Semiotic and Significs: The Correspondence between Charles S. Peirce and Lady Victoria Welby (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 487 Charles S. Peirce. Semiotic and Significs: The Correspondence between Charles S. Peirce and Victoria Lady Welby. Edited by Charles S. Hardwick. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1977. Pp. xxxiv + 201. $12.50. The original edition of Peirce's letters to Lady Welby, edited and published by Irwin Lieb in 1953, has been out of print for some years, and the present edition makes a much needed contribution to the now rapidly expanding collection of Peirce materials that is becoming readily accessible to the interested scholar. Whereas the original collection included only Peirce's letters to Lady Welby, the current edition has been expanded to include the complete correspondence of 1903-11 between Peirce and Lady Welby. The editor's justification for this expansion is well taken, for it enhances the value of the book, not just by providing an insight into Lady Welby's views on significs, or the science of meaning, but even more so by placing Peirce's letters in their proper context, thereby adding to the reader's understanding of the content of Peirce's letters. In addition to the correspondence, there are seven appendices. Although all of them are of general interest, perhaps the two most important ones are Appendix B, which is Lieb's account of Peirce's classification of signs as appended to the earlier edition of the Peirce letters , and Appendix C, which is Lady Welby's essay on "Significs" as originally published in the Encyclopedia Britannica. The serious reader may do well to study this latter essay before turning to the correspondence, for it provides a backdrop from which Lady Welby's letters take on added philosophical intelligibility. This essay, plus Hardwick's brief but well presented overview of her position, leaves the reader well equipped to approach Lady Welby's letters. In the introduction, Hardwick does not attempt to outline Peirce's theory of signs, but he does give a brief discussion that attempts to place Peirce's semiotic within the general context of his thought. In light of the accounts of Peirce's interest in semiotic and Lady Welby's interest in significs, Hardwick briefly indicates why Peirce was so readily drawn to Lady Welby's work. The editor accurately points out several valuable aspects of the correspondence. He considers that the letters serve as a good general introduction to Peirce's semiotic, as well as give one the "impression that Peirce is dealing with semiotic from a fresh point of view." Within a historical context, they point toward ways in which Peirce's thought may have been influential in shaping the views of some of the British philosohers, for Lady Welby played an important role in introducing Peirce's later work on theory of signs to some important British philosophers . Finally, the letters serve to reveal interesting facets of Peirce's personality. All of these valuable attributes are indeed to be found in the body of correspondence. However , there is a further value to be found that Hardwick does not mention, one that accommodates , indeed perhaps demands, the attention of the well-entrenched Peirce scholar. In reading Peirce's letters one finds statements of his position presented in ways differing from his statements of the issues to be found elsewhere. Thus, the letters can provide the serious scholar with elusive but important glimmerings of possible ways of interpreting some of the ambiguities of Peirce's more formal writings. Hardwick makes no real attempt in the introduction to penetrate the details of the philosophic content of the letters, and this is probably all to the good, for the letters, in their richness of diversity, can best speak for themselves. The correspondence presents an ongoing chronicle of developing thought that speaks to the beginning student of Peirce but also to the established scholar; to the reader looking for technical insights into Peirce's philosophy, as well as to the reader wanting to gain a "feel" not for Peirce the philosopher but for Peirce the individual. Further, it speaks not only to those interested in semiotic; for the philosophic contents of Peirce's letters reflect a characteristic of his philosophic thought in general: individual ideas emerge within the...