Critical Studies/Book Reviews

PHILOSOPHIA MATHEMATICA

Philosophia Mathematica (3) 19 (2011), 226.

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ideas and those of other thinkers located historically from the middle
ages (Scotus) to the Enlightenment (Kant) through the early modern
period (Dedekind, Frege) and on to the recent (Quine, Maddy), is sprinkled with useful commentary on Peirces famous semiotic trichotomy of
the observation-communication process into firstness, secondness, and
thirdness categories. How these categories bear on mathematics will be
for the reader to judge; Peirce himself had little doubt about their relevance
to practically everything.
For a full and compact listing of the twenty-nine chapters of the text,
the reader not yet in possession of the book itself is referred to this journal.1
We commence now to remark on the sequence of excerpts and excerptgroups composing the main text. The initial block, as we see it, consists of the first seven entries. The most frequently consulted and cited
of these are probably no. 4 (The simplest mathematics, 1902) and no. 7
(On the logic of quantity, circa 1895). Extract 4, in particular, features
Peirces much-vetted notion of hypostatic abstraction, and touches also
on his noteworthy (and not universally accepted) idea of the primacy of
mathematics over logic. In addition, selection 7 features one of the longer
and more helpful entry-specific editorial prefaces to be found in the book,
focusing the readers attention on Peirces pervasive appeal to his semiotic categories. (It should be noted that Moore regards the first block
of entries as stopping at no. 4, rather than stretching it, as here, through
entry 7.)
Entry no. 8 (Sketch of dichotomic mathematics, circa 1903) deserves
individual commentary, since it presents a concern of Peirces that is simply not shared by very many (if any) present-day mathematicians; namely,
his distinction between corollarial and theorematic reasoning. Few of
todays mathematicians would care whether you call an initial hypothesis
an axiom or a postulate; what Peirce calls an axiom would probably be
referred to by most of them as an observation, and it is quite doubtful that
many of them would care very much what either Euclid or Aristotle had to
say on such matters. They would doubtless almost all agree that a theorem
is something you prove with the aid of hypotheses, rules of inference, previous results, and some effort (here is where they would most closely agree
with Peirce), and that a corollary is (a) interesting and (b) follows quickly
and fairly easily from a theorem. This is not to say that Peirces remarks in
selection 8 are philosophically unimportant; just that they would not likely
seem of any particular mathematical value to todays mathematicians.
Selections 9 and 10, dating to the period 19031906 and bearing titles
featuring the terms Pragmatism and Pragmaticism, respectively, can
be summarized succinctly: the first is concerned largely with abstraction as it appears in mathematical thinking, while the second offers some

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discussion of Peirces triadic sign concept in the context of general scientific considerations.
Selections 11, 12, and 13 all deal with the concept of a collection; and
it is precisely with regard to collections that Peirces ideas, especially as
they pertain to his thinking on the nature of the geometrical line of classical mathematics, have run into the heaviest criticism from mathematicians. Number 11 (Collection in the Century Dictionary) merely warms
up to the topic, without making any particularly controversial claims.
Cause for controversy arises in no. 12 (On collections and substantive
possibility, 1903), wherein he proclaims that ordinal number theory is
all right as a branch of mathematics, but cardinal number theory is not.
This raises all sorts of questions, including the question of his opinion,
circa 1903, about the so-called well-ordering principle, which allows a
proof that every cardinal is an ordinal. There will be a little more to be
said about that when we get to selections 27 and 28. (While it is true that
the first proof of well-ordering, via the Choice Axiom, was given by Zermelo in 1904, it is also true that many of the set theorists and analysts
of the nineteenth century, starting with Cantor, had used it freely, if perhaps uncritically, in their work.) One must surmise that since Peirce, on
the evidence of several of his writings, thought that what we would call
(the first singular infinite cardinal) sets an upper (and unattainable)
limit to discrete numerosity, he would, given well-ordering, have had to
reject big ordinals as well, though it is not entirely clear as of 1903 at
what point he would have started rejecting them. Again, there will be a
bit more to say in connection with numbers 27 and 28. The first part of
the selection is devoted to Peirces views on the purely hypothetical nature
of mathematical reasoning. He then launches into a discussion of how,
though he claims to have independently duplicated a good bit of Cantors work, he nonetheless is of the view that Pure Mathematics knows
nothing of multitudes, multitudes being characters of collections, and collections being essentially a logical conception. Needless to say, it would
be hard to find a set theorist today who would endorse the first part of
that statement, though the claim that multitudes are characters of collections would probably pass muster. In selection 13 (The ontology of collections, 1903) Peirce offers a philosophical dissection of the concept of
a collection; the editors remark at the very end of his forenote indicates
that Peirces confidence in his analysis may have eroded at a later date.
At any rate, it is unclear to the reviewer what impact that analysis might
have on any of the standard mathematical approaches to set theory, or
they on it.
Entry 14 has virtually the same title (The logic of quantity) as the
earlier-placed, but apparently later-written, entry 7; but it is focused on
points of agreement and disagreement with Kant and J.S. Mill regarding
the experimental grounds of mathematical activity. The following extract

PHILOSOPHIA MATHEMATICA

American Journal of Mathematics 4 (1881), 8595.

