 Volume 2 |
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| --- Volume 2 contains some of the major philosophical writings of Peirce's entire life. His "New List of Categories" of 1867, his three "cognition" articles in the Journal of Speculative Philosophy of 1868-69, and his review of the works of Berkeley in the North American Review of 1871 are now recognized as constituting the modern founding of semiotics, the general theory of signs. If we add to these the 1867 review of Venn's Logic of Chance and the 1870 memoir on the "logic of relatives," and read all seven in chronological order, we can trace the early stages of Peirce's progress from nominalism to realism. When Peirce was appointed assistant in the United States Coast Survey in 1867, he began an ascent that carried him during the next decade to the select ranks of leadership in science in America and to renown in the international scientific community. The focus of Peirce's scientific work during the period of the present volume was astronomy, and, by arrangement with the Coast Survey, his work was conducted principally at the Harvard Observatory. Peirce was an official observer of two total eclipses of the sun during these years, the first in Kentucky in 1869 and the second in Sicily in 1870. During the several months that Peirce spent in Europe in 1870-71, he became acquainted with many leading European astronomers. In 1871 he began his observations with Harvard's Zollner astrophotometer, which resulted in his only published monograph, Photometric Researches, parts of which are included in Volume 5. |  |
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