Jon S., list,
You may well be right. "General" was one of the words of which Peirce
was in charge in the Century Dictionary -
http://web.archive.org/web/20120324152427/http://www.pep.uqam.ca/listsofwords.pep?l=G
but the definition that appears in the Century Dictionary -
http://triggs.djvu.org/century-dictionary.com/djvu2jpg.php?query=&djvuurl=http://triggs.djvu.org/century-dictionary.com/03/INDEX.djvu&hittype=page&volno=&page=706&zoom=25&format=htmlimage&label=Volume%203&fromallhits=
- involves both senses of "general" - as exceptionless and as allowing
exceptions.
I always liked his use of "general" since the word "universal"
unqualified in English seems to mean true of absolutely everything, and
that's certainly not what Aristotle meant by the Greek word
traditionally translated as "universal". But it seems like I'm the only
person who minds this, so maybe Peirce was just concerned with the idea
of allowing exceptions in a given class to which a general is applied,
rather than avoiding the sense in which "universal" evokes "maximally
general". On the other hand, Peirce's generals typically have a "G→H"
form, which could be taken as totally universal, though not pertinent
outside of a class of things that at least could be G (I.e., "if a cat,
then a mammal" could be perfectly universal but beside the point for,
say, mathematical structures). The genuinely monadic "G" as true at
least potentially of more than one thing turns out to be a quality of
feeling, general only for reflection.
Best, Ben
On 1/9/2017 3:36 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:
Ben, List:
Yes, I have obviously made some progress since I first posed the
question to Gary. The more I read about all of this, the more I am
inclined to think that Peirce's preference for "general" over
"universal" does indeed simply reflect his position that no law or
habit is absolutely exceptionless.
Thanks,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt
<http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt> -
twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt <http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt>
On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 1:13 PM, Benjamin Udell <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:
Sorry, I forgot to adjust the email message subject line. Repaired
here. - Best, Ben
Jon S., Gary R., Jon A., list,
As promised in my previous message, here is the first off-list
response that I made to Jon S.'s messages in this thread to peirce-l:
Jon S.,
You've out-researched me! I'm not sure what to say on-list at this
point. I found some backup for some of your claims. I found that, as
you said, indeed Peirce says that particular and universal
propositions are general propositions, it's in CP 2.271 (from
"Nomenclature and Divisions of Triadic Relations" 1903),
§10. Kinds of Propositions
271. A Dicent Symbol, or general proposition, is either /Particular/
or /Universal/ .
I've found elsewhere that Peirce tended to regard 'general' and
'universal' as being mostly alternate terms for the same thing.,
It may take me a while to muster a response.,
Best, Ben
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