Peirce and Arendt in Dialogue: Insights for Pragmatist Sociological Theories of Inquiry and Action

Bridget Ritz, University of Notre Dame

Charles S. Peirce and Hannah Arendt are both major figures in American social thought, yet their work has never been put into direct dialogue. Their shared status as brilliant thinkers, along with the range and depth of the resonances between their work, warrants exploring what a dialogue between them might yield. In this paper, I argue that appreciating the points of resonance between Peirce’s and Arendt’s thought helps reveal limitations and opportunities in contemporary pragmatist approaches to inquiry and action—both central themes in the pragmatist tradition. I make my case primarily through a comparative exegesis of Arendt’s “Thinking and Moral Considerations,” a lecture which indexes some of the major themes in her last major but relatively little known work, the Life of the Mind, and Peirce’s “The Fixation of Belief,” one of his earliest major and among his most well-known writings. I argue that Peirce and Arendt share similar insights regarding doubt as provoking inquiry/thinking, as paralyzing action, and as insufficient for carrying inquiry or thinking through. I discuss how reading Peirce and Arendt together 1) draws attention to the fact that inquiry is contingent and precarious, 2) problematizes the centrality and way of conceptualizing action typical in contemporary pragmatist theory, and 3) points to the value of considering inquiry as oriented not to action per se but rather the development of good habits and judgment.

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 Presented in Session 64. Theorizing and Morality in Historical Social Science II: Time, Space, and Process