List, Jon S., Gary R.,
Gary R., Jon S., and I began discussing the subject of this thread a few
days ago off-list, and we've agreed that the off-list parts should be
brought on-list. Below is the part that preceded the thread's appearance
at peirce-l. Next, I'll send the peirce-l thread plus an off-list reply
that I made, and Jon S. can add his off-list reply, then I'll add my
next one, etc.
Best, Ben
On 1/7/2017 12:56 PM, Gary Richmond wrote:
Jon, Ben,
Jon, I'm forwarding this off-list message Ben sent. I'm sure you'll
find it of interest--it certainly refreshed my memory of some of the
discussion of the topic we've had on peirce-l. Maybe we can get Cathy
to sound in as well? Ben, perhaps you could Bcc her if this comes up
in on- or off-list discussion. Again, I think an on-list discussion
might prove most productive, and might be an excellent topic to begin
the new year!
Hope you are both experiencing a good start of 2017.
Best,
Gary
Gary Richmond
*Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690*
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Benjamin Udell <baud...@gmail.com <mailto:baud...@gmail.com>>
Date: Sat, Jan 7, 2017 at 12:34 PM
Subject: Re: generality/universality
To: Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com
<mailto:gary.richm...@gmail.com>>
Hi, Gary. We could pursue it on list or off, either way is fine with me.
Terms are divided into general and singular (also into concrete and
abstract; a general term can be concrete and can be abstract. Some
have regarded all singulars as concrete, some have admitted abstract
singulars).
However, when speaking of qualities, etc., Aristotle called them by a
Greek word (I guess 'katholikos') usually translated as "universal"
and meaning that they are true of more than one object, at least two.
A more nuanced sense would be the quantity of a quality or the like
that _/could/_ be true of more than one thing, even if it happens not
to be (whereas there can't be more than one Socrates). Anyway, "true
of at least two things" doesn't sound very "universal" in the
English-language sense but that's the tradition still adhered to by
some philosophers. Some even call "particular" that which Peirce and
others call "individual" or "singular" but that's in speaking not of
terms but of things.
Propositions are divided into the universal ("All F is G"), the
(comparatively vague) particular ("Some F is G"), and the singular
("This F is G" or "Socrates is G"). Peirce classified mixed-quantity
propositions according to the first one ("Some person is loved by all
people" he called "particular". I guess an argument for that would be
that even a seemingly plain particular such as "Something is red"
could be construed as implying "Something is such that all who can see
things in color would see it as red" or some such statement more
carefully qualified).
Cathy Legg once made a remark with a few details about "universal" and
"general" coming from two different contexts in logic, but I doubt
that I can find it soon.
Peirce made a three-way distinction among:
(1) the vague, the indefinite, such as a quality as contemplated
without reaction or reflection,
(2) the individual, determinate, and
(3) the general.
Said trichotomy
(A) is based by him in his three respective phenomenological categories:
(1) Firstness, quality of feeling (more as quality of a /sensation/
than of an /affect/ such as pleasure or pain), essentially monadic,
except that he came to distinguish sensation as having a place and
date, unlike feeling per se;
(2) Secondness, reaction/resistance, essentially dyadic
(individuals, brute facts, etc.); and
(3) Thirdness, representation/mediation, essentially triadic (rules,
habits, norms, dispositions, etc.);
and
(B) reflects three traditional affirmative logical quantities for
propositions, respectively:
(1) the existential particular (/*Some*/ food is good),
(2) the singular (/*This*/ food is good), and
(3) the hypothetical universal (/*All*/ food is good). This
hypotheticality (as in "each thing is, IF food, THEN good") is
important in Peirce, since he usually treated Thirdness as involving
conditional necessities, conditional rules, etc.
In 1868 Peirce made a distinction (to which he did not always adhere
terminologically, e.g., starting in 1903 in the word "sinsign"):
/Singular individuals/, or /singulars/ for short, "occupy neither time
nor space, but can only be at one point and can only be at one date"
(i.e., point-instants).
/General individuals/, or /individuals/ for short, do occupy time and
space and "can only be in one place at one time."
(See "Questions on Reality" 1868
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/menu/library/bycsp/logic/ms148.htm
<http://www.iupui.edu/%7Earisbe/menu/library/bycsp/logic/ms148.htm>.)
Best, Ben
On 1/7/2017 11:58 AM, Gary Richmond wrote:
Hi, Ben,
I'm back in town having had a nice trip overall (except for the
cancellation of flights to and from Miami). Hope you are feeling tip
top again and that 2017 is off to a good start.
Jon S. wrote off-list a day or so before I began my travels, and his
message included this.
Do you happen to know if anyone has expounded on the significance
(if any) of Peirce's fairly consistent preference to refer to
"generals," rather than "universals"? I also need to find the
recent List post that referenced some research by Ben Udell on
individual vs. particular vs. singular.
Perhaps this could even be address on the list?
Best,
Gary
Gary Richmond
*Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690*
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