## Logical Graphs, Iconicity, Interpretation • 1

If exegesis raised a hermeneutic problem, that is, a problem of interpretation, it is because every reading of a text always takes place within a community, a tradition, or a living current of thought, all of which display presuppositions and exigencies — regardless of how closely a reading may be tied to the quid, to “that in view of which” the text was written.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s my 48,000 words worth on the recurring question of logical graphs, their iconicity, and their interpretation, at least as concerns Peirce’s alpha graphs interpreted for propositional logic.  A few more actual words, literally speaking, may be called for.  I’ll return to that anon.

Referring to the Table —

• Column 1 shows a conventional name $f_{i}$ and a venn diagram for each of the sixteen boolean functions on two variables.
• Column 2 shows the logical graph canonically representing the boolean function in Column 1 under the entitative interpretation.  This is the interpretation C.S. Peirce used in his earlier work on entitative graphs and the one Spencer Brown used in his book Laws of Form.
• Column 3 shows the logical graph canonically representing the boolean function in Column 1 under the existential interpretation.  This is the interpretation C.S. Peirce used in his later work on existential graphs.

$\text{Boolean Functions and Logical Graphs on Two Variables}$

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