Hi Franklin, Thanks for your reply. I was not objecting to *comparisons* being made between the breadth and depth of various scientific terms, of the richness you so ably describe. My objection was to applying a *metric* to that, which effectively puts it on a linear scale of more or less information. For that, it seems one must require some way of quantifying the information in a proposition, say, between zero (no information) and 1 (total information). And I can't see how that could be done.
The claim that propositions themselves can't be counted I took from Peirce. I just had a look through the CP but couldn't locate it, but I did find the quotes below which are related. You also asked: "Even an artifically generated term such as 'red' and 'cow' will still partake of the surprisingness of 'cow' and 'red' taken on their own." What does surprisingness have to do with what we're discussing? Just the fact of continued inquiry that you were talking about, which runs on abduction, which runs on surprise. Cheers, Cathy 2.706: If I am permitted the extended sense which I have given to the word "induction," this argument is simply an induction respecting qualities instead of respecting things. In point of fact *P*', *P*'', *P*''', etc., constitute a random sample of the characters of *M*, and the ratio *r *of them being found to belong to *S*, the same ratio of all the characters of *M *are concluded to belong to *S*. This kind of argument, however, as it actually occurs, differs very much from induction, owing to the impossibility of simply counting qualities as individual things are counted. Characters have to be weighed rather than counted. Thus, antimony is bluish-gray: that is a character. Bismuth is a sort of rose-gray; it is decidedly different from antimony in color, and yet not so very different as gold, silver, copper, and tin are. also in 5.169 he says: "mere possibilities are not capable of being counted" On Mon, Apr 20, 2015 at 12:14 AM, Franklin Ransom < pragmaticist.lo...@gmail.com> wrote: > Cathy, lists, > > Well, look at this way: It is possible for there to be objects in the > senses which are yet not perceived, because we do not yet have any idea of > what it is to which we are looking. It takes a hypothesis to introduce a > new idea to us to explain what it is, which hypothesis we can then put to > the test. In order to do so, we must determine what kinds of characters to > look for (deduction helps here) and then look for existent objects > (induction) to learn whether the purported relations between characters > obtain in fact, and in this way we come to understand the thing which we > are experiencing. It is of course induction which gives us more > information; abduction simply gives us the idea which needs to become > informed, and deduction is merely explicative, based on relating the idea > to other ideas and previously gathered information regarding those ideas. > > Obviously, we cannot conduct induction without end, because that is a > practical impossibility. Our 'sum', as you put it, far from being always an > infinity, will very likely never be an infinity in practice, in whatever > sense you mean to understand the application of infinity to a 'sum' of > information. Of course, as an ideal, where science, the community of > inquiry as such, continues to investigate, it is possible for the > information of an idea to reach a much greater 'sum' than would otherwise > be possible for individuals such as you or me. But it is a commonplace of > science that ideas that work and continue to work are understood more > thoroughly in their relations to other ideas over the course on inquiry. > This means of course that not only the breadth, but also the depth of the > idea continues to grow. As a result, typically, rather than tending to make > comparisons moot, we start to see a hierarchy of ideas and related sciences > appear. > > Consider this passage: "The former [Cows] is a natural class, the latter > [Red Cows] is not. Now one predicate more may be attached to Red Cows than > to Cows; hence Mr. Mill's attempts to analyze the difference between > natural and artificial classes is seen to be a failure. For, according to > him, the difference is that a real kind is distinguished by unknown > multitudes of properties while an artificial class has only a few > determinate ones. Again there is an unusual degree of accordance among > naturalists in making Vertebrates a natural class. Yet the number of > predicates proper to it is comparatively small" (NP, p.238, quoting > Peirce). We can see here that further simplifications are introduced, so > taking what is learned about various vertebrates, a new idea, that of > vertebrates, appears which simplifies the characters involved. Conversely, > species under vertebrates will become much more determinate in terms of > their characters, but be simplified with respect to their extension. > > You said above: "Under synechism every real object has an infinite number > of attributes, and every meaningful predicate or general term effectively > has an infinite number of aspects, so a simple multiplication of B x D is > pointless." And yet natural kinds appear, in which certain attributes, > predicates, or aspects appear significant, and others do not. It is > precisely the work of abduction to simplify what is observed so that what > is essential is grasped, and not simply a never-ending multitude of > characters. Such simplification is always with respect to a purpose. With > respect to natural kinds, such purpose, or telos, is objective, and we see > nature all around us selecting certain characters over others as more > significant. If this were not true, natural science would be impossible. As > to real objects, yes they have an infinite number, but not all of them are > relevant to the purpose of interaction with the real object. Certain > meaningful attributes are selected for in attention in order to aid conduct > with respect to some purpose at hand. Information relevant to that purpose > is what is sought for. > > I do have a couple of questions for you: > > For one, would you explain the idea that propositions can't be counted? I > would suppose that when conducting an experiment, the number of times a > fact is determined relates to developing a frequency ratio, which means > that propositions can be counted in this case, when they are instances of > the same kind or type, or close enough. But if we are talking about > propositions which are all different from each other, than I can see the > point, because that is like trying to count qualities, which isn't very > helpful for comparison. But of course, that's not the same thing as having > so many propositions that they go to infinity and thus can't be counted for > that reason. Is this what is meant, that there are supposed to be so many > propositions that they go to infinity? Perhaps it would be helpful if you > referenced the text where Peirce mentions this. > > For two, you said "Even an artifically generated term such as 'red' and > 'cow' will still partake of the surprisingness of 'cow' and 'red' taken on > their own." What does surprisingness have to do with what we're discussing? > > > -- Franklin > > > On Sun, Apr 19, 2015 at 4:42 PM, Catherine Legg <cl...@waikato.ac.nz> > wrote: > >> Hi Franklin, >> >> Sorry for taking so long to reply. Thanks for setting me straight on >> Peirce still using the idea of breadth x depth later on in his career. I >> have to say though that I don't understand how such a metric might work in >> the later semiotic, just because it seems to me that the result of such a >> 'sum' will *always* be an infinity of an extremely high order, so any >> comparisons seem moot. As Peirce notes, propositions can't be counted. Even >> an artifically generated term such as 'red' and 'cow' will still partake of >> the surprisingness of 'cow' and 'red' taken on their own. >> >> Best regards, >> Cathy >> >>> >>>> >>> > > > ----------------------------- > PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON > PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to > peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L > but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the > BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm > . > > > > > >
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