The cautionary tale of Peirce’s logical interpretant

Abstract

In 1904, Peirce described to Lady Welby a six-division typology composed of the sign, two objects, and a trio of interpretants for which he subsequently proposed numerous denominations. Of the three, the final interpretant was particularly problematic, and over the years Peirce experimented with at least eight different identifying terms such as “final,” “rational,” “normal,” “eventual,” etc. One group of interpretants is especially interesting as it only occurs in a single manuscript but has attracted considerable critical attention, namely the emotional, energetic, and logical interpretant series in a projected article of 1907. The paper examines the description of these, paying particular attention to the logical interpretant, and suggests how important aspects of the logic determining how Peirce defined them may have been neglected or ignored by researchers. It first shows how the group was presented, how the logical interpretant related to Peirce’s purpose in the article, how it related to a restricted conception of the dynamic object in the manuscript, and explains through an analysis of its logical complications why Peirce was led to abandon it. These considerations suggest that much of the critical attention that the logical interpretant in particular has generated might be incomplete or, more seriously, nonsense.