Peirce's 1870 “Logic Of Relatives ” • Comment 9.2

Post   : Peirce's 1870 “Logic Of Relatives” • Comment 9.2
http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2014/02/26/peirces-1870-logic-of-relatives-%e2%80%a2-comment-9-2/
Posted : February 26, 2014 at 10:00 am
Author : Jon Awbrey
Tags   : Peirce, Boole, Boolean Algebra, Boolean Functions, Logic,
          Logic of Relatives, Mathematics, Relation Theory, Semiotics

In setting up his discussion of selective operations and their corresponding selective symbols, 
Boole writes the following:

<quote>

The operation which we really perform is one of selection according to a 'prescribed principle or 
idea'.  To what faculties of the mind such an operation would be referred, according to the received 
classification of its powers, it is not important to inquire, but I suppose that it would be 
considered as dependent upon the two faculties of Conception or Imagination, and Attention.  To the 
one of these faculties might be referred the formation of the general conception;  to the other the 
fixing of the mental regard upon those individuals within the prescribed universe of discourse which 
answer to the conception.  If, however, as seems not improbable, the power of Attention is nothing 
more than the power of continuing the exercise of any other faculty of the mind, we might properly 
regard the whole of the mental process above described as referrible [sic] to the mental faculty of 
Imagination or Conception, the first step of the process being the conception of the Universe 
itself, and each succeeding step limiting in a definite manner the conception thus formed.  Adopting 
this view, I shall describe each such step, or any definite combination of such steps, as a 
'definite act of conception'.

(Boole, ''Laws of Thought'', 43)

</quote>

-- 

academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey
my word press blog: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/
inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/
isw: http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/JLA
oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey
facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache
_______________________________________________
Inquiry mailing list
[email protected]
http://stderr.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/inquiry