Reclaiming Human Reason

This book presents an interpretation of the philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce the American pragmatist. It does so by following the evolution of the idea from Locke to Peirce, specifically attending to the question of how an idea can be composed of parts. We find that Locke, Kant and Hegel each provide different answers to this question, which answers exhaust the logical possibilities, and we find that Hegel's alone is tenable. Peirce adopts Hegel's answer to this question while providing a coherent philosophy that Hegel does not.



Alongside this argument, which largely focusses on examining the philosopher's theories of reason, a general trend of moral theory is unravelled. Namely we find a convergence of theories of reason and morality, and with Peirce the two become united. The moral is no longer some distant ideal forestalled in the light of realpolitik but the real feedback that often reveals realpolitik to be self defeating.