Category Archives: Philosophy

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 →

I am going to begin with six selections from Peirce’s Lectures of 1866 where he addresses the roles of signs informing sign relations and their relation to the rules of inference governing inquiries. ⁂ ⁂ ⁂ Our first text comes … Continue reading →

Perhaps the best perspective from which to bring the connection between the theory of signs and the theory of inquiry into its proper focus is Peirce’s own Theory of Information, which he began setting forth in lectures at Harvard and … Continue reading →