Logic and Intuition

Selections from the Writings of Charles Sanders Peirce

By: David Christopher Lane, Charles Sanders Peirce

Narrated by: John Alan Martinson Jr.

Charles Sanders Peirce is perhaps the greatest philosophical mind to emerge from the United States. He was hugely influential on William James, Alfred North Whitehead, and many other eminent thinkers. This small volume includes two famous essays by Peirce, "The Fixation of Belief" and "Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man." Also included is a short, intellectual biography of Peirce which focuses on his many contributions to science and philosophy. Chosen and very slightly edited by Professor David Christopher Lane, PhD.

©2018 MSAC Philosophy Group (P)2018 MSAC Philosophy Group

Narration was choppy, Pierce is wonderful

The narrator was choppy so the flow of the thoughts was not translated in the reading aloud. The author is indisputably genius and a fascinating and in o stove logician, and this work of his knots approached Bergsons philosophy. In fact I’d take them both together, not as equals, but equally fascinating.

Audible should have more Pierce available

I enjoyed this. I would like for Audible to offer more works by Charles Sanders Peirce. I would buy them.

Excellent resource on logic

Very informative, well-narrated, excellent commentary at the end, my only complaint is that the commentary was too short!

impenetrable

I am huge fan of Peirce, especially his idea of abductive reasoning. Unfortunately, his writing (or at least the text chosen here) is impenetrable. Although it is just 2 hours (last 30 min is biography and commentary), I was very bored and struggled to focus on the audiobook despite my huge interest in the author. Sorry, I cannot recommend...

Problems Ahead

Where to start? How about with a narrator who mispronounces the author's name? It is Peirce—pronounced "purse," as it is spelled. Need I go on?

How about a reader who mispronounces the single most frequently used term in the copy being read? The word "inference," the central noun in almost any discussion of logical operations, is stressed in the first syllable not the second.

From here, it only gets worse. The mangling of foreign terms and personal names is now to be expected. The name "William James" may be the only name not twisted by the narrator.

Now this is not entirely the narrator's fault because you would think that an editor, having chosen these texts from the 1870s, would be somewhat familiar with the inherent challenges of presenting them to a 21st-century audience.

So, there is plenty to blame to go around here.

The sad part of it is that this is a great time to bring out an Audible Peirce—selections from his most important, most useful, and most insightful pieces. The trick would be to get a Peirce scholar to come up with maybe eight or ten topics, stitch them together with bibliographic and thematic introductions, note the interpolations and announce when elements are being dropped, and come out with a trimmed down but useful introduction to America's most original and enduring thinker.

Brent's biography of Peirce would make for an ideal Audible book, if anyone is reading this with a mind to revisiting this figure. I have always maintained, and was convinced after reading Brent, that Peirce merits a Hollywood biopic—brilliance, character issues, drug addition, delusions of grandeur, and yet after all of it, and enduring contribution of the universe of scientific and philosophical research.

The other Peirce book worth rendering in an Audible title is Ken Ketner's "His Glassy Essence"—a combination autobiography using Peirce's own writings, a mystery novel, and a detective thriller. This is a gem.

But in all honesty, this terrific title is marred beyond use by poor narration, terrible and non-existent editing, and a fundamental ignorance of the subject, the topic, and the writer.