CORCORAN ON C I LEWIS LOGICIAN

CORCORAN ON C I LEWIS LOGICIANJohn Corcoran. 2006. C. I. Lewis: History and Philosophy of Logic. Transactions of the C. S. Peirce Society. 42, 1–9C. I. Lewis (1883-1964) was the first major figure in history and philosophy of logic – a field that now recognized as a separate specialty after years of work by Ivor Grattan-Guinness and others. The publication of Murray Murphey’s masterful intellectual biography C. I. Lewis: the Last Great Pragmatist (Albany: SUNY Press, 2005) is occasion to reexamine Lewis’s contribution to the field. This commentary discusses Murphey’s excellent treatment of Lewis’s logic and contribution to history and philosophy of logic. It also complements Murphey’s book by interrelating Lewis’s ideas and connecting them with those of others.