Charles Sanders Peirce: A Life

By Joseph Brent

Book Overview

Perhaps the most important mind the United States has ever produced, Peirce lived from 1839 to 1914, and he made significant contributions as a mathematician, astronomer, chemist, engineer and inventor. He was also a psychologist, a student of medicine and, above all, a philosopher--often compared to Plato and Aristotle. Now Brent details his amazing, tormented life. 35 photos.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0253312671
• ISBN13: 9780253312679
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Length: 388 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.6" x 1.4" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

Terrific insight into the man behind the philosophy

This book contains a great deal of information on the life of a sadly-neglected philosopher; one of the most brilliant Americans of the 19th century. Dr. Brent has a wonderful, at times even poetic, writing style, and he has "lived" with Peirce so long that he has excellent insight into the man behind the philosophy. Struggling through Peirce in a class? This book may not make his philosophy "easy"--but it will make him more human.

Excellent

This is a very good biography of an overlooked great American thinker. Mr. Brent does a good job of recounting the life of Peirce without getting bogged down in the details of Peirce's philosophy which is well documented in several other books. The book also attempts to analyze Peirce's behavoir and why he failed as an academic, something that desperately needed to be done. As Peirce's reputation inevitatably increases, this biography will become a classic reference to this very interesting American.