Peirce's Theory of Perception: Three Problems for the Realist Reading

Prominent commentators have held that, though Peirce was in early works a staunch advocate of realism as against nominalism about universals, with the development of his mature theory of perception he committed himself to a form of realism as against idealism about the external world. I expound three claims Peirce makes in offering his mature theory of perception that are difficult for this realist reading to explain: first, his claim that the only non-ego to which the ego is related in perception is the future ego; second, that the reality of the external world means nothing more than our experience of Secondness, projected into the future; third, that our experience is immediately of external objects only because such objects are composite photographs of percepts, and so are mere psychical products. In advance of a satisfying realist explanation (away) of these claims, they call the realist reading into serious question.