ONT Re: Information = Comprehension x Extension -- Discussion
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ICE. Discussion Note 10
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antti, hugh, jack,
maybe it's time for me to try and explain the following sort of remark:
JA: more generally, peirce's use of "particulars" and "properties" is more
like particles and waves than the usual hard lines that the descent of
mind that de-evolved from atomic logicism imagines it can draw between
absolute individuals and absolute predicates.
i will have to approach the task of clarification, once again,
by collecting a number of observations, whose relationship to
each other, much less their bearing on the immediate question,
may not be apparent at first.
it is common to construct a logical theory by starting
with a list of "individuals" and a list of "qualities".
these lists, of course, consist of signs for each sort
of thing, not the individuals and qualities themselves.
thus, we have the "object domain", assumed to be split
into individuals and qualities, plus the "sign domain",
assumed to be divided into corresponding sets of signs.
this is very often a convenient enough form of organization
for the sorts of situations that we are used to building up
theories about, but is there any logical necessity about it?
no sooner does one ask the question than one can begin to think
of all sorts of formal situations -- indeed, mathematics is rife
with them -- where a split like this cannot be maintained in such
a cut and dried manner.
if there is no logical necessity to the commonly imposed dichotomy
between individuals and qualities, then it is necessary to examine
the conditions of its contingent utility, in other words, to think
more criticallly about when it makes sense to adopt this dichotomy
in one's models and theories of the realm of phenomena in question,
and what might be the signs that it's time to reconsider its grant.
one of the problems with many logical frameworks on the shelves today
is that the assumption of an individual/quality split is not optional --
it is a "built in" assumption of the logical formalism itself, and so
it is very difficult, if not impossible, to represent questions about
the assumption that do not themselves beg the question of its cogency.
by the same token, one of the biggest advantages of the logical houses
that c.s. peirce built is that they do not prejudge this question, and
thus they provide us with a setting in which the dichotomy can be duly
judged for the degree of its fit to given situations in our experience.
jon awbrey
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http://www.cs.bsu.edu/homepages/mighty/history.html
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