November 8th to 11th, 2004

Edith Stenzler Frankenthal
edithf@terra.com.br
PUC/SP - Brazil

PEIRCE AND THE EVERYDAY PROBLEMS OF HIS TIME

RESUMO
It seems beyond dispute that what raised Peirce to the prominent position he occupies in the history of human thought was the acuity of his instinct, in the sense that he himself established, the one of attunement, affinity with Nature, that Galileo called il lume naturale. His philosophy projects itself so that it delineates the path forward the general real. It is unusual, among academic researchers, to seek in him an everyday intelectual, namely, someone interpreting operative social, political and economic signs, directly related to ordinary people and temporal circunstances. In this paper, the reader will find an account of three different texts, regrettably still pertinent, which show this facet of his. In the first one, clearly grounded in his normative sciences, mainly in aesthetics and ethics, he develops his evaluation on the blocking of sentiments to which men are conducted; in the second one, Peirce blames the economists for overevaluating money in detriment of more auspicious criative powers; in the third one, he writes to a journal's editor, asking elucidations refering to certain news on sugar import, which remits to external and internal American economic politics. Concerning Peirce, it is not surprising that the significative content of the three texts is related to each other, nor that their interpretation may be so diverse that it becomes undefined. The interpretation, however, is up to the reader.

KEYWORDS: Blocking of Sentiments, Overevaluation of Money, Economic Politics.

Center for Pragmatism Studies
Philosophy Graduate Program
Departament of Philosophy
Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo - Brazil