Charles Santiago Sanders Peirce
Encyclopedia
Charles Santiago Sanders Peirce, better known as Charles Sanders Peirce, (September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician, and scientist. See Charles Sanders Peirce for the main discussion of Peirce. The present article instead concerns his adoption of the middle name "Santiago" and speculations that his motive was gratitude to his old friend William James
. Peirce's name appeared in print as "Charles Santiago Peirce" as early as 1890, years before he had reason for deep gratitude to James. But he did not use "Santiago" in his own articles until 1906. Possibly his use of "Santiago" is related to his second wife Juliette
, and possibly, in later years, to James.
John Stuart Mill
and omitted Peirce from its list of references for further reading—yet also in that book (in Lecture 2, fourth paragraph) James credits Peirce as the originator of pragmatism. By that time, Peirce was already distinguishing his own Scholastic realist brand of pragmatism as "pragmaticism
". Still, Peirce had increasing reason for gratitude. Each year from 1907 until James's death in 1910, James wrote to his friends in the Boston intelligentsia, asking that they contribute financially to help support Peirce, a fund which continued after James's death. Peirce reciprocated by designating James's eldest son as his heir should Juliette predecease him.
The claim that Peirce adopted the middle name "Santiago" in gratitude to William James goes back at least to William James's wife Alice, quoted in 1927 by F.C.S. Schiller
In Quinquennial Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates of Harvard University, Peirce appears as "Charles Sanders Peirce" in 1890, 1895, 1900, and 1905. He appears as "Charles Santiago Sanders Peirce," "Charles S. Sanders Peirce," "Charles Sanders Peirce", in 1910 and 1915.
Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (CP), Volume 5 in 1934 reprinted a comment by Peirce "Mr. Peterson's Proposed Discussion" complete with the name "Charles Santiago Sanders Peirce" appended, first published in The Monist
in 1906. The CP editors (Charles Hartshorne
and Paul Weiss
) added in a footnote, "The additional name Santiago, St. James in Spanish, was adopted by Peirce about this time, apparently in honor of his life-long friend, William James." Weiss also said much the same in the Peirce entry in the Dictionary of American Biography, Volume 14, pp. 398–403 (see p. 400), in 1934. In 1935 Ralph Barton Perry wrote in The Thought and Character of William James, v. 2, p. 436, that Peirce adopted "Santiago" as a name "presumably in honor of James".
Others followed with the same idea expressed less conditionally, for example Peter Skagestad in The Road of Inquiry, 1981, p. 234: "After James' death in 1910, Peirce began signing his own name Charles Santiago Sanders Peirce, thereby canonizing his old friend 'Santiago,' i.e. St. James"; John Deely
in the editorial introduction, dated 1994, to the CP electronic edition: "Charles S. Peirce (the 'S' stands for 'Sanders' by Baptism and later for 'Santiago' as Charles' way of honoring William James)...."; James Hoopes in Community Denied, 1998, p. 30: "Peirce responded gracefully to James's aid and even adopted in old age the name "Santiago" (Saint James) as a tribute to his benefactor"; and Joseph Brent in Charles Sanders Peirce: A Life, 2nd ed. 1998, pp. 315–16, indicating the same connection, saying that Peirce took the name "Santiago" in May 1909, and adding an endnote: "MS 318".
But Peirce was mentioned in print as Charles Santiago Peirce in 1890, 1891, and 1892, years before James's publicizing him and helping him to get lectures and funds. Kenneth Laine Ketner (1998, p. 280) cited the 1890 case (and credited Joseph Ransdell
for bringing it to his attention) of the heading "Peirce, Charles S(antiago)", which stood above a list of 15 well known C. S. Peirce papers in 11 publications starting on p. 710 in the bibliography for Volume 1 of Ernst Schröder
's Vorlesungen über die Algebra der Logik (1890). See also for example p. 65 of the Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik, v. XXIV for 1892, published 1895.
