Pierce’s Existential Graphs as the Basis for an Introduction to Logic: Semiosis in the Logic Classroom

Abstract

In working with Peirce’s materials for the past fifteen years, I have had numerous encounters with the system of logic he named Existential Graphs (EG). Early in my studies, I had read comments by scholars who proposed that EG was merely an interesting historical curiosity (for example, Martin Gardner, Logic Machines and Diagrams McGraw-Hill: New York, 1958). But as I became more familiar with Peirce’s entire work, I saw that he didn’t share that judgment, for he used EG in many contexts after he had invented it in 1897, and he continued to speak highly of it throughout his career. Thus, I resolved to learn the system, and to try to see why Peirce valued it so highly that in a letter to James in 1909 (MS L224) he called it the “logic of the future.” My study is still continuing, and in this short space, I can only report in outline form on progress made. More, unfortunately, I will not have time to present fully even the first part of EG. But, if philosophy is a science, as Peirce urged that it is, perhaps my report of hypotheses proposed--confirmed or disconfirmed, or still under study--will be of some value to the wider community of philosophical scientists.