ONT Re: Logic Of Relatives
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LOR. Discussion Note 11
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BM = Bernard Morand
BM: About another point: do you think that the LOR could be of some help
to solve the puzzle of the "second way of dividing signs" where CSP
concludes that 66 classes could be made out of the 10 divisions
(Letters to lady Welby)? (As I see them, the ten divisions
involve a mix of relative terms, dyadic relations and
a triadic one. In order to make 66 classes it is
clear that these 10 divisions have to be stated
under some linear order. The nature of this
order is at the bottom of the disagreements
on the subject).
Yes. At any rate, I have a pretty clear sense from reading Peirce's work
in the period 1865-1870 that the need to understand the function of signs
in scientific inquiry is one of the main reasons he found himself forced
to develop both the theory of information and the logic of relatives.
Peirce's work of this period is evenly distributed across the extensional
and intensional pans of the balance in a way that is very difficult for us
to follow anymore. I remember when I started looking into this I thought of
myself as more of an "intensional, synthetic" than an "extensional, analytic"
type of thinker, but that seems like a long time ago, as it soon became clear
that much less work had been done in the Peirce community on the extensional
side of things, while that was the very facet that needed to be polished up
in order to reconnect logic with empirical research and mathematical models.
So I fear that I must be content that other able people are working on the
intensional classification of sign relations.
Still, the way that you pose the question is very enticing,
so maybe it is time for me to start thinking about this
aspect of sign relations again, if you could say more
about it.
Jon Awbrey
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