James Hoopes - Peirce on Signs: Writings on Semiotic

Christian J. W. Kloesel and other staff members at the Peirce Edition Project in Indianapolis have been generous and supportive to a newcomer to the work of editing Peirce. Not only their personal generosity but their superb multi-volume edition Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition have been important in completing this much smaller project, as is indicated in the source attributions preceding many of the selections below.

When I began this project, it was my understanding that no other Peirce anthologies were imminent. As matters now stand, however, Indiana University Press will be publishing a Peirce anthology at about the same time as this one is published. In light of that fact, I am grateful to Indiana University Press for granting, in this one instance and in return for a fee, permission to reproduce this volumes first ten selections from volumes 1-3 of The Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition edited by Edward C. Moore, Max H. Fisch, Christian J. W. Kloesel et al. Material from Peirces manuscripts is published by permission of the Department of Philosophy of Harvard University. The manuscripts themselves are located in the Charles S. Peirce Papers at the Houghton Library at Harvard.

Albert Anderson, Vincent Colapietro, George Cotkin, David Hollinger, Christopher Hookway, and Bruce Kuklick kindly offered comments, either on the manuscript or on my initial proposal for this book. Christian J. W. Kloesel read both the proposal and the manuscript. I alone, of course, am responsible for the final result.

A generous stipend from the Babson College Board of Research enabled me to begin the project in the summer of 1989. Most of the work was done in congenial circumstances at the University of Manchester during the 1989-90 academic year, thanks to the members of the American studies department there and also to Graham Bird of the philosophy department. For making possible the year at Manchester I am grateful to Robert Burchell, to the Fulbright Commission in London, and to the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars. I am grateful to Diane Collins for preparing the line drawings.

As always, the love and patience of Carol, Johanna, and Benjamin Hoopes were essential.

Peirce on Signs

The Peirce Geodetic Monument in Indianapolis, Indiana, is used as a marker in satellite surveys conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Employed for much of his adult life by NOAAs ancestor organization, the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, Peirce was one of the foremost geodesists of his day. (Courtesy of the Dean of the School of Liberal Arts at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis.)