Jon AS, Edwina, Jerry LRC, Gary R, Mike, and Ben, Jon
By Peirce's definitions--at least, the ones that he carefully employed late in his life--the verb "exist" may only be used to talk about actual things that "react with the other like things in the environment" (CP 6.495).
Yes. That's why I avoided the word 'exist'. In my note, I did not use the words 'exist', 'existence', 'real', or 'reality'. I assumed logic in a way that could be represented in either Peirce's algebraic notation or his existential graphs. In his Gamma graphs, Peirce used lines of identity in areas that represented possibilities. One can use English sentences without the word 'exist' and map them to logic in a way that the variables or the lines of identity show what kinds of things are assumed. But assumption does not imply existence. Edwina
thanks for a great post. I think that we don't pay enough attention to relations.
Thanks. And note that Frege may have published the first complete notation for first-order logic in 1879. But Peirce was the first to introduce higher-order logic by quantifying over relations in 1885. Jerry
I suggest that John’s reliance on Quine’s sentence to relate metaphysical terms is highly problematic. The sentence is merely a rhetoric trick to divert the reader’s attention...
Yes! Exactly! I'm sure that Quine's rhetorical trick is one that Peirce would have loved: diverting attention away from the words is essential. That step cuts through a mass of verbiage to clarify the implicit logical assumptions. Quine was a strict nominalist, who used his trick to get rid of assumptions he did not like. But I used it to support Peirce's much richer ontology, which uses logic in ways that Quine did not approve: metalanguage, higher-order logic, and modal logic. Jerry
Consider the word “Love” for example. Or, almost any human feeling. ... the logics of molecular biology and medicine. which require recursive compositions of terms to operate in multiple metalanguages.
Good examples. Write sentences about those topics in English and translate them to your choice of logic. Q's dictum will show which assumed entities are referenced by quantified variables. Gary
according to Peirce existence is not "properly" a term of logic, but of metaphysics. 1905 [c.] | The Basis of Pragmaticism | MS [R] 280:36-7 ...the term existence is properly a term, not of logic, but of metaphysics; and metaphysically understood, an object exists, if and only if, it reacts with every other existing object of the same universe. But in the definition of a logical proper name, exist is used in its logical sense, and means merely to be a singular of a logical universe, or universe of discourse.
That is exactly what I was trying to say. Note the word 'But', which separates what Peirce said about the metaphysical sense and the logical sense. By applying Quine's dictum to the logic, we can determine what is contained in the logical universe (AKA domain of discourse). Instead of saying that the possibilities exist, we can say that they are contained in a special domain of discourse. That does not imply existence in the physical environment. Gary
As for the reality of possibles, Peirce holds that "...it is the reality of some possibilities that pragmaticism is most concerned to insist upon." Here one can begin to see how the last branch of logic rather melds into metaphysical inquiries.
Mike
Might you or others on the list identify what "some" of those possibilities may be (with citations)
Peirce rarely gave enough examples to illustrate and clarify his ideas. But I would cite any engineering project or plan for the future. If you translate those plans to logic or a computer program, the variables represent "real possibilities". But as mice and engineers know, the best laid plans "gang aft agley". Many possibilities that seemed real in the planning stage never get built, get modified, or get rejected as the project develops. Ben
My question is: Why does not the verb "to realize" work or function to "talk about actual things and real relations"?
I doubt that having a verb is relevant to the issues. Peirce was a logician, who allowed logic to refer to multiple universes (or domains) of discourse. When he applied his logic to issues expressed in ordinary language, he always kept that logical distinction in mind. As Peirce himself said, he found that existential graphs clarified his way of thinking about all the issues in his philosophy. The exercise of mapping his language to logic can help us understand what he was trying to say. John
----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
