Abstract
The American philosopher Charles Saunders Peirce (1839-1914) had much to say about the nature of intellectual enquiry. In the realm of deductive logic, category theorists have made important use of his string-diagrammatic logical calculus. But Peirce’s interests in inference extended beyond deduction to induction and abduction. In this talk I shall be exploring the thesis that we can understand this triple in terms of the category-theoretic notions of composition, extension and lift. We will also touch on his broader semiotics and his account of concept formation.
(Revised notes: latest version, 01 April 25)
Suggestions to think about: Absolute Kan extensions/lifts; descent; Bayesian reasoning.
For the final section, Michael Polanyi should be highly relevant in terms of the intimation of reality, indwelling, reality as revealing more. Eugene Gendler too.
Last revised on April 9, 2025 at 06:08:50. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it.