[Arisbe] Re: Logic As Semiotic

[Jon Awbrey]

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| Having discovered and demonstrated the grounds of the possibility of
| the three inferences, let us take a preliminary glance at the manner in
| which additions to these principles may make them grounds of proceedure.
|
| The principle of inference 'à priori' has been apodictically demonstrated;
| the principle of inductive inference has been shown upon sufficient evidence
| to be true;  the principle of inference 'à posteriori' has been shown to be one
| which nothing can contradict.  These three degrees of modality in the principles of
| the three inferences show the amount of certainty which each is capable of affording.
| Inference 'à priori' is as we all know the only apodictic proceedure;  yet no one
| thinks of questioning a good induction;  while inference 'à posteriori' is
| proverbially uncertain.  'Hypotheses non fingo', said Newton;  striving
| to place his theory on a firm inductive basis.  Yet provisionally we
| must make hypotheses;  we start with them;  the baby when he lies
| turning his fingers before his eyes is testing a hypothesis he has
| already formed, as to the connection of touch and sight.  Apodictic
| reasoning can only be applied to the manipulation of our knowledge;
| it never can extend it.  So that it is an induction which eventually
| settles every question of science;  and nine-tenths of the inferences
| we draw in any hour not of study are of this kind.
|
| CSP, CE 1, page 186.
|
| Charles Sanders Peirce, "Harvard Lectures 'On the Logic of Science'", (1865),
|'Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition, Volume 1, 1857-1866',
| Peirce Edition Project, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1982.

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