[Inquiry] Re: Utter Indetermination -- Discussion

[Jon Awbrey]

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UI.  Discussion Note 5

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JA = Jon Awbrey
KM = Kirsti Määttänen

Re: UI-DIS 3.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-October/003102.html
Re: UI-DIS 4.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-October/003103.html
In: UI-DIS.    http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-October/thread.html#3092

Kirsti, Peirce List,

Comments interspersed below.

KM: I'm wondering why you call the distinction
    a TECHNICAL one (as you often do)?  To my
    mind it is a conceptual distinction,
    imbedded in Peirce's concept of time.

JA: That's just a way of marking them as "terms of art"
    whose technical senses may be circumscribed within
    a particular techne, and probably have little hope
    of being related to commeon usage.

JA: OK!  Why didn't you say so.  What "techne" meant has little to do,
    as you say, with the common usage (or understanding) of "technical"
    in the modern sense.  --  So it seems to me it is not a very good
    method of using it in the ancient way in the attempt of marking
    something as something for people today, unless you tell what
    you mean.

| Technical.  1b.  marked by or characteristic of specialization,
|                  as in "technical" language.  (Webster's)

We were speaking of Peirce's use of
the terms "general" and "vague",
which I think is fair to call
specialized or "technical".
But I think enough has
been said about that.

JA: as a general rule I think that we can regard
    "indeterminate" as the most general concept
    of the three, reading "general" as meaning
    "extensively undetermined" and "vague" as
    meaning "intensively undetermined".

KM: Well, rather as a more SPECIFIC rule, I'd think.  To my mind
    the three concepts -- vague, general, indetermined -- are all
    more general than extension/intension distinction, which may
    (or may not) be basic from the more limited scope of analysis
    of truth values of assertions.

JA: I did labor over that statement -- it was strange how many
    combinations of adjectives and substantives combined to give
    almost the opposite senses from what I had intended -- and so
    I continued to labor over it late into the night.  Here is my
    last effort:

JA: Peirce is sometimes precise in his technical distinction between
    general and vague, and sometimes not -- as a general rule I think
    that we can regard "indeterminate" as the most general concept of
    the three, regarding "general" as "to be determined in extension"
    and "vague" as "to be determined in comprehension".

KM: As I see it, your last effort is a refinement of your first one.
    It seems to me that you don't get my point, which is about your
    point (of view).

KM: Extension/intension is a dyad of concepts.
    Peirce does dwell on that distinction.  Why?

KM: I don't think he did it because of this dyad of concepts were somehow
    basic, or most important to him. - True/false is a dichotomy.  What is 
    left out is:  The question: true or false? can't be be decided (so far, 
    at least).  It's a question of  0/1 way of thinking OR NOT.

Actually, Peirce absorbs the tension between extension and intension
(the latter more properly called "comprehension") under his general
notion of information.  Here is a collection of relevant passages:

ICE.  Information = Comprehension x Extension
ICE.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-November/thread.html#1913
ICE.  http://forum.wolframscience.com/showthread.php?threadid=609
ICE.  http://forum.wolframscience.com/printthread.php?threadid=609

KM. You take Secondness first.  One may do that without violating the
    category system if the taking Secondness first is taken as leaving
    Firstness and Thirdness as they may be, but having them there.
    Vaguely, perhaps.

KM. Peirce is very consistent in where he
    uses Firstness, etc, or firstness etc,
    or first etc.

You seem to have assumed that determination falls under the category
of secondness, that is, the category of 2-adic relations.  Perhaps
this arises from taking determination only in its causal sense --
I can but guess about that -- but I see no justification in
Peirce's writing for limiting his sense of determination
to a purely 2-adic cause-effect relationship.

Jon Awbrey

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