Re: Peirce on Definition and Determination

Post   : Definition and Determination : 10
URL    : http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2013/10/07/definition-and-determination-10/
Posted : October 7, 2013 at 4:00 pm
Author : Jon Awbrey

| The moment, then, that we pass from nothing and the vacuity of being to any content or sphere,
| we come at once to a composite content and sphere.  In fact, extension and comprehension —
| like space and time — are quantities which are not composed of ultimate elements;  but
| every part however small is divisible.
|
| The consequence of this fact is that when we wish to enumerate the sphere of a term —
| a process termed division — or when we wish to run over the content of a term —
| a process called definition — since we cannot take the elements of our enumeration
| singly but must take them in groups, there is danger that we shall take some element
| twice over, or that we shall omit some.  Hence the extension and comprehension which
| we know will be somewhat indeterminate.  But we must distinguish two kinds of these
| quantities.  If we were to subtilize we might make other distinctions but I shall be
| content with two.  They are the extension and comprehension relatively to our actual
| knowledge, and what these would be were our knowledge perfect.
|
| C.S. Peirce, CE 1, 462
|
| Peirce, C.S., “The Logic of Science; or, Induction and Hypothesis”, [Lowell Lectures of 1866],
| pp. 357–504 in Writings of Charles S. Peirce : A Chronological Edition, Volume 1, 1857–1866,
| Peirce Edition Project, Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN, 1982.

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