[Inquiry] Relatives Of Second Intention

[Jon Awbrey]

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ROSI.  Note 1

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| Relatives Of Second Intention
|
| The general method of graphical representation of propositions has now
| been given in all its essential elements, except, of course, that we
| have not, as yet, studied any truths concerning special relatives;
| for to do so would seem, at first, to be "extralogical".  Logic in
| this stage of its development may be called 'paradisaical logic',
| because it represents the state of Man's cognition before the
| Fall.  For although, with this apparatus, it easy to write
| propositions necessarily true, it is absolutely impossible
| to write any which is necessarily false, or, in any way
| which that stage of logic affords, to find out that
| anything is false.  The mind has not as yet eaten
| of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Truth
| and Falsity.
|
| Probably it will not be doubted that every child in
| its mental development necessarily passes through
| a stage in which he has some ideas, but yet has
| never recognised that an idea may be erroneous;
| and a stage that every child necessarily passes
| through must have been formerly passed through
| by the race in its adult development.  It may
| be doubted whether many of the lower animals
| have any clear and steady conception of
| falsehood;  for their instincts work
| so unerringly that there is little
| to force it upon their attention.
| Yet plainly without a knowledge
| of falsehood no development
| of discursive reason can
| take place.
|
| This paradisaical logic appears in the study of non-relative formal logic.
| But 'there' no possible avenue appears by which the knowledge of falsehood
| could be brought into this Garden of Eden except by the arbitrary and
| inexplicable introduction of the Serpent in the guise of a proposition
| necessarily false.  The logic of relatives affords such an avenue,
| and 'that', the very avenue by which in actual development,
| this stage of logic supervenes.  It is the avenue of
| experience and logical reflexion.
|
| By 'logical' reflexion, I mean the observation of thoughts
| in their expressions.  Aquinas remarked that this sort of
| reflexion is requisite to furnish us with those ideas
| which, from lack of contrast, ordinary external
| experience fails to bring into prominence.
| He called such ideas 'second intentions'.
|
| It is by means of 'relatives of second intention'
| that the general method of logical representation
| is to find completion.
|
| C.S. Peirce, 'Collected Papers', CP 3.488-490,
|"The Logic of Relatives", 'The Monist', vol. 7,
| pp. 161-217, 1897.

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