November 8th to 11th, 2004

Mônica Bernardo Schettini
monicas@estadao.com.br
Brazil

ABSTRACT
Edgar Allan Poe begins one of his most remarkable tales, "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", assuring that the mental conditions considered analytical, are, in truth, hardly analyzed, and that we are able to appreciate them only in their effects. What the author calls the analytical capacity presents a fundamental correspondence with the abductive reasoning. In both cases, we have the same movement - from the effects to their causes. And, in the same way Peirce incised his pragmatism in abduction, Poe seems to incise a pragmatic perspective on the analytical faculty. When Peirce proposed that any hypothesis can be admitted if there is nothing against it, once it presents experimental consequences, Peirce connects this hypothesis to its effects, and pragmatism to the adoption of it. Poe seems to think in a similar way when he assures that the analytical capacity is better understood throughout its effects. In both cases we can note a similar preoccupation - the experimental consequences. We don't intent, however, to equalize theses two pragmatisms, mainly if we consider "The Philosophy of Composition" written by Poe when the author credits the creation of the concepts to their effects, while, from Peirce´s perspective, when considering a concept, its comprehension involves all the possible effects. If the perspective of the two authors is not exactly the same, we must say that there is a strong proximity, to be explored in this communication.

KEYWORDS: Pragmatism, Peirce, Poe.

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