“如何区分推理的好坏”历来为逻辑学的核心关怀。不同于当代学者倾向于把逻辑教科书上的推理规则或逻辑真理直接用作人类推理“规范”的做法，皮尔士的学说有两个特色：（1）评估推理实践有效与否，要始终结合“探知求真”目的，区分推理方式，看其声称遵从什么样的习惯；（2）为推理规范的正当性辩护，要求我们从逻辑学转到伦理学等其他规范科学，即逻辑学无法自己照顾自己。这两点是皮尔士逻辑学之作为推理规范理论的根本承诺，也正是这些承诺使其避开了当代逻辑哲学上的“理论选择”难题。

How to differentiate between good and bad inferences has long been a central concern within the discipline of logic. In contrast to contemporary scholars who tend to adopt the inference rules or logical truths found in logic textbooks as normative guidelines for human inference, C. S. Peirce’s philosophical framework has two distinct characteristics: (1) the assessment of the validity of inferential practices must consistently align with the pursuit of truth-seeking goals, involving a scrutiny of the reasoning methodologies according to their professed adherence to specific patterns of reasoning; (2) the defense of normative standards for inference necessitates a transition from logic to other normative disciplines, such as ethics, signaling the inability of logic to take care of itself. These represent the basic commitments of Peirce’s logic as a normative theory of inference, and it is due to these commitments that Peirce successfully circumvents the inherent challenges posed by the problem of “theory choice” in contemporary philosophy of logic.