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no. 15 (Recreations in reasoning, circa 1897) is of particular interest in

that it contains a formulation of an axiom system (though Peirce prefers
to speak of precepts and corollaries) for the order structure of the natural numbers, including a form of the Least Element Principle and, as a
theorem, the Induction Principle (which Peirce labels the Fermation Principle). In this connection, the reader might like to have a look at Peirces
paper On the logic of number;2 here Peirce gave a nice (for 1881) formulation of an axiomatic basis for second-order number theory.
In excerpts 16 through 19 (material spanning the years from about 1888
to about 1906) we begin to encounter sustained efforts by Peirce to formulate to his satisfaction the idea of continuity. In no. 16 (Topical geometry,
circa 1904), as Moore emphasizes in the closing paragraph of his introduction, Peirce concludes by insisting that time is a supermultitudinous
continuum, capable of accommodating any multitude of points between
two instants. Since he seems elsewhere to think that supermultitudinousness is what a set theorist would call , one may surmise that he would
not have reacted happily to a Cantorean request for 2 : it seems very
likely he would have dismissed it as making no proper sense. Selection 17
contains something of very sharply defined interest to the average working mathematician: a discussion of the famous example of Weierstrass of
a nowhere-differentiable, everywhere-continuous (in the standard analytic
sense) function defined on a compact interval. The editor refers to this discussion as a brilliant aside; but it is arguable that the average working
mathematician just alluded to would not find it so brilliant, since Peirce
struggles with the idea that the sequence of approximating crinkly functions can indeed have a limit, which might turn out to be continuous in
the ordinary sense of mathematical analysis. (Peirces difficulty here, of
course, resides in his contention that linear continuity must entail the concept of particulate motion in some definite direction.) One wonders what
he might have said about the later discovery that, in a well-defined topological sense, almost all continuous functions are everywhere tangentless.
Number 18 (Continuity in the Century Dictionary) consists of a
sequence of five notes written by Peirce over a period of some sixteen
years, in evolving reformulations of the definition provided by him for
the Dictionary in about 1884. Note 5 is especially interesting in that here
Peirce seems to wobble about continuity within the space of a single paragraph. First he says Kants definition that a continuum is that of which
every part has itself parts of the same kind, seems to be correct. But a
mere two sentences later, he says it seems necessary to say that a continuum, where it is continuous and unbroken, contains no definite parts.
The word definite here is perhaps a hedge against inconsistency, but a
bit of confusion on the readers part seems pardonable. Entry 19 (The law

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3 See in particular T. Herron, C.S. Peirces theories of infinitesimals, Trans. of the

Charles S. Peirce Soc. 33 (1997), 590645.

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of mind, 1892) contains a good sampling of Peirces ideas on infinitesimals here brought in to account for consciousness operating in time,
but clearly having an impact as well on his general notions about continuity, and providing a springboard for commentary about the connection
of some of his ideas with the much later development of non-standard
analysis3 Much space here is devoted to (a) comparison and contrast of
the authors notions about continuity and the nature of points and Cantors handling of those topics, and (b) notions about continuity that are
attributed to Kant and Aristotle. The last paragraph of the selection is an
interesting discussion of the impact on philosophy of what Peirce refers
to as Aristotelicity: what is to be said of the boundary between two
halves of a continuum one half of which has property A and the other
property B?
The entries 2023 are all concerned in one way or another with Peirces
end-of-the-century thoughts on continuity, and feature occasional jabs at
the views of nominalists. (At the beginning of selection 20, Peirce makes
a rather odd remark, namely, that continuity is the leading notion not only
of the calculus, but indeed of all the useful branches of mathematics.
This is curious in that even in the 1890s there were important uses known
for, say, elementary number theory.) In selection 21 (On quantity [the
continuity of time and space]), Peirce holds that the instants of time are
supermultitudinous, as well as infinitesimal and intermerging, and argues
that time, in particular, is continuous in his (current) sense. The editorial
preface preceding this entry, like those preceding many of the other entries,
is helpful in enabling the reader to come to grips with the entry itself,
although when Moore says Peirce uses A to prove B, he might better
have said he uses it to argue for B.
Selection 22 (Detached ideas continued and the dispute between nominalists and realists, 1898) is a lengthy discussion by Peirce of the relevance of his firstness, secondness, and thirdness categories to his
notions of continuity and multitude, with some complaints about the
intellectual predispositions of his primary foes, the nominalists. This
entrys editorial foreword contains a nice listing of recent works (including the Herron article cited above) that seek to explicate Peirces notions
about infinitesimals vis-`a-vis continuity, in terms of modern mathematical
theories ranging from the non-standard analysis of Robinson to various
category-theoretic formulations. Finally, for this group, in no. 23 (The
logic of continuity, 1898) Peirce attempts to make careful sense of his
notion that a continuum may have any multitude of points; the reader
must decide for herself to what extent he succeeds. (One of the standard contemporary defenses of Peirces supermultitudinous continuum,

