“Logic of the Future” as C.S. Peirce Understood It (First Volumes of Peirceana)

Abstract

Finally, the first book started Peirceana. Peirceana is expected as a new series that provides access to both Peirce’s mostly unpublished late works and secondary papers, in which ideas of this American philosopher are developed. This edition is opened with three volumes on Peirce’s manuscripts on “Logic of the Future.” The thinker gave this definition to his theory of existential graphs, i.e., a diagrammatical logical project that includes three sections. The sections can roughly correspond to propositional logic, first-order logic and modal logic. The theory of existential graphs is a particular conception. It predicts ideas of proof theory, mathematics of continuity, and cognitive sciences. Besides, it has an impressive philosophical foundation and perfectly emphasizes the importance of diagrammatic notations. Since many writings are published here for the first time, the edition per se is a significant event for the history of logic. However, Peirceana can do more than this. It urges to think of how the logic of 20‒21st centuries would have looked like if Peirce’s intentions were discovered earlier. At the same time, it clarifies the ground for contemporary investigations. Today we have a bunch of papers about various non-classical modifications, extensions, restrictions, and applications of the original theory. Peirceana is projected as the publication that can gather specialists (logicians, philosophers, as well as IT and cognitive science scholars) who are interested in the development of Peirce’s approach. It lets the readers reconsider our ordinary logical conceptions (e.g., reasoning, logical and language analysis, and others) as well as the conventional understanding of the evolution of modern logic. The current paper has two objectives: firstly, it estimates this diplomatic partly critical edition with its several thoroughly elaborated introductions, and secondly, it briefly introduces the existential graphs theory. A set of examples demonstrates the basic principles of this system.