ABSTRACT
Charles Sanders Peirce conceived of perception as some kind of inference; for him, perception is an extreme case of abductive inference since it involves an interpretive hypothesis concerning the perceived object. William James’s aim was to prove that perception and inference are forms of association of ideas that differ from each other in important respects. James must provide a correct elucidation of unconscious inference, but in order to do so it is necessary to make explicit the features characterizing inference more generally. The interpretation of the perceptual process as a form of inference was a fundamental thesis in the psycho-physiology of Helmholtz and his school, whose work was well known to both James and Peirce. Peirce holds that James’s argument is circular or self-refuting. The advantage of assimilating the associative process to an inference lies in its intelligibility, but, according to Peirce, James is opposed to the logical approach.
