The philosophical thought of Charles Sanders Peirce can be considered as the upshot of a mediation between the peculiar biography of his author and the historical context in which it developed. Rather then being a purely abstract system of ideas, Peirce's system was a living symbol that grew and evolved in constant relation to a precise cultural framework. Without a taking into consideration the biography, the historical context and Peirce's scientific activity it is therefore almost impossible to understand Peirce's philosophy. Biography, historical context and scientific activity are three indispensable coordinates to understand the complexity and the originality of Peirce's thought.

In the last years, many valuable work were realized in order to cover those three aspects.  Yet, what is still lacking is a series of instruments of research that give the possibility to coordinates all these results into a practical instrument that can function as a map to guide the students and the researchers through all the material that has been already published.

One of the aims of the CSP is to help in developing those kind of instruments, realizing synoptic tables to coordinates the biographical, the historical and the scientific references of Peirce's life. Like all the other projects of the CSP, also the Chronological one is basically conceived inside an open-source spirit. This means two things: first, that the project will be evolving in the incoming future and that other versions will be realized of the three tables; second, that corrections and suggestion coming from the other researchers are strongly encouraged and they are expected to play, after being  approved by the CSP, an important part in the development of the whole project.