I used Peirce’s ideas fairly prominently in my philosophy of science courses in the 1980s and 90s. I also used his work to cast light on Kuhnian issues both in my classes and in my doctoral dissertation. Although the last was accepted enthusiastically, I continually got grumblings about how was not teaching the Standard View properly.
Maybe things have improved, with more naturalistic approaches becoming more prevalent, but the culture wars really made a mess of trying to bring in Peircean ideas because the view that science was a mere social construct seemed to be supported by naïve interpretations of Peirce. So I found myself apparently fighting myself at some times. Joh From: Clark Goble [mailto:cl...@lextek.com] Sent: Monday, 12 September 2016 11:32 PM To: Gary Richmond; Peirce-L Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Theory of Thinking On Sep 10, 2016, at 7:57 PM, Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com<mailto:gary.richm...@gmail.com>> wrote: Edwina wrote: And I recall a Nobel Laureate in physics, in a conference, declaring that Peircean semiotics was a vital analytic framework for physics. This might very well have been Ilya Prigogine, the Belgian physical chemist who won the Nobel prize for his work in complex systems, irreversibility and what, perhaps, he's become best known for, dissipative structures in thermodynamic systems far from equilibrium. Several years ago I briefly discussed how he was influenced by Peirce as, for example, he discussed it in Order Out of Chaos(1984) which he co-authored with Isabel Stengers (Jaime Nubiola commented on the list that Prigogine was probably introduced to Peirce by Stengers who, apparently, knew his work well). “Peirce’s [work]. . . appears to be a pioneering step towards the understanding of the pluralism involved in physical laws." Prigogine There appear to be a surprising number of physicists who are Peircean. Lee Smolin is a prominent one who used a lot of Peircean notions in his critique of physics culture and in particular string theory. Peirce pops up in various guises in many of his writings. Every now and then an article on him appears in Physics Today. While I don’t know enough string theory to say anything intelligent I know there are a few papers applying Peirce there including one by a Nicolaidis at the theoretical physics department at the University of Thessaloniki in Greece. Glancing at the paper it seems he’s trying to tie together Peirce and category theory. I’m actually frequently surprised that a Peircea style philosophy of science hasn’t been more prominent let alone more significant. That may just be reflecting my far more limited reading in that field of late.
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