List,
I think it would be best to move any further discussion to a separate
thread, since no one is in any way discussing "Vol. 2 of CP, on Induction"
anymore in this thread. I'm starting a new thread titled "Terms,
Propositions, Arguments", which I hope is sufficiently vague as a
description of any further discussion of our issues.
-- Franklin
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 6:30 PM, Franklin Ransom <
pragmaticist.lo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Gary F, list,
>
> I don't find myself entirely convinced of your argument, Gary, but I think
> I should re-read KS all the way through again before commenting. I am in
> part resistant because it would seem to change what he had said about the
> informed depth and informed breadth of propositions in 1893, and because in
> KS he also makes a point of referencing ULCE when he mentions information
> and area as applicable, though these ideas were applied to terms, and not
> propositions, in UCLE, and he does not explain any further in KS how these
> ideas apply to propositions specifically.
>
> -- Franklin
>
> On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 11:00 AM, <g...@gnusystems.ca> wrote:
>
>> Franklin, concerning the passage from Kaina Stoicheia (EP2:305), you ask,
>>
>> If he meant specifically propositions, why not call them propositions and
>> not signs?
>>
>>
>>
>> I think the context answers this question. At this early stage in “New
>> Elements” Peirce is still defining his terms, and he doesn’t arrive at his
>> “true definition of a proposition” until EP2:307. “It is the Proposition
>> which forms the main subject of this whole scholium” (EP2:311), and in part
>> III.2, Peirce is working toward the definition of the proposition by first
>> defining its “essential” and “substantial” parts (i.e. predicate and
>> subject), using the general term “sign” rather than the term which is still
>> undefined at this point, “proposition.” As for breadth and depth, he can
>> only be referring to the breadth and depth of the proposition, not of its
>> parts (predicate or subject). A rhema, or term, can *be* a predicate (or
>> “essential part”) of a sign (namely a proposition), but it can’t *have*
>> a predicate.
>>
>>
>>
>> Terms can have breadth and depth, but a predicate only has *potential*
>> breadth until it’s used in a proposition, and a subject term has only
>> *potential* depth until it’s actually used to fill in the blanks in a
>> rhema. As Peirce puts it (EP2:309-10), a word like *man* “is never used
>> alone, and would have no meaning by itself.”
>>
>>
>>
>> Gary f.
>>
>>
>>
>> } The creature that wins against its environment destroys itself. [G.
>> Bateson] {
>>
>> http://gnusystems.ca/wp/ }{ *Turning Signs* gateway
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Franklin Ransom [mailto:pragmaticist.lo...@gmail.com]
>> *Sent:* 8-Nov-15 15:27
>>
>>
>>
>> Gary F, list,
>>
>>
>>
>> I confess that I am finding myself somewhat confused about this passage
>> from KS. If he meant specifically propositions, why not call them
>> propositions and not signs? Then again, he doesn't call them terms either,
>> so that doesn't help my view either. I'm wondering if there is something
>> deliberately vague here about what predicates ("essential parts") and
>> subjects ("substantial parts") apply to.
>>
>>
>>
>> In the quote from 1893, it's clear that the logical breadth and depth of
>> propositions is not the same as that of terms from ULCE. But in KS, the way
>> depth and breadth are presented as relating to characters and real objects
>> is exactly how they are presented in ULCE when applied to terms. If Peirce
>> still held to the view that the depth and breadth of propositions had to do
>> with "the total of fact which it asserts of the state of things to which
>> it is applied" and "the aggregate of possible states of things in which it
>> is true", respectively, that is certainly very different from what is being
>> explained in KS. Did he change his views here?
>>
>>
>>
>> Then there's an earlier part in KS, p.304 of EP 2, to consider: "But, in
>> the third place, every sign is intended to determine a sign of the same
>> object with the same signification or *meaning*. Any sign, B, which a
>> sign, A, is fitted so to determine, without violation of its, A's, purpose,
>> that is, in accordance with the "Truth," even though it, B, denotes but a
>> part of the objects of the sign, A, and signifies but a part of its, A's,
>> characters, I call an *interpretant* of A. What we call a "fact" is
>> something having the structure of a proposition, but supposed to be an
>> element of the very universe itself. The purpose of every sign is to
>> express "fact," and by being joined with other signs, to approach as nearly
>> as possible to determining an interpretant which would be the *perfect
>> Truth*, the absolute Truth, and as such (at least, we may use this
>> language) would be the very Universe."
>>
>>
>>
>> Note that *every* sign determines another sign (the interpretant) of the
>> same object with the same signfication, and the interpretant does in fact
>> have breadth and depth, and in the same sense that terms in UCLE and signs
>> in KS have breadth and depth, as denoting objects and signifying
>> characters. Since any sign, to be a sign, will have an interpretant, it
>> seems clear that whether it is a term, proposition, argument, or any sign
>> whatsoever, it must have breadth and depth (if it had no breadth, there
>> would be no object, and if it had no depth, it would signify nothing about
>> the object). But not only does every sign have breadth and depth, every
>> sign has them in the sense of denoting objects and signifying characters.
>>
>>
>>
>> How to understand this? Do predicates and subjects simply apply to
>> propositions only, or do they apply generally to all signs?
>>
>>
>>
>> Franklin
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
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