Some Peircian Contributions to the Epistemology of Social Sciences
The article aims at showing that two basic notions of Peirce’s theoretical development provide us with a kind of epistemological basis for the interpretive sciences, including the relevant social sciences. The notion of semiosis with its interactive character on one side, and the three categories on the other side (firstness, secondness and thirdness), when closely connected, show us how any knowledge is constructed in interaction with signs, especially at the social level. Many of the social sciences can count as interpretive, the ones that precisely understand themselves that way. Furthermore, a third Peircian idea, that of “practics” as a normative science for action, when distinguished from ethics that could be understood as the teaching of morality, certainly plays an important part to theorize action, which is important for the social sciences, and was quite developed notably in the 20th century. This article cannot really explore the historical file of that development, but tries to show by arguments how Peirce’s triadic thinking logically leads us to the social sciences.