PHILOSOPHIA MATHEMATICA

4 As Moore points out in an endnote to the section, there is a fairly recent paper by
Dipert dealing with Peirces approach to proper classes, as compared with Cantors; see
the Houser, Roberts, and Van Evra volume Studies in the Logic of Charles Sanders Peirce,
Indiana University Press, 1997.

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of course, is to point to non-standard analysis, in which, for any given

cardinal , there is a line with points; and the rub in that, of course, is
that those are different lines in different models; they provide no single
continuum of morphing cardinality. Category theory may offer a way
forward; see again the editors preface to Selection 22.) Moore observes
at the conclusion of his forenote that we are here in the neighborhood
of the present-day distinction between sets and classes, though just how
far into that neighborhood we are is not entirely clear since, as previously
remarked, Peirce seemed to think that multitudes are blocked by the first
singular infinite cardinal.4
The title of Selection 24 (On multitudes, circa 1897) speaks for its
content, as does the title (Infinitesimals, 1900) of the succeeding, fairly
short, selection 25. In the case of On multitudes, we have already made
mention of Peirces set-theoretically unorthodox notions about collections
and their sizes; but a particular sentence from this essay may serve to
highlight his divergence from the standard outlook concerning geometric paths: he says a line consists wholly of points, in one sense; for it is
generated by a moving particle (p. 199; emphasis added). It would seem a
fair guess that most mathematicians and physicists think of particles moving on or in some path, rather than the path being a creation of the particle.
(Not to say, of course, that one cannot have the latter take on it.) Toward the
end of this entry, after a good deal of criticism of the usual handling of limits, we find discussion of the idea of lines being chopped up into smaller
lines, by multitudes of knives. There is in no. 24 no talk of chopping a
point into pieces, but such an idea is at least implicit in the brief selection
25, which begins with a discussion of Dedekinds notion of infinity, and
contains also an interesting bit of praise for the Italian school of geometers, whose methods have since been criticized rather generally as being
too loose.
The very brief selection 26 (The bed-rock beneath pragmaticism,
1905) begins with a promise to reform the blundering treatment of continuity Peirce accuses himself of giving in selection 19 (the Law of mind);
however, as the editor notes, he does not in fact get around to this, instead
spending the first half or so of the excerpt striving to make clear what he
means by the material parts of a continuous entity, and the second half in
commenting on the pseudo-continuum, i.e., the continuum of real numbers as commonly understood.
Now come the last three entries, 27, 28, and 29, more or less as an
extended package of revised thoughts on continuity. Here, as Moore points

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doi:10.1093/phimat/nkr044

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out in the editorial preface to no. 27, Peirce, seemingly either unaware
that the well-ordering principle can rescue him if he will use it, or else,
unwilling to use it, finds his supermultitudinous linear continuum threatened by the (unsurprising) fact that he cannot figure out how to order the

second abnumeral cardinal linearly, i.e., 22 0 . With some further inconclusive stabs at capturing his Holy Grail, a firm and final (and hopefully
clear) definition of continuity, the story ends, at least so far as this volume
is concerned.
A closing word for readers not previously familiar with Peirces writings: he has some tendency not to be the soul of diplomacy when assessing
the efforts of those with whose views he disagrees. For one brief sample
of this, see the second sentence of the first paragraph on p. 199 (selection
24) concerning certain pedagogues. One can smile at such barbs when
they are tossed at whole categories of people, but Peirce was not above
occasionally directing them at more specific targets, a habit that may have
caused a few welcome mats to be withdrawn in academic circles. And a
closing word for everybody: whatever one may think of Peirces decadeslong wrestling match with the notions of continuity, collection, and the
infinitesimal, there can be no doubt that he was at least focused on matters
of real importance to mathematicians and to all others who depend on the
work of mathematicians.
Moore is to be congratulated on having put together not only a good
Peirce anthology, but one very carefully and informatively edited.