SUO: Re: Determination
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| Accurate writers have apparently made a distinction
| between the 'definite' and the 'determinate'. A subject
| is 'determinate' in respect to any character which inheres
| in it or is (universally and affirmatively) predicated of
| it, as well as in respect to the negative of such character,
| these being the very same respect. In all other respects it
| is 'indeterminate'. The 'definite' shall be defined presently.
|
| A sign (under which designation I place every kind of thought,
| and not alone external signs), that is in any respect objectively
| indeterminate (i.e., whose object is undetermined by the sign itself)
| is objectively 'general' in so far as it extends to the interpreter
| the privilege of carrying its determination further. 'Example':
| "Man is mortal." To the question, What man? the reply is that the
| proposition explicitly leaves it to you to apply its assertion to
| what man or men you will.
|
| A sign that is objectively indeterminate in any respect
| is objectively 'vague' in so far as it reserves further
| determination to be made in some other conceivable sign,
| or at least does not appoint the interpreter as its deputy
| in this office. 'Example': "A man whom I could mention seems
| to be a little conceited." The 'suggestion' here is that the
| man in view is the person addressed; but the utterer does not
| authorize such an interpretation or 'any' other application of
| what she says. She can still say, if she likes, that she does
| 'not' mean the person addressed. Every utterance naturally
| leaves the right of further exposition in the utterer; and
| therefore, in so far as a sign is indeterminate, it is vague,
| unless it is expressly or by a well-understood convention
| rendered general.
|
| Charles Sanders Peirce, 'Collected Papers', CP 5.447
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