List: (NB: This post contains many technical terms which are used within the rhetoric of chemistry but not acceptable to many philosophers.)
On Nov 1, 2014, at 4:42 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard wrote: > At root, what Peirce seems to see is that the underlying organization of the > periodic chart is driven more by the question of what kinds of bonds can be > formed between different kinds of elements and less by the series of of > atomic numbers. (I concur with some connotations of this comment.) Just a historical note responding to the denotations of this assertion that are of substantial importance to CSP's logic and the chemical sciences and its relevance to the book "Natural Propositions" in general. One must distinguish between chemical terms as representations of sets of well-documented facts and physical measurements from their role in philosophical rhetoric. This comment focuses on the distinction between the physical concept of "mass" and the physical concept of "electricity" in relation to CSP's invention of the "triadic triad" as a scientific mode of representation in light of recent problematic assertions to this list. As a logic term "chemical element" specifies a unique form of matter. It is irreducible to any other member of the table of elements. (But it is separable, in physical terminology, into electrical parts, nuclei and electrons.) The term, "atomic number" is an integer modified by an adjective. It suffices to distinguish gold from lead from copper from.... But it DOES NOT suffice to distinguish chemical isomers or chemical handedness. As a number, it specifies an linear ordering relations among the complete set of chemical elements. Every chemical element has an atomic number and every atomic number specifies a chemical element with a proper name. The atomic number may specify any one of several isotopes of a chemical element. The term originates from physics, not from chemistry. Each isotope of an atomic number has the same atomic number but differs by the mass of the nucleus, that is, as a predicate. The term "atomic number" was invented to explain the electrical structure of the names of a chemical elements. This was first introduced by Moseley ( a student of the Nobel Laureate, Rutherford). The concept of a linear order of chemical elements that is consistent with a tabular order of electrical parts was not firmly established by physicists/chemists until the 1920s, long after CSP past in1914. It is the atomic numbers that were used as the basis of quantum mechanics by Schrodinger and hence the modern logic of chemical analysis and chemical synthesis (In CSP terminology, the numerical relations between Qualisigns, sinsigns and legisigns.). Certainly, CSP was concerned about the nature of the fusion of atoms into molecules (see his comments on "interpenetration"), but, historically, he could not have considered the electrical nature of the parts of the atom in terms of numbers of electrical particles. Thus, as stated, Jeff's assertion lacks historical veracity. This is verifiable by studying CSP's brief (in the 1890's) about his calculations for a table of elements, which shows a series of columns suggested by similar valences. Compare with the tabular form of the current table of elements which establishes a linear order, not merely a set of similar columns compared by mass, not electricity. Consequently, CSP attempted to use the concept of mass (as real numbers) as the basis for his logic of chemistry, rather than the discrete numbers of electrical particles that are the basis quantum physics. Does this contribute to CSP's avoidance of the concept of electricity in his description of signs in general and his failed attempts with alpha, beta and gamma graphs? While this subtle distinction may seem trivial to philosophers and those of a physical bent, it plays a critical role in the logic of the mathematical proof of structure (that is, the propositions that link sinsigns to icons and the propositions that link icons to rhema and the propositions that link both indices and rhema to dicisigns and hence to propositional arguments.) In Chapter three of NP, FS elects to skirt these mathematical and logical distinctions and seeks to create a grammatical basis (Decisigns/predicates) and hence a grammatical basis for chemical causality. This philosophy is scientifically problematic, at least to me. Does the FS theory of " Natural Propositions" face the challenge of constructing a proof of the iconic structures of molecules from grammatical beliefs alone? Cheers jerry
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