> On Mar 1, 2017, at 8:00 PM, Jerry Rhee <jerryr...@gmail.com> wrote: > > “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…
The question is really the nature of this “would be.” An other way of putting this is whether Peirce thought that the final entelechy would be actual or whether it’s just a regulative concept. It’s worth reading the paragraph before where you quoted. All these characters are elements of the “Truth.” Every sign signifies the “Truth.” But it is only the Aristotelian Form of the universe that it signifies. The logician is not concerned with any metaphysical theory; still less, if possible, is the mathematician. But it is highly convenient to express ourselves in terms of a metaphysical theory; and we no more bind ourselves to an acceptance of it than we do when we use substantives such as “humanity,” “variety,” etc., and speak of them as if they were substances, in the metaphysical sense. (Peirce, “New Elements,” EP 2.304 emphasis mine) So I certainly think “New Elements” addresses part of what I was after. It’s helpfully written after his turn to his modal realism phase. I’m not sure it really addresses my concern though due to that caveat. But that’s definitely one of the papers I was thinking of with the question.
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