Peirce's Approach to the Self

Vincent M. Colapietro is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Saint Mary's College. He twice received the Douglas Greenlee Award for papers accepted for presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, and Chapter Five of this book received the first Charles Sanders Peirce Award from the Peirce Society. He has also received the John William Miller Essay Prize.

"A new and, in some ways, daring interpretation of an aspect of Peirce's thought. Colapietro's view may be found controversial, but he supports it extremely well with reference to unpublished manuscripts as well as more familiar texts. His knowledge of Peirce is impressive and I find his arguments persuasive. He treads his way through the voluminous Peirceian corpus in a masterly way. He sets into relief elements of Peirce's thought that others have not recognized or have even denied, especially his understanding and appreciation of inner reflection and imagination, which Colapietro shows to be compatible with Peirce's rejection of subjectivism and his insistence upon the social nature of the self. As interpreted here, the Peirceian alternative to the Cartesian view of the self, making communication rather than subjectivity the essence of out being and our identity, is convincing and provocative."  Beth J. Singer, Brooklyn College, CUNY