The Place of Scholastic Realism in Peirce's Pragmatist Philosophy

The aim of the thesis is to answer a question of how Charles Sanders Peirce found unity for his pragmatist philosophy by formulating his Scholastic Realism. I propose this doctrine as a reading guide and leading principle of his different stages as a philosopher. I want to understand why Peirce’s realist doctrine was for him a feasible and consistent account for the problem of universals. I provide an answer as why the problem of universals, in Peirce’s mind, pervades the history of philosophy. A derived question analysed is: why Peirce required us to conceive philosophy as a struggle between nominalism and realism? I offer to follow the tread of argumentation that leads to recognise that Peirce’s Scholastic Realism is of a particular and fundamental importance to understand his philosophy and the problems involved in his continued inquiry. Yet more importantly, I will argue that my reading is a novel, feasible and plausible account of reality. Peirce’s scholarship has not considered such interpretation in its full insightful nature for reasons that are not necessarily philosophical. I argue that we might get good use of it if we ask the right questions about reality as Peirce did. I show that Peirce’s realism responds to different related philosophical problems that led up to the final version as ‘scientific metaphysics’. The conclusion offers an interpretation principle of ‘Scholastic Realism’ as a solution for Peirce’s concerns, a useful idea in order to achieve a better account of reality in Peirce’s strive for a posteriori metaphysics. Peirce’s doctrine is suggested with some of its applications, especially in the field of the theories about abstraction and the foundations of mathematics, as Peirce would want it to be. I believe the thesis, therefore, will render advancement in the comprehension of the problems involved in Peirce’s philosophy, in pragmatism and its origins, and in the history of philosophy conceived as the struggle between realism and nominalism.