It also came to light that the mathematician Ventura Reyes y Prósper referred to Peirce's middle name as "Santiago" in letters and two papers (1891 and 1892) and wrote in a footnote to the 1892 paper: "Although it may seem strange, his first name is in English and his second is in Spanish; I do not know why." For the letters and papers, see Jaime Nubiola and Jesús Cobo, "The Spanish Mathematician Ventura Reyes Prósper and his connections with Charles S. Peirce and Christine Ladd-Franklin
"
Joseph Brent (author of Charles Sanders Peirce: A Life (1993, 1998), history professor emeritus, University of the District of Columbia) claimed to have found, in Manuscript 318, Peirce explaining his motive as being to honor William James, but other scholars did not find it there; Brent suspected a mixup across manuscript numbering systems. The Peirce manuscript material comes to more than 100,000 pages. The claim of a "Santiago"-James connection had long been uncontroversial. The possibility remains that Peirce in effect revived his (earlier adopted) middle name "Santiago" during some later years (see below) in gratitude to James; but no confirmatory manuscript or publication has been brought to light.
In Manuscript 1611 (1903), in a biographical form for a manuscript directory and a biographical dictionary of the Men of Science in the United States, Peirce wrote:
(Peirce authored the entry "Peirce, C(harles) S" (except for the notability star supplied by the editor) in American Men of Science, 1906, first edition, sometimes called Volume 1, p. 248. In the 1910 second edition, it became "Peirce, C(harles) S(antiago Sanders"; see below.)
In publications of his own articles, Peirce began using "Santiago" in 1906, when he used "Santiago Sanders" — both middle names together — in his The Monist
articles; but not in his 1908 Hibbert Journal article (nor in some other publications at the time):
Paul Carus
, editor of The Monist during those years, called Peirce "Charles S. S. Peirce" in 1910 in "On the Nature of Logical and Mathematical Thought", The Monist, v. XX, no. 1, pp. 33–75, on p. 43 and p. 45, and again in "Non-Aristotelian Logic", The Monist, v. XX, no. 1 on pp. 158 and 159.
In His Glassy Essence (1998), p. 279ff, Kenneth L. Ketner speculates that Peirce's second wife Juliette
was of Spanish Gypsy origin, and that the middle name "Santiago" was Peirce's way of "informally ... paying tribute to his wife ... and to her cultural origins as a Spanish woman who was a Gitano, or Spanish Gypsy of Andalusia." It involves the movement of Gypsies into Spain along the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela
, Santiago's being the patron saint of Spain, Juliette's being in Spain at the time when Peirce's friend and colleague Schröder's Logik was published, and other reasons.
In November 2007, Jaime Nubiola endorsed Joseph Ransdell
's view that "It is simply a mystery at this point".
William James
William James was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher who was trained as a physician. He wrote influential books on the young science of psychology, educational psychology, psychology of religious experience and mysticism, and on the philosophy of pragmatism...
. Peirce's name appeared in print as "Charles Santiago Peirce" as early as 1890, years before he had reason for deep gratitude to James. But he did not use "Santiago" in his own articles until 1906. Possibly his use of "Santiago" is related to his second wife Juliette
Juliette Peirce
Juliette Peirce was the second wife of the mathematician and philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce.-History:Almost nothing is known about Juliette Peirce's life before she met Charles - not even her name, which is variously given as Juliette Annette Froissy or Juliette Pourtalai...
, and possibly, in later years, to James.
The stories and the evidence
Peirce in his later years became impoverished. It has been said (see below) that Peirce's motive for adopting "Santiago"—"St. James" in Spanish—as a middle name was gratitude to his old friend William James, who dedicated his Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy (1897) to Peirce, and arranged for Peirce during this period to be paid to give two paid series of lectures at or near Harvard—one in 1898, one of two in 1903. Then in 1907 James dedicated his Pragmatism to the nominalistNominalism
Nominalism is a metaphysical view in philosophy according to which general or abstract terms and predicates exist, while universals or abstract objects, which are sometimes thought to correspond to these terms, do not exist. Thus, there are at least two main versions of nominalism...
