[Inquiry] Re: Kaina Stoicheia

[Jon Awbrey]

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KS.  Note 18

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| In order fully to understand the distinction between a proposition and an argument,
| it will be found important to class these acts, affirmation, etc. and ascertain
| their precise nature.  The question is a purely logical one;  but it happens
| that a false metaphysics is generally current, especially among men who
| are influenced by physics but yet are not physicists enough fully to
| comprehend physics, which metaphysics would disincline those who
| believe in it from readily accepting the purely logical statement
| of the nature of affirmation.  I shall therefore be forced to
| touch upon metaphysics.  Yet I refuse to enter here upon
| a metaphysical discussion;  I shall merely hint at what
| ground it is necessary to take in opposition to
| a common doctrine of that kind.
|
| Affirmation is of the nature of a symbol.
| It will be thought that this cannot be
| the case since an affirmation, as the
| above analysis shows, produces real
| effects, physical effects.  No sign,
| however, is a real thing.  It has no
| real being, but only being represented.
|
| I might more easily persuade readers to think that affirmation was
| an index, since an index is, perhaps, a real thing.  Its replica,
| at any rate, is in real reaction with its object, and it forces
| a reference to that object upon the mind.  But a symbol, a word,
| certainly exists only in replica, contrary to the nature of
| a real thing;  and indeed the symbol only becomes a sign
| because because its interpreter happens to be prepared
| to represent it as such.  Hence, I must and do admit
| that a symbol cannot exert any real force.  Still,
| I maintain that every sufficiently complete symbol
| governs things, and that symbols alone do this.
| I mean that though it is not a force, it is
| a law.
|
| Now those who regard the false metaphysics
| of which I speak as the only clear opinion
| on its subject are in the habit of calling
| laws "uniformities", meaning that what we
| call laws are, in fact, nothing but common
| characters of classes of events.  It is
| true that they hold that they are symbols,
| as I shall endeavor to show that they are;
| but this is to their minds equivalent to
| saying that they are common characters
| of events;  for they entertain a very
| different conception of the nature of
| a symbol from mine.
|
| C.S. Peirce, ["Kaina Stoicheia"], NEM 4, 250
|
| C.S. Peirce, ["Kaina Stoicheia"], MS 517 (1904), pp. 235-263 in:
| Carolyn Eisele (ed.), 'The New Elements of Mathematics by
| Charles S. Peirce, Volume 4, Mathematical Philosophy',
| Mouton, The Hague, 1976.
|
| Cf. "New Elements", pp. 300-324 in 'The Essential Peirce, Volume 2 (1893-1913)',
| Peirce Edition Project (eds.), Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1998.

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