[Inquiry] Re: Futures Of Logical Graphs -- Discussion

[Jon Awbrey]

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FOLG.  Discussion Note 40

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JA = Jon Awbrey
JR = Joe Ransdell

Re: FOLG-DIS 39.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-November/003216.html
In: FOLG-DIS.     http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-November/thread.html#3167

Previously on this thread:

JR: You purport to be able to work with a notion of symbolism
    which permits you to assume that symbol-based inferential
    processes are possible that do not suppose the co-operative
    function of iconically and indexically functioning elements
    in the inferential process.  I'm questioning whether or not
    that is possible for a semiotically conceived logic.

JA: I am merely assuming, along with Peirce, that there do exist symbols which
    are "neither iconic nor indicative", more specifically, that such a symbol
    does not "have an icon or an index incorporated into it", which means that
    "the active law that it is" doesn't "require its interpretation to involve
    the calling up of an image" or "require its interpretation to refer to the
    actual surrounding circumstances of the occasion of its embodiment".

JR: Okay, I will hold you to that, assuming you don't start waffling around
    with quibbles about e.g. what "incorporation" does or does not mean.
    (Whether Peirce makes the assumption you mention is what is in
    dispute here;  let us not assume it.)

JA: A symmetric relation like "co-operation" is a very different matter from
    the asymmetric relations of "dependence", "incorporation", "involvement",
    and "reference", and the examination of its relevance to symbol typology
    has yet to be taken up here.

JR: This is just a prelude to a waffle, if not the waffle itself.
    Did I say okay?  Forget that.  I have no way of holding you
    to anything.

JA: For instance, in the partly analogous typology of inference,
    we can say with truth that the cycle of inquiry involves the
    co-operation of abductive, deductive, and inductive reasoning,
    and even that some forms of X-duction involve some components
    of Y-duction, for X not equal to Y in the set {ab-, de-, in-}.
    But if we deny that there is any form of X-duction which does
    not involve Y-duction, then we have invoked either a reduction
    of X to Y or an infinite regress.  I know some thinkers who do
    claim such things, but C.S. Peirce is decidedly not one of them.

JR: Good to hear that Peirce does not claim such things,
    but completely impertinent, as far as I am concerned.

Joe, Peirce List,

In my understanding, a person who asks for clarification of a term is not
indictable for "waffling".  That charge is more properly applied to a person
who uses equivocal language and who dismisses the importance of doing otherwise.

I realize that many terms which may 'appear' to be well-defined enough for
daily use -- words like "democracy", "due process", "endangered species",
"militia", "religion", "sound science", and "torture" -- may not always
be well-defined enough for the demands of logic and formal semiotics,
but when a person cannot say whether a relation term of some import
to a discussion is 2-adic or 3-adic, asymmetric or symmetric, and
so on, then that is the sound of waffling as I comprehend it.

Jon Awbrey

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