Jon S., list,
_/Universum/_ in the sense of the whole world goes back at least to
Cicero in the 1st Century B.C.
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0059%3Aentry%3Duniversus
You wrote,
Note also Peirce's stance that universal propositions do not assert
the existence of anything. So "if a cat, then a mammal" could be
true even if neither cats nor mammals exist.
[End quote]
Yes, that's my point about "if a cat, then a mammal" - as a compound
term in the form Cx→Mx, it's true of absolutely everything in the world
(the actual world, at least), and this is reflected by the usual kind of
logical formulation "For all /x/, if /x/ is a cat, then /x/ is a mammal"
(i.e., "For all /x/: /x/ is not a cat and/or /x/ is a mammal"). This
rule-style of formulation reflects a major difference between Peirce's
generals and Peirce's qualities of feeling which are generals when
reflected on but are not rules and are not formulated as rules. With the
conditional form "Cx→Mx", Peirce's generals are maximally general in a
sense, just not pertinent in all cases. As you note, it doesn't entail
the existence of anything, at least not of anything in particular (in
Peirce's view a universe of discourse smaller than two objects should be
ruled out, so the existence of at least two objects is automatically, if
not always relevantly, entailed by any term or proposition in a Peircean
universe).
You wrote:
Peirce's identification of generality with continuity leads me to
think that every general is a continuum of possibilities. Hence
multiple instantiations of the same general are not identical, just
different parts of the same continuum, which is why they are
continua themselves and not necessarily distinguishable from each other.
At first I thought I knew what you meant, but somehow it's become less
clear to me, I can't even recapture what I at first thought you meant.
I'm trying to put it in the context of your regarding the use of the
word "general" as evoking the possibility of exceptions.
Anyway, your idea that Peirce chose "general" because it suggests the
possibility of exceptions remains appealing. One could extend the idea
to include the possibility of growth and evolution (as of a genus, and
as of a symbol); the idea of the "universal" true of absolutely
everything seems somehow more static and uniform. Mathematics could get
away with it because of mathematics' having its counterbalancing
imaginative freedom, but for the other things "general" seems better.
Best, Ben
On 1/9/2017 4:13 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:
Ben:
Of course, "universal" as employed by the scholastics came from Latin,
probably by combining "unum" (one) and "versus" (turned), thus meaning
something like "turned into one." Presumably the current connotation,
"true of absolutely everything," was a later linguistic development
within English.
Note also Peirce's stance that universal propositions do not assert
the existence of anything. So "if a cat, then a mammal" could be true
even if neither cats nor mammals exist.
Peirce's identification of generality with continuity leads me to
think that every general is a continuum of possibilities. Hence
multiple instantiations of the same general are not identical, just
different parts of the same continuum, which is why they are continua
themselves and not necessarily distinguishable from each other.
Regards,
Jon
On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 2:58 PM, Benjamin Udell <baud...@gmail.com
<mailto:baud...@gmail.com>> wrote:
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
<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=
<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 <baud...@gmail.com
<mailto:baud...@gmail.com> > wrote:
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