Stephen C. Pepper was an American philosopher (1891-1972) who worked and wrote primarily in the tradition of pragmatism. While his ideas join a number of important issues in modern thought (e.g. social sources of knowledge, mind, logic, ethics, valuation) and his principal work was in aesthetics, he is probably best known for his book, World Hypotheses: a study in evidence (U. of California Press, 1942). In World Hypotheses Pepper develops a "root metaphor method" and outlines what he considers to be four basically adequate world hypotheses (world views or conceptual systems): formism, mechanism, contextualism, and organicism. He identifies the strengths and weaknesses of each of the world hypotheses as well as the paradoxical and sometimes mystifying effects of the effort to synthesize them. In his later work, he formulated what he considered to be a fifth world hypothesis, "selectivism." Pepper's method involves the identification in common-sense of a metaphor, or what Lakoff and Johnson call a "subcategorization", which has roughly ordered experience and then indicates how the attributes of the metaphor are refined into a self-conscious system of categories and principles of evidence which intend to capture reality. The conceptual clarity won by the root metaphor method and the analysis of world hypotheses was applied by Pepper to a number of important questions which include: the nature of mind, the history of science, the hierarchical and interdependent relationship between common sense and systematic empirical disciplines, including the relationship between common sense and formal self-referential modes of thought such as formal logic and mathematics. At the heart of Pepper's philosophy was an interest in values. From this perspective he offers a unique and imaginative approach to problems in ethics and aesthetics. For a brief intellectual biography of Stephen Pepper see Art Efron's: Pepper's Continuing Value .
 
 

Pepper is not as well known internationally as the masters of pragmatism, Charles S. Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, or even George Herbert Mead, but he has had widespread influence in many disciplines. For example, in 1982, Prof. Arthur Efron organized a conference at the University of Buffalo to consider Pepper's idea of how conceptual systems evolve in practice from a basic or root metaphor. Many scholars participated from a wide range of disciplines and with a multitude of theoretical and practical interests. (Proceedings are published in Journal of Mind and Behavior , vol. 3, nos. 3 & 4, 1982.) We would expect an even greater range of disciplines, conceptual perspectives, and interests to find this web page useful as it matures and includes more material. We also expect that those who find this website useful may want to participate in the closely associated Pepper discussion group (information on how to subscribe to the Pepper list is presented below). We are convinced that Pepper's work continues to be rich, suggestive, and clarifying -- its ongoing critical consideration is important. Our hope is that this website in conjunction with the Pepper-list can contribute to that enterprise.

The website will provide, within the limits of its resources, an archive of scholarship related to the work of Stephen C. Pepper and links to other sites on the internet which may be of interest to persons working on Pepper or using Pepper's ideas in their work. The Homepage as of now (3/98) is just a beginning and should undergo revision and improvement as the months pass. Your suggestions are, of course, very welcome.

PAPERS RELATED TO S. C. PEPPER:

Work Related to Pepper
Work by Pepper

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