Category Archives: Deduction

Let’s stay with Peirce’s example of abductive inference a little longer and try to clear up the more troublesome confusions tending to arise. Figure 1 shows the implication ordering of logical terms in the form of a lattice diagram. Figure … Continue reading →

Re: Information = Comprehension × Extension • Comment 3 Many things still puzzle me about Peirce’s account at this point.  The question marks I added to the Figures of the previous post indicate the node labels I have remaining doubts … Continue reading →

Peirce identifies inference with a process he describes as symbolization.  Let us consider what that might imply. I am going, next, to show that inference is symbolization and that the puzzle of the validity of scientific inference lies merely in … Continue reading →

Let’s examine Peirce’s second example of a disjunctive term — neat, swine, sheep, deer — within the style of lattice framework we used before. Hence if we find out that neat are herbivorous, swine are herbivorous, sheep are herbivorous, and … Continue reading →

Selection 1 ends with Peirce drawing the following conclusion about the links between information, comprehension, inference, and symbolization. Thus information measures the superfluous comprehension.  And, hence, whenever we make a symbol to express any thing or any attribute we cannot … Continue reading →

Selection 1 opens with Peirce proposing, “The information of a term is the measure of its superfluous comprehension”, and it closes with his offering the following promise. I am going, next, to show that inference is symbolization and that the … Continue reading →

Peirce now turns to his example of a conjunctive term, which he uses to show the connection between iconic reference and abductive inference. A similar line of thought may be gone through in reference to hypothesis.  In this case we … Continue reading →

Selection 3 showed how it was possible to combine symbols in such a way as to end up with species of representation outside the class of genuine symbols and introduced the concepts of conjunctive terms and disjunctive terms to describe … Continue reading →

Selection 3 opens with Peirce remarking a critical property of genuine symbols — the class of symbols is not closed under combinations.  In particular, there are logical conjunctions of symbols and logical disjunctions of symbols which are not themselves genuine … Continue reading →

Over the course of Selection 1 Peirce introduces the ideas he needs to answer stubborn questions about the validity of scientific inference.  Briefly put, the validity of scientific inference depends on the ability of symbols to express superfluous comprehension, the … Continue reading →