Charles Peirce's Guess at the Riddle: Grounds for Human Significance - Softcover

The purpose of Sheriff's work is to expound Peirce's unified theory of the universe from cosmology to semiotic and to discuss its ramifications for how we should live. He concludes that Peirce has given us a theory we can live with. The book makes an important contribution to philosophy of life and to the humanities in general. - Nathan Houser As Emerson describes it in his essay "Nature," the riddle that the Sphinx puts to every great thinker concerns the relation between mind and matter. This introduction to the thought of Charles S. Peirce presents a philosopher whose work speaks to this fundamental question of the nature of human existence. In clear and concise prose, Sheriff describes Peirce's "theory of everything," a vision of cosmic and human meaning that offers a positive alternative to popular pessimistic and relativistic approaches to life and meaning. Written for non-specialists, this book does not attempt to evaluate every concept in Peirce's philosophy; it explains how Peirce's analyses of aesthetics, ethics, logic, and human consciousness rest on the foundations of his grand theory of the cosmos, mind, and signs. Sheriff shows that Peirce's answer to the riddle of the Sphinx has the potential to be a powerful, positive force in contemporary culture.