Charles S. (Charles Sanders) Peirce

Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1839, Charles Sanders Peirce was trained as a scientist and worked for many years as a chemist and geodesist with the United States Coast Survey. He moved easily between mathematics, logic, philosophy, and scientific method, bringing the habits of careful inquiry into everything he wrote.

Peirce is best known as an early founder of pragmatism and as a major figure in semiotics, the study of signs and meaning. He also made lasting contributions to logic, especially the logic of relations, and his work reached into probability, measurement, and the philosophy of science.

Although much of his work was not widely recognized during his lifetime, his reputation grew steadily after his death in 1914 near Milford, Pennsylvania. Today he is often remembered as one of the most original American philosophers: a restless, wide-ranging mind whose ideas continue to reward curious readers.