Peirce Mattering: Value, Realism, and the Pragmatic Maxim

“Mattering” is the process and product of reality. It is one from nothing. Using Charles Sanders Peirce’s systematic method of inquiry, Dorothea Sophia explores the meaning, the value, and the consequences of “mattering”: to be able to say, beyond reasonable doubt, “it matters,” and that being on an evolving, developing telos, “it is mattering.” Peirce Mattering: Value, Realism, and the Pragmatic Maxim develops a three-part hypothesis of “mattering”: value functions as a condition of intelligibility—purpose, as the ground of “mattering” is dependent on value; power—the capacity to cause—is the enabler of force functioning as actual “mattering”; and “mattering” is evolutionary realization of universal telos. This book argues that championing one’s rights, with disregard for consequences—even for probabilities—and disowning responsibility has come to mean that choice, the hallmark of human freedom, is increasingly circumscribed, as are our chances of saving our world from ecocide.