ABSTRACT
We have still to consider in detail Peirce’s explicit metaphysical and cosmological views. It will be useful to do so because they take us to the heart of his philosophy and because it seems to me that even the best of Peirce’s commentators, in some important respects, have misunderstood them. An exception is Joseph Brent. As he implies in his biography, one cannot properly understand Peirce’s central views unless one appreciates that they belong to what Leibniz called the Perennial Philosophy. This is a set of ideas which around 500 BC were found throughout the main civilisations of the world, which had an immense influence on Greek culture and, through it, on European culture in general. One finds these ideas expressed, for example, in the opening lines of Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching.
