Educated at Harvard University and Lawrence Scientific School, where he received an MSc in chemistry, Peirce worked for over thirty years for the United States Coast Survey. During these years he traveled to Europe on a number of occasions and met many important scientific figures of the time including W.S. Jevons and Augustus de Morgan. In 1876, he was appointed Lecturer in logic at Johns Hopkins University and it was during these years that he developed many of his ideas in the fields of logic, mathematics and philosophy. In 1887, he moved to Milford, Pennsylvania, where, with the help of an inheritance, he acquired some land and built a house. He remained there until his death and spent many years in abject poverty, often helped financially by friends such as his old schoolmate William James. Peirce was a prolific writer and contributed to numerous scholarly journals. Nevertheless, on his death over 1650 manuscripts were left unpublished. The only book published during his lifetime was Photometric Researches in 1878. Many of these papers have still not been published, although there are a number of projects underway to rectify this situation. Peirce is one of the founders of the Pragmatist school of philosophy and is said by many, including Bertrand Russell, to be one of the most gifted minds of the nineteenth century. |
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