Objects, Objectives, Objectivity

I am constantly reminded of this favorite line from Peirce:

"No longer wondered what I would do in life but defined my object."

-- C.S. Peirce (1861), "My Life", (Chron. Ed. 1, p. 3)

The question of Objects, Objectives, and Objectivity is a persistent one.

The Latin-rooted English "object" springs from deeper roots in the Greek "pragma".
It was a personal revelation to me on first looking into Liddell and Scott and
reading all the meanings and ramifications of that pragmatic semantic complex:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dpra%3Dgma

It is especially the senses of the word "object" that refer to aims and purposes,
in other words, intentional objects and objects of intention, that we are likely
to miss if we don't remind ourselves of their pertinence to pragmatic thinking.

Regards,

Jon

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