It appears, then, that the rule for attaining the third grade of clearness of apprehension is as follows: Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.
Seven ways of looking at the pragmatic maxim
Peirce stated the pragmatic maxim in many different ways over the years, each of which adds its own bit of clarity or correction to their collective corpus.
The first excerpt appears in the form of a dictionary entry, intended as a definition of pragmatism as an opinion favoring application of the pragmatic maxim as a recommendation about how to clarify meaning.
The second excerpt presents the pragmatic maxim as a recommendation to you, the addressee, on how you can clarify your conception, then restates it in the indicative, in a way that emphasizes the generalism of pragmatism:
The third excerpt puts a gloss on the meaning of a practical bearing and provides an alternative statement of the maxim. Such reasoning, and all reasonings turn upon the idea that one who exerts certain kinds of volition will undergo, in return, certain compulsory perceptions. Now this sort of consideration—that certain lines of conduct entail certain kinds of inevitable experiences—is called a practical consideration. This justifies the maxim as a practical belief, that:
The fourth excerpt illustrates one of Peirce's many attempts to get the sense of the pragmatic philosophy across by rephrasing the pragmatic maxim. Introducing this version, he addresses prospective critics who do not believe a simple heuristic maxim, much less one that concerns itself with a routine matter of logical procedure, forms a sufficient basis for a whole philosophy. He suggests they might feel he makes pragmatism "a mere maxim of logic instead of a sublime principle of speculative philosophy." For better philosophical standing, he endeavors to put pragmatism into the same form of a philosophical theorem:
The fifth excerpt is useful by way of additional clarification, and is aimed to correct a variety of historical misunderstandings that arose with regard to the intended meaning of the pragmatic maxim. For a source of such misunderstanding, Peirce points to his younger self.
A sixth excerpt is useful in stating the bearing of the pragmatic maxim on the topic of reflection, namely, that it makes all of pragmatism boil down to nothing more or less than a method of reflection.
The seventh excerpt is a late reflection on the reception of pragmatism. With a sense of exasperation that is almost palpable, Peirce tries to justify the maxim of pragmatism and to correct its misreadings by pinpointing a number of false impressions that the intervening years have piled on it, and he attempts once more to prescribe against the deleterious effects of these mistakes. Recalling the very conception and birth of pragmatism, he reviews its initial promise and its intended lot in the light of its subsequent vicissitudes and its apparent fate. Adopting the style of a post mortem analysis, he presents a veritable autopsy of the ways that the main idea of pragmatism, for all its practicality, can be murdered by a host of misdissecting disciplinarians, by what are ostensibly its most devoted followers. He proceeds here to retract a philosophical confession—in the fifth excerpt —which he wrote in 1902 about his 1878 original presentation of pragmatism.
