List, Jeff > On Apr 5, 2018, at 5:05 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard <jeffrey.down...@nau.edu> > wrote: > > At various points, he steps back from the examination of our common > experience and tries to provide a more exact logical analysis of the > relations involved, focusing on three kinds of relations: (1) A determines > B, (2) C determines D in accord with E, (3) and F determines H to be after G. > None of the analyses is complete or error free. Peirce sees some of the > errors and tries to correct them in later drafts as he expands on the earlier > drafts. Other errors seem to remain--in part because the analyses are not > brought to completion. Upon seeing the complications involved in the formal > analyses of the relations of determination, one begins to get a clearer sense > of the conceptual difficulties that lurk beneath the surface.
I will focus on the concatenation of three distinct propositional relations: > (1) A determines B, > (2) C determines D in accord with E, > (3) and F determines H to be after G. I suggest the realistic practices of the laboratory chemist may contribute to the discussion. The concept of “determines” was a very difficult problem for chemists at that time as well as today. In the language of chemistry today, to determine means to interpret signs. In very simple words, that means, 1. determine the sign that specifies the molecular weight of the pure compound. 2. determine the signs for each element present in the compound (that is, which elements are present.) 3. determine the signs that specify the proportion of each element (and calculate the molecular formula) 4. determine the signs that specify the adjacency relations among all elements based on valence. 5. If the compound originated from living organisms, determine the sign of “handedness” of the isomer. The order of these determinations is critical for the logical propositions to generate spatial objects (molecules). After these determinations, one can propose a graph (legisign? icon? symbol? sign?) that specifies the organization of the molecule. This is the first half of the chemist’s notion of “determination. The second half of the problem is to validate the proposed structure. Each formal chemical names has a unique arrangement of its atoms as measured in the molecular formula. Roughly speaking in lay terms, this determination consists of starting with the collection of atoms in the molecular formula, and systematically put together a compound that has the identical properties (attributes, predicates) as the original compound. The logic of these interpretations of signs is called “analysis” and “synthesis”. The linguistic terms associated with such chemical signs are closely associated with the structure of quali-sign, sin-sign, legisign icon, index, symbol rhema, dicisign argument. in the following sense: the sin(gle)-sign is A the quali-sign is B. A determines B. The pure chemical object has a set of predicates that describe it taste, its color, its melting point, etc. > (2) C determines D in accord with E, The molecular weight (index) determines the molecular formula and the molecular structure (symbol). Further information is needed. > (3). and F determines H to be after G. The determination of the meaning of H and G are subsumed under E in arranging the order relationships of valences. These infer the formation of the terms of rhema, dicisign and argument from the index (molecular formula.) The formal logic for this method of “chemical determination” was published several years ago following several years of persistence. The logic was developed by back-chaining from modern methodology to CSP’s terminology. The technical details of the arithmetic of atomic numbers, molecular numbers, and how graphs are constructed from electrons and nuclei have been removed. Of course, these sentences are merely chemical practice. They are constrained by facts and numbers. They may or may not have anything to do with the beliefs of philosophers about “determine”. Cheers Jerry
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