Arrested Development: On Instinct and Reasoning in C. S. Peirce’s Philosophy

According to the founder of pragmatism Charles S. Peirce, instinct and reasoning complement each other as cognitive tools. Peirce’s idea of instinct shows close affinity to other key components in his architectonic (such as habit and symbol), for it contains generality and is determined to a quasi-purpose. However, it is often studied in relation to il lume naturale, musement, and abductive inference as well, because it provides compressed meanings to serve as premises for further thought and action and in definite respects it escapes all control. Moreover, Peirce conceived science as a development of instinct and proposed an elaborate classification of human instincts. This paper aims to delve into the interaction between instinct and reasoning as conceived by Peirce by elaborating on his hypothesis that the rational mind evolved out of the instinctive mind by a process of arrested development, in which the encounter with error seems to have a major role. The proposed continuum of development from instinct to reasoning, however, seems contradictory to the established interpretation of Peirce’s evolutionary cosmogony and his semiotic doctrine as tracing significant relations in the order of ascending generality. Are our refined cognitive abilities of ratiocination infantile compared with the unerring capacity of instinct? Could the rational mind be the result of a lucky digress in the evolution of semiosis? Is our capacity for intellectual blundering a curse or a blessing? Problems such as those need to be tackled when considering the interplay between—as well as the very possibility for—instinctive and inferential cognition.