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
and omitted Peirce from its list of references for further reading—yet also in that book (in Lecture 2, fourth paragraph) James credits Peirce as the originator of pragmatism. By that time, Peirce was already distinguishing his own Scholastic realist brand of pragmatism as "pragmaticism
Pragmaticism
Pragmaticism is a term used by Charles Sanders Peirce for his pragmatic philosophy starting in 1905, in order to distance himself and it from pragmatism, the original name, which had been used in a manner he did not approve of in the "literary journals"...
". Still, Peirce had increasing reason for gratitude. Each year from 1907 until James's death in 1910, James wrote to his friends in the Boston intelligentsia, asking that they contribute financially to help support Peirce, a fund which continued after James's death. Peirce reciprocated by designating James's eldest son as his heir should Juliette predecease him.
The claim that Peirce adopted the middle name "Santiago" in gratitude to William James goes back at least to William James's wife Alice, quoted in 1927 by F.C.S. Schiller
Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller
Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller was a German-British philosopher. Born in Altona, Holstein , Schiller studied at the University of Oxford, and later was a professor there, after being invited back after a brief time at Cornell University...
In one of the last quinquennial catalogues, Peirce changed his middle name from Saunders to Santiago. It was long before I understood that it was a way of calling himself St. James, but there it stands Charles Santiago Peirce.
In Quinquennial Catalogue of the Officers and Graduates of Harvard University, Peirce appears as "Charles Sanders Peirce" in 1890, 1895, 1900, and 1905. He appears as "Charles Santiago Sanders Peirce," "Charles S. Sanders Peirce," "Charles Sanders Peirce", in 1910 and 1915.
Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce (CP), Volume 5 in 1934 reprinted a comment by Peirce "Mr. Peterson's Proposed Discussion" complete with the name "Charles Santiago Sanders Peirce" appended, first published in The Monist
The Monist
The Monist: An International Quarterly Journal of General Philosophical Inquiry is an American academic journal in the field of philosophy. It was founded in October 1890 by Edward C. Hegeler, making it one of the longest-established journals in philosophy...
in 1906. The CP editors (Charles Hartshorne
Charles Hartshorne
Charles Hartshorne was a prominent American philosopher who concentrated primarily on the philosophy of religion and metaphysics. He developed the neoclassical idea of God and produced a modal proof of the existence of God that was a development of St. Anselm's Ontological Argument...
and Paul Weiss
Paul Weiss (philosopher)
Paul Weiss was an American philosopher.-Background:Paul Weiss grew up on the lower east side of New York City. His father, Samuel Weiss , was a Hungarian emigrant who moved from Europe in the 1890s. He worked as a tinsmith, a coppersmith, and a boilermaker. Paul Weiss's mother, Emma Rothschild ...
) added in a footnote, "The additional name Santiago, St. James in Spanish, was adopted by Peirce about this time, apparently in honor of his life-long friend, William James." Weiss also said much the same in the Peirce entry in the Dictionary of American Biography, Volume 14, pp. 398–403 (see p. 400), in 1934. In 1935 Ralph Barton Perry wrote in The Thought and Character of William James, v. 2, p. 436, that Peirce adopted "Santiago" as a name "presumably in honor of James".
