Lowell Lectures of 1903 by Charles S. Peirce

Plan of the Volume

Let us consider the excellent, and often workable idea of a critical edition of an author’s corpus. The method is first to ascertain when an author finally completed or published some text, then, based on evidence, identify a proof text that is definitive as to the writer’s final intent and execution. This is a valuable procedure. Yet, it depends upon having a record in some form of the author’s completed project.

However, if the author writes, then constantly rethinks, revises, composes improved or expanded explanations of developing ideas, and leaves no record of a final text or speech, then how does one best achieve an understanding of that author? In cases such as this that lack a proof text, valuable related texts may yet be extant. We might not have any record of what specific order Julius Caesar issued to his troops as they approached the Rubicon. We don’t know if he said, “Cross that river,” or “Onward, and the rules be damned,” but we do know that the river was crossed then and there by those troops under his command. We might possess records of writings or statements from a range of dates, but we might lack information concerning which alternate or revision or re-ordered component precedes or follows some other component. Let us add to this mix of complications that in this case the author’s situation consisted of a mass of important ideas to express in a given project, but there was a lack of resources or time to fully present the mass, so that some method of compression by the author occurred at the historical time of presentation. We should not, as scholars of important communications—written texts, lectures, events comprised of extemporaneous comments—decide to give up on providing an account of the principal sequences that have survived that can be rescued from the great researcher, simply because we cannot produce a perfected account at the level of a proof text.

Such considerations apply in significant ways for the remaining records of Peirce’s Lowell Lectures of 1903. He clearly foresaw additional results during the process of writing down an initial idea. And we have no proof text, no record, of what he actually spoke during the lectures. Yet in reviewing his surviving preparatory notes, we find that the material is valuable and worthy as insight into the mind of a great scientist.

Therefore, the editorial method employed here does not produce or re-create these lectures as actually voiced in actu. But a set of sequencing remarks in Peirce’s hand does provide a partial track through the handwritten pages of his lecture notebooks.

It is clear that his notes and drafts constitute a much fuller scope than could be presented in the allotted lecture times. The principle to be followed here will be to produce a smooth flow of themes based on the surviving lecture notes that were used during his preparation. That approach clearly represents one editor’s judgment as to how such topics could be organized.

Thus, for present purposes this is a study edition of the lectures, not a critical edition. In following this policy, could there be editorial mistakes, biases, or tendencies? Obviously, yes. But strong efforts have been made to minimize these within the bounds of human fallibility. If we must wait for a perfect edition, one might not be able to read the great insightful discussions and research possibilities that Peirce recorded in his notebooks for this lecture series. Humans are not capable of perfected heights of accuracy. Let anyone who wishes proceed directly to the surviving manuscripts as designated herein. This study edition is arranged to facilitate researchers who wish to take that path.

This procedure will yield some textual repetition. Were such repetitions avoided, conceptual unity would be flawed in some discussions. This procedure may help us enter the mixture of insights and ideas that were operative in Peirce’s research at the time. He regarded himself as a pioneer in a new way of organizing and continuing objective interdisciplinary science. Pioneers can be vague as their thoughts come to expression. Note that vague is not the same notion as ambiguous; the former is rich with potential future clarifications or improved interpretations, while the latter promotes confused meanings. And pioneers are humanly fallible. Yet, such work can be exceptionally valuable in continuing research. We propose to be inside such a growing body of insight, using as many clues from records as are at hand, so that perhaps some currently valuable extension or revision of the general approach might be possible and established by later scientific research and experimentation.

Manuscript numbers (see interspersed ISP numbers; also R, pages 57–62) are inserted in the lectures as a guide to assist scholars who may want to further their closer scrutiny of the manuscripts transcribed here (as well as those not used) as a means for further understanding of these path-breaking scientific ideas. Short extract pieces from these lectures were published in the Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce; editors of those volumes broke up unified manuscripts, omitted relevant parts, and scattered the pieces across several volumes. This book is a study edition of the lecture series displayed in a successive presentation based on one editor’s attempted recovery of Peirce’s compositional efforts.