Direct Inspection and Phaneroscopic Analysis

Peirce limits the sorts of analyses involved in phaneroscopy (his preferred name for phenomenology) to logical analysis and to analysis by direct inspection. Although many excellent works have addressed the role of logical analysis in phaneroscopy, very little has been written on Peirce’s conception of analysis by direct inspection. Drawing on “The Basis of Pragmatism [in Phaneroscopy]” and a little noted passage in Peirce’s Logic Notebook, I show that Peirce thought there were four kinds of analysis by inspection—organic, attentional, comparative, and experimental. Understanding these four kinds of analysis sheds light on what analysis by direct inspection involves and helps to resolve a significant challenge to Peirce’s attempt to isolate instances of Firstness in the phaneron.