An Empiricism with High Metaphysical Ambitions: On Short's Charles Peirce and Modern Science

T.L. Short's Charles Peirce and Modern Science, in which he discusses Peirce's inti - mate relation to modern science, simultane - ously functions as Short's own philosophical testament. Short's overall argument is that Peirce takes inquiry to be the main defi - nition of science, implying that all other definition attempts or central issues of sci - ence are but products of inquiry: methods, experiments, observations, conclusions, results, syntheses, theory buildings, system constructions, laws, predictions, metaphys - ical assumptions, scientific values, etc. On this basis, Short develops central Peircean ideas such as inquiry into inquiry, phe - nomenology, and his "normative sciences" as elements of a reinvigorated and meta - physically ambitious version of empiricism. In this process, however, certain problems appear, such as Short's tendency to refute any relevance in scientific investigations of systematicity, the a priori, the strive for conclusions and results.