Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on April 9, 2009) Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of English, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 67-69).

Thesis (M.A.)--Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, South Hamilton, Mass., 2000. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 94-97).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Illinois, 1914. / Vita. Bibliography: p. 44-55.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1938. / Typescript. Includes abstract and vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 129-132).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Supervisor: Frederick M. Kronz. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--Indiana University, 2006. / Title from screen (viewed on Apr. 30, 2007) Department of Philosophy, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 110-113)

This dissertation inaugurates a study on the connections between the philosophies of Aristotle and Charles S. Peirce. It discusses, first, Peirce's reading of Aristotle's works and philosophy, with an emphasis on three studies by Peirce of a translation of Aristotle's Categories, a study on Aristotle's notion of priority, and a study on the current situation of the Corpus Aristotelicum. Secondly, this dissertation deals with logic, particularly induction, abduction, and analogy. In the case of induction, Peirce claimed that Aristotle stated perfectly the form of induction in Prior Analytics II 23. However, Aristotle's concept of induction is not univocal, but, I argue, it stands for six different notions. Peirce seemed to neglect such diversity in Aristotle's concept of induction, even though his own concept of induction is also diverse. Aristotle's six concepts of induction and Peirce's kinds of induction do not match each other, and therefore, the chapter on induction closes with a comparison between these notions in order to determine to what extent they resemble or differ from each other. With regard to abduction, Peirce claimed that it originated in Prior Analytics II, 25. I argue that Peirce was mistaken in focusing on this passage. This does not mean that Aristotle did not have an idea of abduction. As I will show, there are other passages in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, neglected by Peirce, in which it is possible to find such an analysis of this kind of reasoning. In the case of analogy, both philosophers have a similar and clear account of it as a compound or composite. However, whereas Aristotle claimed it to be composed of induction and deduction, Peirce included abduction too. Thirdly, I explore and compare their theories of cognition. Peirce did not feel indebted to Aristotle and, on the contrary, criticized the positions of the Greek philosopher. However, I will argue that their theories of cognition agree in their general features, namely, empiricism, realism, and synechism. Peirce's critiques of Aristotle are in part due to a misinterpretation of Aristotle's philosophy that took Aristotle to be, in modern terms, a dualist and a rationalist. In sum, I aim to show through these three features, the ways in which Peirce's philosophy is ‒and is not‒ aligned with that of Aristotle.

The main thesis of this project is that Peirce’s theory of the categories can be applied in order to better explain and inform a robust theory of creative freedom. I defend the claim that those three categories are: Peirce’s idea of God, understood as his idea of an evolving cosmos open to growth, as firstness; self-control and our capacity to deliberate in order to make choices as secondness; and the idea of community as thirdness. However, the concept of God, what I consider the first category of freedom, is not the main focus of this project, since I have dealt with it at some length in my master thesis. In this dissertation, I provide a general overview of the context and the scholarly tradition of Peirce’s studies on ethics in order to show and justify my position in it. Moreover I explore the second category of freedom, i.e. self-control. First, I show the development of this idea under the context of the philosophical tradition that influenced Peirce; second, I deal with a reconstruction of the concept of self-control under Peirce’s theory of semeiotics; third, I attempt to explain self-control according to the three categories based on Edward Petry’s formulations; and fourth I explore the conception of the summum bonum, not only from the perspective of its development in Peirce’s theory but also in its function as the aesthetic value that directs and guides the manner in which self-control and its categories work out under the frame of a theory of creative freedom. Finally, I analyze the role of community in enabling and making freedom possible from the perspective of education, more specifically, its role of promoting truth, goodness, and beauty according to the normative sciences. The application of Peirce’s theory of the categories to a theory of creative freedom provides some advantages over other kind of approaches. If the three Peircean categories can be applied to the way in which we experience freedom, then the possible theories of ethics can be reduced to seven in the same way that Peirce’s model of classification catalogues all possible systems of metaphysics. Furthermore, it means that all other systems of ethics that neglect one of these conditions would be for Peirce degenerate in some respect. Although I do not explore this account in greater detail here, as I see it, this proposal provides a very useful framework. Thus, I hope to provide a robust perspective on freedom as creativity, where positive freedom (not just the negative freedom emphasized by North American cultures) plays an important role in acknowledging that a community acquires a responsibility for the well being and flourishing of its people, and therefore, the role of education, and community become also crucial.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This thesis develops a general theory of patterns on the basis of the philosophy of Charles S. Peirce. The main questions with which this thesis is concerned are: what is the ontological status of patterns? In what does their reality consist in? Why does exhibiting patternhood seem to be a necessary condition for the very possibility of cognition? The development of the theory is motivated by a discussion of Ontic Structural Realism (OSR), a theory that has recently been gaining attention in analytic philosophy of science, especially in philosophy of physics. The central claim of OSR is that only patterns (structures) are real; individual objects are not real, or have only a “thin” being in some sense. In this thesis I deal mainly with the version of OSR developed by James Ladyman and Don Ross in their book Every Thing Must Go. I address two criticisms that are commonly levelled against OSR, (1) that it cannot give an adequate account of the difference between physical structure and mathematical structure, and (2) that it cannot give an adequate account of the relationship between the world and our representations of the world. I then show how Peirce’s philosophical framework, as encapsulated in his pragmatism, theory of the categories, Scholastic realism, and theory of the continuum, could provide an answer to these difficulties. OSR will also be used to illuminate an aspect of Peirce’s philosophy which I believe has not been sufficiently emphasized in the literature, namely its structuralist aspect. Specifically, it will be shown that Peirce’s philosophy leads to a worldview very similar to that of OSR, via a path of reasoning that is completely different from those standardly used to argue for OSR. This thesis as a whole is an attempt to throw light on the nature of patternhood through an elucidation and justification of this path of reasoning, which I call the alternative path to OSR.