For a learned studious discussion of pure Peirce then the Peirce List is probably the best online forum to join. For an application of pure Peirce to fields like aesthetics and art and ethics then the Peirce List and the Dewey List and the Aesthetics List come to mind as good places to be. Perhaps members here could suggest some other website forums where Peirce could be applied in discussion. The goals for me as a student of Peirce are to improve my mind, and to more fully appreciate the bad and good about his ideas and their use. In regard to his wordy terms and baroque systems it does seem that Peirce did not pander to lazy thinkers with easy ways. In any event and in my opinion most statements on his contribution are usually understated and on his difficulty are vastly overstated. The final plea might be to ask others for an alternate to Peirce in regard to philosophy. -FCK
Geoff wrote... Assume that the members of the list serve constitute a community (individuals with a level of shared interest/concern) and assume further that because there is a range of fluency with Piercean terminology among members of the list, a degree of confusion exists and assume further approximately equivalent motivation among members to adapt their existing vocabularies to either more Piercean or less Piercean terminology on what basis, if any, do individuals in the community alter their vocabularies? William wrote... Peircian terminology is well-known to be all but opaque -- which helps to account for his dwindled influence. Aside from the necessity for technical language in the fully specialized strata of any field, good philosophy can be clear and useful to most reasonably well-educated people. In my summarized view, Peirce was entangled in his own desire to be very rational and still accomodate his religious conviction and that led to more and more abstract syntax and terminology. Nevertheless, some people, already tongue-tied by some contemporary philosophers, are rediscovering Peirce and want to restore his influence. Perhaps that is a good thing.