Others followed with the same idea expressed less conditionally, for example Peter Skagestad in The Road of Inquiry, 1981, p. 234: "After James' death in 1910, Peirce began signing his own name Charles Santiago Sanders Peirce, thereby canonizing his old friend 'Santiago,' i.e. St. James"; John Deely
John Deely
John Deely is an American philosopher and semiotician. He is a Professor of Philosophy at the Center for Thomistic Studies of the University of St. Thomas ....
in the editorial introduction, dated 1994, to the CP electronic edition: "Charles S. Peirce (the 'S' stands for 'Sanders' by Baptism and later for 'Santiago' as Charles' way of honoring William James)...."; James Hoopes in Community Denied, 1998, p. 30: "Peirce responded gracefully to James's aid and even adopted in old age the name "Santiago" (Saint James) as a tribute to his benefactor"; and Joseph Brent in Charles Sanders Peirce: A Life, 2nd ed. 1998, pp. 315–16, indicating the same connection, saying that Peirce took the name "Santiago" in May 1909, and adding an endnote: "MS 318".
| 1890, 1891, 1892: Peirce mentioned in print as "Charles Santiago Peirce". |
| 1897: James dedicates Will to Believe to Peirce. |
| 1898: James arranges Peirce's Feb. 10–Mar. 7 Cambridge, Mass. lecture series. In August, James credits Peirce for the idea and name of pragmatism. |
| 1900: Peirce in a letter asks James whether it was himself or James who coined the name pragmatism, and who first used it in print and when. James replies that Peirce coined it and that James publicly credited him in 1898. |
| 1903: James arranges Peirce's Harvard lectures series on pragmatism. Sedgwick follows by arranging Peirce's Lowell lecture series later the same year. |
| 1906 January: Peirce begins signing his Monist articles "Charles Santiago Sanders Peirce": January & October 1906; April ("Charles S. S. Peirce") & July 1908; and January 1909. |
| 1907 January: James begins annual fundraising drive for Peirce. |
| 1907 June: James's book Pragmatism is published with a dedication to the nominalist Mills and omits Peirce from list for further reading; but credits pragmatism's origin to Peirce. |
| 1907 September: Peirce designates James's eldest son as heir should Juliette predecease Peirce. |
| 1910 August: James dies. Peirce fund continues. |
But Peirce was mentioned in print as Charles Santiago Peirce in 1890, 1891, and 1892, years before James's publicizing him and helping him to get lectures and funds. Kenneth Laine Ketner (1998, p. 280) cited the 1890 case (and credited Joseph Ransdell
Joseph Morton Ransdell
Joseph Morton Ransdell, was an associate professor of philosophy from 1974 to 2000 at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. A native of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Ransdell in 1961 received his Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy from San Francisco State University in San Francisco, California....
for bringing it to his attention) of the heading "Peirce, Charles S(antiago)", which stood above a list of 15 well known C. S. Peirce papers in 11 publications starting on p. 710 in the bibliography for Volume 1 of Ernst Schröder
Ernst Schröder
Ernst Schröder was a German mathematician mainly known for his work on algebraic logic. He is a major figure in the history of mathematical logic , by virtue of summarizing and extending the work of George Boole, Augustus De Morgan, Hugh MacColl, and especially Charles Peirce...
's Vorlesungen über die Algebra der Logik (1890). See also for example p. 65 of the Jahrbuch über die Fortschritte der Mathematik, v. XXIV for 1892, published 1895.
It also came to light that the mathematician Ventura Reyes y Prósper referred to Peirce's middle name as "Santiago" in letters and two papers (1891 and 1892) and wrote in a footnote to the 1892 paper: "Although it may seem strange, his first name is in English and his second is in Spanish; I do not know why." For the letters and papers, see Jaime Nubiola and Jesús Cobo, "The Spanish Mathematician Ventura Reyes Prósper and his connections with Charles S. Peirce and Christine Ladd-Franklin
Christine Ladd-Franklin
Christine Ladd-Franklin was the first American woman psychologist, logician, and mathematician.-Early Life and Early Education:...
"
Joseph Brent (author of Charles Sanders Peirce: A Life (1993, 1998), history professor emeritus, University of the District of Columbia) claimed to have found, in Manuscript 318, Peirce explaining his motive as being to honor William James, but other scholars did not find it there; Brent suspected a mixup across manuscript numbering systems. The Peirce manuscript material comes to more than 100,000 pages. The claim of a "Santiago"-James connection had long been uncontroversial. The possibility remains that Peirce in effect revived his (earlier adopted) middle name "Santiago" during some later years (see below) in gratitude to James; but no confirmatory manuscript or publication has been brought to light.
