If we want to know what Peirce meant by “objective idealism,” we should consult his entry on “idealism” in the Century Dictionary (which is online), where it is listed as one variety of idealism; and we should acknowledge that he took the term from Schelling. It’s summed up this way in W8 (391-2):
[[ In CD 2974, Peirce described objective idealism as ‘the doctrine of F.W.J. von Schelling, that the relation between the subject and object of thought is one of absolute identity. It supposes that all things exist in the absolute reason, that matter is extinct mind, and that the laws of physics are the same as those of mental representations.’ In a draft of his 1893 ‘Reply to the Necessitarians,’ Peirce made the following confession (R 958: 203): ‘I frankly pigeon-hole myself as a modified Schellingian, or New England transcendentalist.’ ]] We should also take into account his insistence (later expressed in his “Ethics of Terminology”) that a technical term, once defined by its originator, should not be used to mean something else. Also the fact that he rarely (if ever) used the term after 1892. Gary f. From: Edwina Taborsky [mailto:tabor...@primus.ca] Sent: 22-Aug-16 18:38 Jon, list - I think we've gone as far in this discussion as possible. I continue to reject your merging of idealism and Peirce's objective idealism. Using your tactics of semantics, I'd have to ask YOU why Peirce didn't just say 'idealism' and why he instead used the term of 'objective idealism'??? If you say it's a version, then, explain exactly how it varies from 'idealism'.
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