Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society

Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society

Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society is a quarterly peer-reviewed journal dedicated to scholarship on Charles Sanders Peirce and related figures and traditions. The journal publishes research that situates Peirce in relation to thinkers such as William James, Josiah Royce, John Dewey, Henri Bergson, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell and movements including pragmatism, phenomenology, analytic philosophy, semiotics, and logic. It serves as the official organ of the Charles S. Peirce Society and connects scholars affiliated with institutions such as Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, Columbia University, University of Chicago, University of Cambridge, and University of Oxford.

History

The journal was founded amid mid-20th-century interest in American intellectual history, emerging alongside conferences and societies that revived study of Charles Sanders Peirce and William James against the backdrop of scholarship shaped by figures like John Dewey, Josiah Royce, George Herbert Mead, and Arthur Schopenhauer. Early editorial networks included collaborators from Harvard University and Haverford College who sought to institutionalize Peircean studies parallel to journals such as The Monist and The Journal of Philosophy. Over successive decades the journal has published pieces engaging with historical actors and events—ranging from archival work on Peirce’s correspondence with William James and Josiah Royce to analyses that connect Peirce to European figures like Ferdinand de Saussure, Gottlob Frege, Edmund Husserl, and Charles Darwin. Editorial shifts reflected broader academic trends, responding to debates involving scholars such as Charles Hartshorne, Susanne Langer, Hilary Putnam, Richard Rorty, Cornel West, and Susan Haack.

Scope and Content

The journal’s scope encompasses historical, interpretive, technical, and comparative work on Charles Sanders Peirce and a wide constellation of actors and institutions. Articles often juxtapose Peirce with figures like William James, John Dewey, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Henri Bergson, Ferdinand de Saussure, Roland Barthes, Umberto Eco, Charles Darwin, Gregor Mendel, Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Alfred North Whitehead, Samuel Alexander, Josiah Royce, George Santayana, Ralph Barton Perry, George Herbert Mead, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Franz Brentano, John Stuart Mill, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Baruch Spinoza, René Descartes, Blaise Pascal, Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Epicurus, Plotinus, Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday, James Clerk Maxwell, Pierre-Simon Laplace, Florence Nightingale, Ada Lovelace, Ada Augusta, Mary Wollstonecraft, Simone de Beauvoir, Judith Butler, Noam Chomsky, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Jean-Paul Sartre, Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn. Comparative essays address intersections with semiotics, logic, philosophy of science, epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and history of ideas, and the journal includes archival notes, book reviews, and bibliographies tied to repositories like the Houghton Library and the Peirce Edition Project.

Publication and Editorial Information

Published quarterly by the University of Massachusetts Amherst for the Charles S. Peirce Society, the journal uses anonymous peer review and a rotating editorial board drawn from scholars at institutions including Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, University of Michigan, New York University, Duke University, Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University, Rutgers University, Brown University, Cornell University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Toronto, McGill University, University of British Columbia, University of Chicago, Northwestern University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Notre Dame, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Indiana University Bloomington, University of Minnesota, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Columbia University, University of California, Los Angeles, University of Southern California, and Emory University. Editorial policies emphasize original scholarship on Charles Sanders Peirce and related figures, adherence to citation standards, and the inclusion of critical editions and translations. Special issues have focused on themes such as Peircean semiotics, Peirce and logic, Peirce and the sciences, and Peirce in conversation with continental thinkers like Edmund Husserl, Henri Bergson, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty.

Indexing and Abstracting

The journal is indexed and abstracted in major bibliographic services and databases used by scholars at Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, University of Chicago, Columbia University, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, New York University, Duke University, University of Michigan, Johns Hopkins University, King’s College London, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, University of Toronto, McGill University, University of British Columbia, Australian National University, University of Melbourne, University of Sydney, and research infrastructures such as JSTOR, EBSCOhost, ProQuest, Philosopher's Index, Scopus, and Web of Science. Indexing facilitates discoverability for researchers tracing citations between Peirce and figures like William James, John Dewey, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Henri Bergson, and Ferdinand de Saussure.

Reception and Influence

Scholars at institutions such as Harvard University, Yale University, Princeton University, University of Chicago, Stanford University, Columbia University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Toronto, McGill University, University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, King’s College London, Australian National University, and Peking University cite the journal when engaging with debates involving Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, John Dewey, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Gottlob Frege, Bertrand Russell, Edmund Husserl, Henri Bergson, Martin Heidegger, and Michel Foucault. The journal has influenced anthologies, monographs, and textbooks, contributing to scholarship by Charles Hartshorne, Cornel West, Hilary Putnam, Richard Rorty, Susan Haack, Jennifer Church, Max Fisch, Joseph Ransdell, Christopher Hookway, Santaella, and archival projects such as the Peirce Edition Project and collections housed at the Houghton Library. Its sustained publication has helped legitimize Peircean inquiry across departments and fostered cross-disciplinary dialogue linking archives, editions, and contemporary interpretive work.

Category:Philosophy journals Category:Academic journals established in 1965