This book is a much-needed compendium of Peirce’s phenomenology, a subject which had received little scholarly attention, unlike Peirce’s semiotics and pragmatism. Charles S. Peirce’s Phenomenology is a successful endeavour that puts together Peirce’s account of phenomenology in a sequential, logical way, drawing from original sources such as conferences, papers, books and previously unpublished material.

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) is an important American philosopher of the early 20^th century, who, arguably, laid the foundations for modern pragmatism; abduction (also known as ‘inference to the best explanation’); and semiotics, the study of symbols. Peirce’s phenomenology has received little attention, as Richard Kenneth points out, because it was merely seen as a stepping stone to his other philosophical studies; however, this extraordinary book rescues the value of Peirce’s analysis, presenting it in a transparent way.

Charles S. Peirce’s phenomenology is both an explanation of Peirce’s thought and an account of his innovative, but perhaps anti-intuitive, take on phenomenology. According to Peirce, every event happening consciously can be objective and quantifiable. This assertion is definitely worth more attention, in general terms, but it’s important to highlight here that Kenneth’s book is designed for a particular audience. Although the book’s theme is consciousness and phenomenology, its target audiences are professional philosophers and Philosophy students. I would be wary of its adequacy for therapists and psychologists, even if they are already familiar with phenomenology; but the reason for my wariness comes mainly from Peirce’s thought itself. Peirce was a systematic thinker, but this presents the disadvantage of having to understand a whole background in order to follow the logic of a particular idea. And, unfortunately, Peirce’s prose is hard to understand because of his erratic writing style; and this is worsened by the fact that he tends to coin his own terminology. Therefore, Peirce’s analysis of phenomenology is extremely valuable, but it requires patience from the reader because one must be willing to engage with his other philosophical concepts first and to deal with his neologisms. But then, this is when Richard Kenneth’s contribution comes handy.      

The main virtue of this book is extremely rare: it is a crystal-clear explanation of Peirce’s account. Richard Kenneth Atkins has the clarity of thought that comes from an impeccable expertise in Peirce’s work, and even more, he has the gift of transmitting Peirce’s ideas with accuracy, leaving no room for ambiguous interpretations. Richard Kenneth’s book is the ideal starting point for philosophy students interested in Peirce and his phenomenology because of its didactic approach, and I suspect that the first four chapters are potentially helpful to teach Peirce’s logic to undergraduate students.

The book’s aim is to show how Peirce visualises his idea of an objective phenomenology, one where all the elements of consciousness, like sensations and colours, can be described with an objective vocabulary. Using Peirce’s phenomenological account, one could ultimately give arguments to why, and in what sense, seeing the colour scarlet is like hearing a trumpet. In order to develop such phenomenological theory, Peirce takes the Kantian categories and adapts them to his triadic propositions. From this basis, it follows that qualitative and quantitative descriptions are available for any element of consciousness. After these quantitative descriptions are explained, the book ends neatly with Richard Kenneth’s discussion on how contemporary studies of synaesthesia provide an incentive to adopt Peirce’s account of consciousness.     

Although I had studied Peirce’s work before, there were many concepts in which I got a better understanding with this book. Namely, I think that Richard Kenneth did the right choice in dedicating the first part of the fourth chapter in discussing the differences between Peirce’s phenomenology and William James’s; it was really illuminating. And, although I am not quite convinced that phenomenology can be completely qualified and quantified through Peirce’s account, I agree with the author in the fact that serious attempts of doing so can definitely draw from it.     

Finally, I’d like to say that I never thought Peirce’s ideas could be put in such a didactic and clear way, until now, and I’m so glad that Richard Kenneth proved this could be done. Charles S. Peirce’s Phenomenology is a must-have for phenomenologists, Peirce’s scholars and Philosophy students alike.    

© 2019 Aline Maya Paredes