皮尔士与美国实用主义哲学的开端

Peirce and the Start of the “Philosophy from USA”

美国经典实用主义哲学的基本观念,例如“活的怀疑”“确立信念”“思想作为探索”“科学方法”“科学实在”以及“可错主义”等的起源和发展,在查尔斯·皮尔士的两篇早期哲学论文中得到重点的讨论和分析。思想过程作为信念的确立或知识的获得,不再是一种仅仅理论沉思的过程,而更是作为提出问题和解决问题的科学探索程序和步骤。在经典实用主义看来,思想的本性在于探索发问,对出现的问题提出假设,实验验证或纠错,建立新信念。实用主义哲学展现出“美国哲学”如何从一种“在美国的欧洲哲学”的形态,发展成为一种“从美国来的哲学”。这也成为后来所谓“美国精神”的基础和蓬勃发展的20世纪美国哲学的先声。

Taking the two early philosophical papers of Charles S.Peirce as clues of research,this essay shall analyze and discuss some basic ideas of the classical American pragmatism,such as “living doubt” “the fixation of belief” “thought as inquiry” “scientific method and reality” and “fallibilism”,etc.,Thought as the fixation of belief or the inquiry of knowledge is no longer a process of mere theoretical comprehension,but more of scientific inquiring procedure or steps for raising and solving problems.This investigation and analysis shall explore how the “American philosophy” has been transformed from “an European philosophy in the USA” to “a philosophy from the USA” as pragmatism.This pragmatism has become the philosophical foundation of what was later called the “American Spirit,” and the starting point of the flourishing 20thcentury American philosophy.