> On Dec 16, 2015, at 1:48 PM, Helmut Raulien <h.raul...@gmx.de> wrote:
>
> Degenerateness, I think, is a relation too. So, something may be (regarded
> for) degenerate, if you look at it as a mode. Because degeneracy is a trait
> of modes. But if you look at the same thing regarding it for a sign (a
> triadic sign), then degeneracy is not something you can assign to it. And
> anything can be interpreted for a triadic sign. It is the point of view that
> makes it. Anyway, I think, that "degenerate" is merely a Peircean technical
> term, and has nothing to do with the opposite of "to generate". Subsumption
> or classification has to do with generation and inheritance: This is a
> one-way-affair, in which there is only generation, but never a degeneration.
> In compositional hierarchy you may say, that something complex is made of
> less complex things, and ok, you may substitute "less complex" with
> "degenerate", but that also has nothing to do with the opposite of "to
> generate". All in all, I merely wanted to say, that I do not like the term
> "degenerate", because it leads to nothing but astray.
I may be completely off here but doesn’t the use of degeneracy as a term arise
from geometry for Peirce? So a pair of parallel lines is a degenerate conic (as
opposed to the curves that are usually generated by a conic section)
Thus, the whole book being nothing but a continual exemplification
of the triad of ideas, we need linger no longer upon this preliminary
exposition of them. There is, however, one feature of them upon which it is
quite indispensable to dwell. It is that there are two distinct grades of
Secondness and three grades of Thirdness. There is a close analogy to this
in geometry. Conic sections are either the curves usually so called, or they
are pairs of straight lines. A pair of straight lines is called a degenerate
conic. So plane cubic curves are either the genuine curves of the third
order, or they are conics paired with straight lines, or they consist of
three straight lines; so that there are the two orders of degenerate cubics.
Nearly in this same way, besides genuine Secondness, there is a degenerate
sort which does not exist as such, but is only so conceived. The medieval
logicians (following a hint of Aristotle) distinguished between real
relations and relations of reason. A real relation subsists in virtue of a
fact which would be totally impossible were either of the related objects
destroyed; while a relation of reason subsists in virtue of two facts, one
only of which would disappear on the annihilation of either of the relates.
Such are all resemblances: for any two objects in nature resemble each
other, and indeed in themselves just as much as any other two; it is only
with reference to our senses and needs that one resemblance counts for more
than another. Rumford and Franklin resembled each other by virtue of being
both Americans; but either would have been just as much an American if the
other had never lived. On the other hand, the fact that Cain killed Abel
cannot be stated as a mere aggregate of two facts, one concerning Cain and
the other concerning Abel. Resemblances are not the only relations of
reason, though they have that character in an eminent degree. Contrasts and
comparisons are of the same sort. Resemblance is an identity of characters;
and this is the same as to say that the mind gathers the resembling ideas
together into one conception. Other relations of reason arise from ideas
being connected by the mind in other ways; they consist in the relation
between two parts of one complex concept, or, as we may say, in the relation
of a complex concept to itself, in respect to two of its parts. This brings
us to consider a sort of degenerate Secondness that does not fulfill the
definition of a relation of reason. Identity is the relation that everything
bears to itself: Lucullus dines with Lucullus. Again, we speak of
allurements and motives in the language of forces, as though a man suffered
compulsion from within. So with the voice of conscience: and we observe our
own feelings by a reflective sense. An echo is my own voice coming back to
answer itself. So also, we speak of the abstract quality of a thing as if it
were some second thing that the first thing possesses. But the relations of
reason and these self-relations are alike in this, that they arise from the
mind setting one part of a notion into relation to another. All degenerate
seconds may be conveniently termed internal, in contrast to external
seconds, which are constituted by external fact, and are true actions of one
thing upon another. (CP 1.365 (1890))
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