The principal purpose of the Peirce Edition Project is to produce a chronologically arranged critical edition of Peirce's writings. This work is complicated by the fact that much of Peirce's work exists only in manuscript form, and that his papers, the largest part of which have been at Harvard since 1915, are in great disarray. The Project's work, therefore, requires a massive reorganization and dating effort prior to text selection and editing. This work is assisted by an internationally recognized team of advisors and contributors who generously contribute their time and invaluable expertise. Six volumes (of a projected thirty) have been published in traditional paper format by Indiana University Press. Plans are underway for an on-line electronic edition that will include everything in the print volumes, and will supplement them in various ways, principally by including digitized images of the manuscripts from the period of each volume.

The print edition, alone, will provide scholars with a sufficiently comprehensive standard edition to permit and encourage the study and investigation of Peirce's complete system of thought and the wide range of his contributions to knowledge. The Indiana Edition will preserve a significant part of the textual legacy of one of America's leading philosophers, and it will support a thorough study of the development of his thought as an evolving system of ideas. It will also serve as a source for smaller thematic anthologies of Peirce's writings.