Jeffrey, I don't think this is the passage you have in mind, but it seems to be related: CP 4.219 (c. 1897): [[ Briefly to explain myself, then, geometry or rather mathematical geometry, which deals with pure hypotheses, and unlike physical geometry, does not investigate the properties of objectively valid space - mathematical geometry, I say, consists of three branches; Topics (commonly called Topology), Graphics (or pure projective geometry), and Metrics. But metrics ought not to be regarded as pure geometry. It is the doctrine of the properties of such bodies as have a certain hypothetical property called absolute rigidity, and all such bodies are found to slide upon a certain individual surface called the Absolute. This Absolute, because it possesses individual existence, may properly be called a thing. ]]
Perhaps this Absolute is what the sheet of assertion (in Peirce's Existential Graphs) is an "undeveloped photograph" of. But in MS 7, Peirce may also be alluding to the Hegelian Absolute; and I'm not sure how that is related to the mathematical conception. Also relevant is EP 2:1 (Immortality in the Light of Synechism): [[ I carry the doctrine so far as to maintain that continuity governs the whole domain of experience in every element of it. Accordingly, every proposition, except so far as it relates to an unattainable limit of experience (which I call the Absolute,) is to be taken with an indefinite qualification; for a proposition which has no relation whatever to experience is devoid of all meaning. ]] gary f. -----Original Message----- From: Jeffrey Brian Downard [mailto:jeffrey.down...@nau.edu] Sent: 5-Apr-14 11:11 PM List, In MS7, Peirce says: "But, fifthly, even if there were no pope, still, like all other signs sufficiently complete, there is a single definite object to which it must refer; namely, to the 'Truth,' or the Absolute, or the entire Universe of real being. Sixthly, a sign may refer, in addition, and specially, to any number of parts of that universe." In another passage (which I'm having trouble locating tonight), he claims that the function of the conception of reality in our experience is entirely analogous to the function of the absolute in a projective geometry. What do you make of the analogy? --Jeff
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