SUO: Anxiety Of Influence & Forms Of Communicability
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John F. Sowa wrote:
>
> Jay Halcomb sent me an interesting counterexample
> to my claim that giving involves intentionality:
>
> John gave Mary the flu.
>
> The verb "give" may be used in a triadic form when
> there is no intention involved. But in such a case,
> it is possible to break the triad into dyads:
>
> John sneezed out the flu virus.
> Mary caught the virus.
There is this 3-adic transaction among
three relational domains. Let us say:
"Transmitters", "Vectors", "Receivers",
and let us symbolize: C c T x V x R.
In order to prove the proposition, for instance, as in a court of law,
that "John J gave-the-flu-to Mary M", it is necessary but by no means
enough to convince an arbiter that an infectious colony or a virulent
sample of particular micro-organisms of the genus known as "influenza"
was transported from John J (SSN 1 TBN) to Mary M (SSN 2 TBN) on some
well-specified occasion in question.
In other words, the "evidence" for the 2-adic relation that bears
the form and the description F c T x R : "-- gave-the-flu-to --",
is found solely within the 3-adic relation of "communication" C.
Let us assume that this long chain of causal and physical "influences"
can be more conveniently summarized, for our present purposes, in the
form of a 3-adic relation that connects a transmitter t, a "vector" v,
and a receiver r. Thus a bona fide incident or a genuine instance of
the "communication relation" C c TxVxR will be "minimally adequately",
as they say in epidemiology, charted in a datum of the form <t, v, r>.
What is the character of the relationship between
the 3-adic relation of "communication" C c TxVxR
and the 2-adic relation "-- gave-the-flu-to --"?
This particular relation among relations --
you may be about to read my mention, but
will not if I can help it find me to use
the term "meta-relation" for this notion --
is broadly nomenclated as a "projection",
with type here being Proj : TxVxR -> TxR.
Our use of it in this presenting case is
an example of how we transit from caring
about the "detail of the evidence" (DOTE)
to desiring only a brief sum of the fact.
For now, let us stipulate that we have the following
sample of data about the 3-adic relation C c TxVxR :
{..., <John J, Agent A, Mary M>, ...}.
In other words, we are fixing on a single element:
<John J, Agent A, Mary M> in C c TxVxR.
I will need to break away, for a time, here,
but I will get back on the case later today.
Happy Ides Of March, Everybody!
Jon Awbrey
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> Peirce called examples of this kind "degenerate triads"
> because they have the appearance of taking 3 arguments,
> but they can be decomposed into two independent sentences
> that only invove two participants at a time.
>
> Following is another example, which uses the verb "throw",
> which frequently (but not always) has an intended goal:
>
> The quarterback threw the ball to the wide receiver.
>
> According to the rules of football, the quarterback would
> normally intend to throw the ball to a player on his own
> team. If a defensive player caught the ball, that would
> thwart the intention. Therefore, the triad can be broken
> down into two sentences, each of which has two participants:
>
> The quarterback threw the ball.
> One of the defenders intercepted it.
>
> If the quarterback is particularly inept, a sports commentator
> might make a statement like the following with a tone of sarcasm:
>
> The quarterback threw the ball to the defenders.
>
> This statement suggests that the quarterback
> deliberately made a losing play.
>
> Bottom line: Intentionality requires three arguments, and
> if a sentence with verbs like "giving" and "throwing" can
> be split in two parts, each of which involves only two
> of the participants, the intentionality is missing.
>
> John Sowa
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