Charles Peirce's place in philosophy

Peirce's publications on the method of scientific investigation (as distinct from his work in formal logic and mathematics) are his most important and valuable contributions to philosophy. His views on this subject are superior in clarity and cogency to his voluminous writings on metaphysics and cosmology. He subscribed to a fallibilistic conception of knowledge that is poles apart from a wholesale skepticism; his formulations of the conditions for meaningful discourse and of the pragmatic maxim, though not free from difficulties, have been fruitful sources of much subsequent philosophical and scientific analyses; and his classification of and discussions of types of argument or reasoning employed in scientific inquiry continue to be valuable and insightful clarifications of this important subject. In contrast to his account of scientific method, Peirce's evolutionary theory of ultimate reality, though marked by originality and ingenious speculation, has little merit as a contribution to genuine knowledge.