In Manuscript 1611 (1903), in a biographical form for a manuscript directory and a biographical dictionary of the Men of Science in the United States, Peirce wrote:
(I am variously listed in print as Charles Santiago Peirce, Charles Saunders Peirce, and Charles Sanders Peirce. Under the circumstances a noncommittal S. suits me best)
(Peirce authored the entry "Peirce, C(harles) S" (except for the notability star supplied by the editor) in American Men of Science, 1906, first edition, sometimes called Volume 1, p. 248. In the 1910 second edition, it became "Peirce, C(harles) S(antiago Sanders"; see below.)
In publications of his own articles, Peirce began using "Santiago" in 1906, when he used "Santiago Sanders" — both middle names together — in his The Monist
The Monist
The Monist: An International Quarterly Journal of General Philosophical Inquiry is an American academic journal in the field of philosophy. It was founded in October 1890 by Edward C. Hegeler, making it one of the longest-established journals in philosophy...
articles; but not in his 1908 Hibbert Journal article (nor in some other publications at the time):
- In 1906 in The Monist v. XVI, n. 1, January, "Mr. Peterson's Proposed Discussion", p. 151.
- In 1906 in The Monist v. XVI (misprinted "VI"), n. 4, October, "Prolegomena To an Apology For Pragmaticism", p. 546.
- In 1908 in The Monist v. XVIII, n. 2, April, "Some Amazing Mazes" p. 241 ("Charles S. S. Peirce").
- In 1908 in The Monist v. XVIII, n. 3, July, "Some Amazing Mazes (Conclusion), Explanation of Curiosity the First", p. 461.
- In 1908 in Hibbert Journal v. VII, n. 1, October, "A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God": "C. S. Peirce" on pp. 90 & 112.
- in 1909 in The Monist v. XIX, n. 1, January, "Some Amazing Mazes, A Second Curiosity", p. 45.
- in 1910 in American Men of Science, 2nd edition (sometimes called "Volume 2"), "Peirce, C(harles) S(antiago Sanders)", p. 364.
Paul Carus
Paul Carus
Paul Carus, Ph.D. was a German-American author, editor, a student of comparative religion, and professor of philosophy.-Life and education:...
, editor of The Monist during those years, called Peirce "Charles S. S. Peirce" in 1910 in "On the Nature of Logical and Mathematical Thought", The Monist, v. XX, no. 1, pp. 33–75, on p. 43 and p. 45, and again in "Non-Aristotelian Logic", The Monist, v. XX, no. 1 on pp. 158 and 159.
Juliette Peirce
Juliette Peirce was the second wife of the mathematician and philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce.-History:Almost nothing is known about Juliette Peirce's life before she met Charles - not even her name, which is variously given as Juliette Annette Froissy or Juliette Pourtalai...
was of Spanish Gypsy origin, and that the middle name "Santiago" was Peirce's way of "informally ... paying tribute to his wife ... and to her cultural origins as a Spanish woman who was a Gitano, or Spanish Gypsy of Andalusia." It involves the movement of Gypsies into Spain along the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela
Santiago de Compostela
Santiago de Compostela is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia, Spain.The city's Cathedral is the destination today, as it has been throughout history, of the important 9th century medieval pilgrimage route, the Way of St. James...
, Santiago's being the patron saint of Spain, Juliette's being in Spain at the time when Peirce's friend and colleague Schröder's Logik was published, and other reasons.
In November 2007, Jaime Nubiola endorsed Joseph Ransdell
Joseph Morton Ransdell
Joseph Morton Ransdell, was an associate professor of philosophy from 1974 to 2000 at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. A native of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Ransdell in 1961 received his Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy from San Francisco State University in San Francisco, California....
's view that "It is simply a mystery at this point".