[Inquiry] Re: Questions Involving Pure Symbols -- Discussion

[Jon Awbrey]

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QUIPS.  Discussion Note 36

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JR = Joe Ransdell

Re: QUIPS-DIS 35.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-May/002724.html
In: QUIPS-DIS.     http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-May/thread.html#2602

Joe,

I gave all the senses and original sinonyms in my desk copy M-W,
any imputations of repute or disrepute are due to M-W, not to me.

The important thing, as I have stressed from the beginning,
taking care to collect the variant phrases and usages that
Peirce employed in this connection from the 1860's, when
the Century Dictionary was yet a gleam in the Century's
eye, is that attributed characters, imputed qualities,
and facticities as represented are not simple affairs
between the imputee and the imputed alone, but also
involve the imputer thereof, and so this is just
a vernacular way of invoking a 3-adic relation,
and until there is some sign-relationally apt
definition of "attribution", "imputation",
or indeed, "representation", that is all
there is to it as far as the logic goes.

Jon Awbrey

JR: On the meaning of "impute" Jon quotes from Merriam-Webster in
    a way that suggests that it has only a negative meaning, in the
    sense of being accusational.   A better resource, though, would be
    the Century Dictionary.  It might even be one of Peirce's entries;
    but, in any case, it gives us an account of its usages in Peirce's
    time.  It is also worth remarking, by the way, that the Greek word
    for "category" also had a courtroom accusational meaning.

JR: Note particularly meanings 3 and 4

| IMPUTE -- From the Century Dictionary
|
| impute (im-put'), v. t.; pref. and pp. imputed, ppr. imputing. [< F. imputer
| = Sp. Pg. imputar = It. imputare, ( L. imputare, inputare, enter into the
| account, reckon, set to the account of, attribute, ( in, in, to, + putare,
| estimate, reckon: see putative. Cf. compute, depute, repute.]
|
| 1. To charge; attribute; ascribe; reckon as pertaining or attributable.
|
| ---Let not my lord impute iniquity unto me.
|
| 2 Sam. xix. 19.
|
| ---God imputes not to any man the blood he spills in a just cause.
|
| Milton, Eikonoklastes, xix.
|
| ---Men oft are false; and, if you search with Care,
|
| You'll find less Fraud imputed to the Fair.
|
| Congreve, tr. of Ovid's Art of Love.
|
| ---We impute deep-laid, far-sighted plans to Caesar and Napoleon;
| but the best of their power was in nature, not in them.
| Emerson, Spiritual Laws.
|
| 2. To reckon as chargeable or accusable; charge; tax; accuse. [Rare.]
|
| ---All that I say is certain; if you fail,
| Do not impute me with it;  I am clear.
|
| Fletcher (and another), Noble Gentleman, i. 1.
|
| ---And they, sweet soul, that most impute a crime,
|
| Are pronest to it, and impute themselves.
| 
| Tennyson, Merlin.
|
| 3. To attribute vicariously; ascribe as derived from another:  used
| especially in theology. See doctrine of imputation, under imputation.
|
| ---Thy merit Imputed shall absolve them who renounce
| Their own both righteous and unrighteous deeds.
|
| Milton, P. L., iii. 291.
|
| 4.  To take account of; reckon; regard; consider. [Rare.]
|
| ---If we impute this last humiliation as the cause of his death.  Gibbon.
|
| Imputed malice.  See malice.-- 
|
| Imputed quality, in metaph., the power of a body
| to affect the senses, as color, smell, etc.
|
| ---Secondary and imputed qualities, which are but the
| powers of several combinations of those primary ones,
| when they operate without being distinctly discerned.
|
| Locke.
|
| = Syn.  Attribute, Ascribe, Refer, etc.  See attribute.

More Incidental Musements:

| Imputation (in law) [Lat. imputare, to impute]: Ger. Zurechnung;
| Fr. imputation; Ital. imputazione. The attribution to a particular
| person of legal responsibility for an act;  it is properly used only
| of free actions and their natural consequences (see Wolff's Inst.,
| chap. i. § 3). 
|
| Imputation is also used by civilians to signify an appropriation of payments
| where there are several debts and enough is not paid to satisfy all.
|
| (S.E.B.)[Judge S.E. BALDWIN, Governor of Connecticut;  Professor, Yale University]
|
| Imputation (in theology).  The doctrine (1) of the attribution of the
| guilt of Adam's sin to his posterity;  (2) of the attribution of the
| merit of Christ's righteousness to believers.
|
| It is generally agreed that imputation is a forensic term, and that the
| transfer of guilt and merit is to be understood legally and not morally.
| The attempt to rationalize the putative act has developed great divergences
| of view, ranging from extreme Augustinianism on the one hand to Pelagianism
| on the other.  On the question of the imputation of Christ's righteousness,
| if we leave out of view the moral theory of the Atonement as practically
| denying imputation, there is substantial agreement that the transfer
| rests on a substitutionary act of free grace on the part of Christ. 
|
| Literature:
| SCHAFF, Creeds of Christendom;  FISHER, Imputation;
| DORNER, Gesch. d. Protestantischen Theol., ii;
| EDWARDS, The Great Doctrine of Original Sin;
| STEVENS, The Pauline Theol.;
| C. HODGE, Bib. Repertory, July, 1830, 1831; October, 1839.
|
| (A.T.O.)[Professor A. T. ORMOND, Princeton University]
|
| http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Baldwin/Dictionary/

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