New Elements (Kaina Stoicheia) -- EP 2 -- Editors' Headnote

Peirce List,

I've been meaning to copy out a couple of texts for future discussion.
One of them is the Editors' Headnote to the EP text of "New Elements".
Due to the complexity of the formatting, is was preferable to post it
on my blog, at this location:

http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2012/08/09/c-s-peirce-new-elements-%CE%BA%CE%B1%CE%B9%CE%BD%E1%BD%B0-%CF%83%CF%84%CE%BF%CE%B9%CF%87%CE%B5%E1%BF%96%CE%B1-1/

Here is a plain text copy:

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~QUOTE~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

MS 517. [First published in NEM 4:235–63. This document was most probably written in early 1904, as a preface to an 
intended book on the foundations of mathematics.] Peirce begins with a discussion of “the Euclidean style” he planned to 
follow in his book. Euclid’s Elements presuppose an understanding of the logical structure of mathematics (geometry) 
that Peirce, in his “New Elements,” wants to explicate. Having recently concluded that the scope of logic should be 
extended to include all of semiotics, Peirce now wants to work out the semiotic principles that he hopes will shed light 
on the most abstract science. Building on the work in his 1903 “Syllabus,” Peirce deepens his semiotic theory by linking 
it with the mathematical conceptions of “degrees of degeneracy.” Symbols are taken to be non-degenerate, genuine, signs, 
while indices are signs degenerate in the first degree and icons are degenerate in the second degree. Symbols must 
always involve both indices and icons, and indices must always involve icons. Peirce limits his attention to this 
trichotomy but carries his discussion deeply into epistemology and metaphysics, making such arresting claims as that 
“representations have power to cause real facts” and that “there can be no reality which has not the life of a symbol.” 
Max Fisch described this paper as Peirce’s “best statement so far of his general theory of signs.” (EP 2, 300).

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~END~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

Peirce Edition Project (eds., 1998), The Essential Peirce, Selected Philosophical Writings, Volume 2 (1893–1913), 
Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN. Cited as EP 2.

Regards,

Jon

-- 

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