Peirce's Scientific Metaphysics: The Philosophy of Chance, Law, and Evolution (review)

Andrew Reynolds' Peirce's Scientific Metaphysics: The Philosophy of Chance, Law, and Evolution is an exploration of Peirce's cosmology geared toward "the more technical issues that are of importance from the standpoint of the history and philosophy of science" (1). Setting his study against the available secondary literature—which Reynolds sees as approaching the cosmology via "more abstract and broadly philosophical issues"—Reynolds makes his way through Peirce's cosmological writings through detailed examinations of the physics, statistics, and biology of Peirce's lifetime.

To this end many familiar themes in Peirce's philosophy are downplayed: Peirce's theory of signs is relegated to one paragraph (63); the categories are little used beyond Reynolds' remark that Peirce's discussion of them is "inconsistent" insofar as "Secondness is sometimes said to include the phenomenon of lawful behavior" while at other times refers to "the feature of brute reaction between two things" (19-20, et al.); the normative sciences of aesthetics, ethics, and logic are only briefly mentioned (111); and so on. In their place one finds extended discussions intended to "spell out some of the technical details of the physics and statistics relevant to Peirce's scientific metaphysics" (4). And while one can only applaud the attention Reynolds gives to the relation between Peirce and figures such as James Clerk Maxwell and Ludwig Boltzmann, the advantages of this approach are less clear in other cases. Stephen J. Gould (21, 106) and Richard Dawkins (183, 200), for instance, are each mentioned more often than Duns Scotus (10), whose neglect in Reynolds' study is peculiar given Peirce's assertion that Scotus' logic and metaphysics, together with other concepts from the history of science and mathematics, "go far toward supplying the philosophy which is best to harmonize with physical science" (CP 1.06).

Chapter 1, "Philosophic and Scientific Background," presents a summary sketch of the cosmology, setting it at the crossroads of evolutionary theory, German Naturphilosophie, and the rise of statistical and probabilistic thinking in the nineteenth century. Reynolds introduces synechism, tychism, and agapism as Peirce's alternatives to the then-popular doctrines of agnosticism, necessitarianism, and mechanical philosophy.

Chapters 2-4 take as their starting points irreversible processes in physics, psychology, and biology. Chapter 2, "Irreversibility in Physics," provides an examination of nineteenth century physics designed to show how Peirce's disapproval of the mechanical philosophy grew out of his deep understanding of the principles of mechanics. Drawing largely upon Peirce's 1892 The Law of Mind, the third chapter, "Irreversibility in Psychics," reconstructs Peirce's argument that an irreversible flow of time results from the law of mind. As an aside Reynolds presents the modern theory of neural networks as an illustration of the individual mind as an integrated system of feelings (though Reynolds could strengthen his case here by mentioning Warren McCulloch—co-author, with Walter Pitts, of the seminal 1943 paper A Logical Calculus of Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity—as the mediating link between the theory of neural networks and Peirce's philosophy). The fourth chapter, "Irreversibility in Physiology and Evolution," contains a reading of the use Peirce makes of the molecular theory of protoplasm (gleaned largely from his 1892 Man's Glassy Essence) and a discussion of Peirce's relation to the various evolutionary theories of his time.

Reynolds contrasts Peirce's approach with other nineteenth century cosmological speculation in the fifth chapter, "Cosmology and Synechism." Following Peirce's lead, Reynolds presents a threefold division of general types of cosmology, here labeled as Elliptic, Parabolic, and Hyperbolic philosophies. The so-called "Heat Death" of the universe and the cosmology of Epicurus belong to Elliptic philosophy, as each present an aimlessly developing universe. A Parabolic philosophy presents the universe returning to the very state from which it set out, while within a Hyperbolic philosophy "[r]eason marches from premisses to conclusion; nature has [an] ideal end different...