SUO: Re: Determination
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| At the same time, it is tolerably evident that the definition,
| as it stands, is not sufficiently explicit, and further, that
| at the present stage of our inquiry cannot be made altogether
| satisfactory. For what is the interpretation alluded to?
| To answer that convincingly would be either to establish
| or to refute the doctrine of pragmaticism.
|
| Still some explanations may be made. Every sign has a single object,
| though this single object may be a single set or a single continuum
| of objects. No general description can identify an object. But the
| common sense of the interpreter of the sign will assure him that the
| object must be one of a limited collection of objects. [Long example].
|
| [And so] the latitude of interpretation which constitutes the
| indeterminacy of a sign must be understood as a latitude which
| might affect the achievement of a purpose. For two signs whose
| meanings are for all possible purposes equivalent are absolutely
| equivalent. This, to be sure, is rank pragmaticism; for a purpose
| is an affection of action.
|
| Charles Sanders Peirce, 'Collected Papers', CP 5.448, note 1
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