Charles Peirce's Guess at the Riddle: Grounds for Human Significance

"Sheriff's text moves the "guess" to a new level of understanding, while integrating much of Peirce's philosophy, and provokes many questions." -- Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy Newletter

"The purpose of Sheriff's work is to expound Peirce's unified theory of the universe -- from cosmology to semiotic -- and to discuss its ramifications for how we should live. He concludes that Peirce has given us a theory we can live with. The book makes an important contribution to philosophy of life and to the humanities in general."  -- Nathan Houser

"In clear and concise prose, Sheriff describes Peirce's 'theory of everything,' a vision of cosmic and human meaning that offers a positive alternative to popular pessimistic and relativistic approaches to life and meaning." -- Peirce Project Newsletter

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) is today best known as the propounder of a theory of meaning made famous by William James and known as pragmatism. Peirce's corpus, however, covers almost all fields of philosophy, including logic, mathematics, metaphysics, cosmology, ontology, semiotics, ethics, and aesthetics. For the heading in a draft of a book that would give a comprehensive overview of his thinking, Peirce wrote "A Guess at the Riddle" and included a reference to the Sphinx as pondering the meaning and purpose of human existence. Sheriff (English, Bethel Coll.) here tries to give us Peirce's answer to that riddle, but he is clearly not up to the job. He quotes from Peirce's admittedly difficult writing, but his explanations do not really explain, and the reader of this book will come away as puzzled about Peirce's answer as he was before reading it. Not recommended.
Leon H. Brody, U.S. Office of Personnel Management Lib., Washington, D.C.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.