THE CONCEPT OF UTILITY IN CHARLES SANDERS PEIRCE'S PRAGMATISM

The relevance of the research topic is determined by the variety of speculative interpretations of the concept of utility, as a rule, unrelated to the scope of ideas about their practical application. In the context of solving the problem of the interrelation of theoretical and practical aspects of the concept of utility, an overview of the ways of its definition in the work of C.S. Pierce is given. The prerequisites for the emergence of a synthetic understanding of the utility are considered. A critique of the political economic and utilitarian teachings is undertaken, in which the utility is understood as: 1) the ability of a good or commodity to satisfy any human need; 2) the guiding principle for the pursuit of social happiness. As a conclusion, attention is drawn to the actual Peirce definition of utility, consistent with the "unity of apperception", according to which something is recognized as useful (or possessing it) if, when exposed to a thinking being, it causes a reaction consistent with the expected consequences from it.