Re: Hypostatic And Prescisive Abstraction

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HAPA.  Note 7

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| Exceedingly important are the relatives signifying "-- is a quality of --"
| and "-- is a relation of -- to --".  It may be said that mathematical
| reasoning (which is the only deductive reasoning, if not absolutely,
| at least eminently) almost entirely turns on the consideration of
| abstractions as if they were objects.  The protest of nominalism
| against such hypostatisation, although, if it knew how to formulate
| itself, it would be justified as against much of the empty disputation
| of the medieval Dunces, yet, as it was and is formulated, is simply a
| protest against the only kind of thinking that has ever advanced human
| culture.  Nobody will work long with the logic of relatives -- unless
| he restricts the problems of his studies very much -- without seeing
| that this is true.
|
| C.S. Peirce, CP 3.509, "The Logic of Relatives",
|'The Monist', vol. 7, pp. 161-217, 1897.
|'Collected Papers', CP 3.456-552.

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