Abstract

Peirce believed that his pragmaticism can be conclusively proven. Beginning in 1903, he drafted several attempts, ending by 1908 with a semeiotic proof. Around 1905, he exposes the proof using the theory of Existential Graphs (EGs). This paper modernizes the semantics Peirce proposed for EGs in terms of game-theoretic semantics (GTS). Peirce's 1905 proof is then reconstructed in three parts, by (1) relating pragmaticism to the GTS conception of meaning, (2) showing that Peirce's proof is an argument for a relational structure of the meaning of intellectual signs that our interpretative and strategic practices give rise to, and (3) bringing out the key links between EGs and pragmaticism.