[Inquiry] Re: Doctrine Of Individuals -- Discussion

[Jon Awbrey]

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DOI.  Discussion Note 2

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CG = Clark Goble
JA = Jon Awbrey

Re: DOI-COM 1.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-January/002327.html
In: DOI-COM.    http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-January/thread.html#2327

CG: I ask because the doctrine of individuals you discuss and
    summarize well, seems to hinge on two interesting points.
    The first is the impossibility of an infinite process,
    thus making the logical atom unable to be realized in
    thought or sense.  Yet, as Peirce's discussion of how
    mind can affect matter and vice versa, Peirce seems
    to suggest that there are real infinite processes
    in our everyday phenomena.  Now presumably he would
    recognize a difference between an infinity of logical
    steps conducted they way we normally conduct logic,
    but recognize that there are many other infinite
    processes.

There's a point that often gets mushed in loose speech, frequently because
we get lazy and start using the words "general" and "individual" and so on
when we really mean "general term" and "individual term" and so on, and so
confuse the sign ostensibly denoting with the object not assuredly denoted.
In a similar connection, we need to remember that a logical atom is a term
not capable of logical division, not a thing that's materially indivisible.

When it comes to speaking of infinity, we have to draw on a considerable
amount of formal infrastructure in order to say anything definite at all.
Typically, we need to set up a definite universe of discourse, in which
the elementary objects of discussion and the primitive predicates used
to describe them are bounded in some fairly definite ways.  The real
problem with realizing logical atoms is that we usually fail to say
what we mean by "all" of the predicates that might be employed in
a given discussion, so the idea of something that is determined
with regard to all predicates remains without real definition.
In a context where we say exactly what we mean by a predicate,
it is possibile to speak sensibly of terms and things that
are determined with respect to infinite numbers of them.

Peirce touches on what such a context would look like
in his 1883 "Note on a Limited Universe of Marks":

LMU.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2003-April/thread.html#403

Jon Awbrey

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inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/
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