Category Archives: Extension

Re: Ontolog Forum • Joseph Simpson To understand the purpose of Peirce’s lecture hall illustrations I think we need to consider how these sorts of expository examples come into being.  Having crafted a few myself the technique is much like … Continue reading →

I am roughly at the halfway point of my comments on Peirce’s information formula, having just finished up the link between abductive inference and iconic reference.  The discussion of induction and indexicals will follow pretty much the same pattern, though … Continue reading →

Re: Ontolog Forum • Bruce Schuman Information and optimization go hand in hand — discovering the laws or constraints naturally governing the systems in which we live is a big part of moving toward our hearts’ desires within them.  I’m … Continue reading →

Re: Deborah G. Mayo • R.A. Fisher: “Statistical Methods and Scientific Induction” As much as I incline toward Fisher’s views over those of Neyman and Pearson, I always find these controversies driving me back to Peirce.  It’s my personal sense … Continue reading →

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

Many things still puzzle me about Peirce’s account at this point.  I indicated a few of them by means of question marks at several places in the last two Figures.  There is nothing for it but returning to the text … 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 →

At this point in his inventory of scientific reasoning, Peirce is relating the nature of inference, information, and inquiry to the character of the signs mediating the process in question, a process he is presently describing as symbolization. In the interest … Continue reading →

Re: Ontolog Forum • Azamat Abdoullaev As I suggested in an earlier discussion, the difference that makes a difference in Peirce’s contribution to our understanding of inference and reference is “due to his concurrent development of the logic of relative … Continue reading →