[Inquiry] Re: Extension x Comprehension = Information

[Jon Awbrey]

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ECI.  Note 6

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| A similar line of thought may be gone through
| in reference to hypothesis.  In this case we
| must start with the consideration of the term:
|
| 'spherical, bright, fragrant, juicy, tropical fruit'.
|
| Such a term, formed by the sum of the comprehensions of several terms,
| is called a conjunctive term.  A conjunctive term has no extension
| adequate to its comprehension.  Thus the only spherical bright
| fragrant juicy tropical fruit we know is the orange and that
| has many other characters besides these.  Hence, such a term
| is of no use whatever.  If it occurs in the predicate and
| something is said to be a spherical bright fragrant juicy
| tropical fruit, since there is nothing which is all this
| which is not an orange, we may say that this is an orange
| at once.  On the other hand, if the conjunctive term is
| subject and we know that every spherical bright fragrant
| juicy tropical fruit necessarily has certain properties,
| it must be that we know more than that and can simplify the
| subject.  Thus a conjunctive term may always be replaced by
| a simple one.  So if we find that light is capable of producing
| certain phenomena which could only be enumerated by a long conjunction
| of terms, we may be sure that this compound predicate may be replaced
| by a simple one.  And if only one simple one is known in which the
| conjunctive term is contained, this must be provisionally adopted.
|
| CSP, CE 1, page 470.
|
| Charles Sanders Peirce,
|"The Logic of Science, or, Induction and Hypothesis",
| Lowell Institute Lectures of 1866, pages 357-504 in:
|
|'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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