List: > On Mar 24, 2018, at 9:31 AM, g...@gnusystems.ca wrote: > > 1905 | Letters to Mario Calderoni | MS [R] L67:32-33 > …that Secundanity which consists in one man’s having a stature of 6 feet and > another man’s having a stature of 5 feet is a degenerate Secundanity, since > each would be just what he is if the other were not there, and would be > Second in the same way to a merely possible but non-existent man. >
First note that independent existence of real objects is pre-supposed in this clip. So, the reader is to conclude that degenerate Secundanity consists of a comparison of two similar objects (men, in this case) of different size (five foot and six foot)? Really! What are the constraints on the meaning of similarity when used in the context of Secundanity? In the absence of meaning of “comparison” (note that CSP’s example of comparison is both qualitative (same noun, man) and quantitative ( 5 feet and 6 feet), one possible conclusion is that “degenerate Secundanity” is synonymous with the quantitative difference between two objects of the same class. What are the other possible conclusions? Of course, I have not addressed the relation between First and Secondness, such that “degenerate Secundanity” is placed in CSP’s wider contextual meanings. But note that his example has a crisp logical meaning realistically in that the height of any two men can be compared. Cheers Jerry
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