Jon, Atila, List,
Here is another passage discussing “fact,” from Collected Writings, Volume I.
Principles of Philosophy / Book 1: General Historical Orientation / Chapter 1:
Lessons from the History of Philosophy / §1. Nominalism.
Peirce, in the passage below, connects Aristotle’s “entelechy” to his
development of three modes of being. These three modes are described from the
perspective of a definition of “fact.” This may be where Peirce is describing,
early on, the relationship of abduction — based on probability from a future
perspective or retroduction, as does Baynes, who was aware of Peirce’s
discussion of abduction — to the other two modes of being.
I will let these passages speak for themselves, leaving it open for your
discussion. Our discussions will affect how the future will interpret the
meaning of “fact."
Best,
Mary Libertin
22. Aristotle, on the other hand, whose system, like all the greatest systems,
was evolutionary, recognized besides an embryonic kind of being, like the being
of a tree in its seed, or like the being of a future contingent event,
depending on how a man shall decide to act. In a few passages Aristotle seems
to have a dim aperçue of a third mode of being in the entelechy. The embryonic
being for Aristotle was the being he called matter, which is alike in all
things, and which in the course of its development took on form. Form is an
element having a different mode of being. The whole philosophy of the
scholastic doctors is an attempt to mould this doctrine of Aristotle into
harmony with christian truth. This harmony the different doctors attempted to
bring about in different ways. But all the realists agree in reversing the
order of Aristotle's evolution by making the form come first, and the
individuation of that form come later. Thus, they too recognized two modes of
being; but they were not the two modes of being of Aristotle.
23. My view is that there are three modes of being. I hold that we can directly
observe them in elements of whatever is at any time before the mind in any way.
They are the being of positive qualitative possibility, the being of actual
fact, and the being of law that will govern facts in the future.
24. Let us begin with considering actuality, and try to make out just what it
consists in. If I ask you what the actuality of an event consists in, you will
tell me that it consists in its happening then and there. The specifications
then and there involve all its relations to other existents. The actuality of
the event seems to lie in its relations to the universe of existents. A court
may issue injunctions and judgments against me and I not care a snap of my
finger for them. I may think them idle vapor. But when I feel the sheriff's
hand on my shoulder, I shall begin to have a sense of actuality. Actuality is
something brute. There is no reason in it. I instance putting your shoulder
against a door and trying to force it open against an unseen, silent, and
unknown resistance. We have a two-sided consciousness of effort and resistance,
which seems to me to come tolerably near to a pure sense of actuality. On the
whole, I think we have here a mode of being of one thing which consists in how
a second object is. I call that Secondness.
25. Besides this, there are two modes of being that I call Firstness and
Thirdness. Firstness is the mode of being which consists in its subject's being
positively such as it is regardless of aught else. That can only be a
possibility. For as long as things do not act upon one another there is no
sense or meaning in saying that they have any being, unless it be that they are
such in themselves that they may perhaps come into relation with others. The
mode of being a redness, before anything in the universe was yet red, was
nevertheless a positive qualitative possibility. And redness in itself, even if
it be embodied, is something positive and sui generis. That I call Firstness.
We naturally attribute Firstness to outward objects, that is we suppose they
have capacities in themselves which may or may not be already actualized, which
may or may not ever be actualized, although we can know nothing of such
possibilities [except] so far as they are actualized.
26. Now for Thirdness. Five minutes of our waking life will hardly pass without
our making some kind of prediction; and in the majority of cases these
predictions are fulfilled in the event. Yet a prediction is essentially of a
general nature, and cannot ever be completely fulfilled. To say that a
prediction has a decided tendency to be fulfilled, is to say that the future
events are in a measure really governed by a law. If a pair of dice turns up
sixes five times running, that is a mere uniformity. The dice might happen
fortuitously to turn up sixes a thousand times running. But that would not
afford the slightest security for a prediction that they would turn up sixes
the next time. If the prediction has a tendency to be fulfilled, it must be
that future events have a tendency to conform to a general rule. "Oh," but say
the nominalists, "this general rule is nothing but a mere word or couple of
words!" I reply, "Nobody ever dreamed of denying that what is general is of the
nature of a general sign; but the question is whether future events will
conform to it or not. If they will, your adjective 'mere' seems to be
ill-placed." A rule to which future events have a tendency to conform is ipso
facto an important thing, an important element in the happening of those
events. This mode of being which consists, mind my word if you please, the mode
of being which consists in the fact that future facts of Secondness will take
on a determinate general character, I call a Thirdness.
> On Sep 18, 2025, at 8:57 AM, Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> Atila, List:
>
> Peirce indeed prepared the entry
> <https://server-66-113-234-189.da.direct/century-dictionary.com/html/djvu2jpgframes.php?volno=03&page=336&query=fact>
> for "fact" in The Century Dictionary--the complete list of his contributions
> is here
> <https://www.depts.ttu.edu/pragmaticism/collections/works/bibliography.pdf>,
> pp. 43-83--and his second definition is indeed the one that is relevant to
> what we have been discussing.
>
> CSP: A real state of things, as distinguished from a statement or belief;
> that in the real world agreement or disagreement with which makes a
> proposition true or false; a real inherence of an attribute in a substance,
> corresponding to the relation between the predicate and the subject of a
> proposition. By a few writers things in the concrete and the universe in its
> entirety are spoken of as facts; but according to the almost universal
> acceptation, a fact is not the whole concrete reality in any case, but an
> abstract element of the reality. Thus, Julius Caesar is not called a fact;
> but that Julius Caesar invaded Britain is said to have been a fact, or to be
> a fact. To this extent, the use of the word fact implies the reality of
> abstractions. With the majority of writers, also, a fact, or single fact,
> relates only to an individual thing or individual set of things. Thus, that
> Brutus killed Caesar is said to have been a fact; but that all men are mortal
> is not called a fact, but a collection of facts. By fact is also often meant
> a true statement, a truth, or truth in general; but this seems to be a mere
> inexactness of language, and in many passages any attempt to distinguish
> between the meanings on the supposition that fact means a true statement, and
> on the supposition that it means the real relation signified by a true
> statement would be empty subtlety. Fact is often used as correlative to
> theory, to denote that which is certain or well settled--the phenomena which
> the theory colligates and harmonizes. Fact, as being special, is sometimes
> opposed to truth, as being universal; and in such cases there is an
> implication that facts are minute matters ascertained by research, and often
> inferior in their importance for the formation of general opinions, or for
> the general description of phenomena, to other matters which are of familiar
> experience.
>
> In short, a fact is not itself a representation, it is what a true
> proposition represents. As Peirce writes elsewhere, "What we call a 'fact' is
> something having the structure of a proposition, but supposed to be an
> element of the very universe itself" (EP 2:304, 1901); and, "A fact is so
> highly a prescissively abstract state of things, that it can be wholly
> represented in a simple proposition" (CP 5.549, EP 2:378, 1906). We often
> colloquially use "fact" when referring to "a true statement," but it is
> terminologically more precise to use "fact" as instead referring to "the real
> relation signified by a true statement," i.e., an "abstract state of things"
> that is prescinded from the "one individual, or completely determinate, state
> of things, namely, the all of reality" (ibid.). As Peirce observes, this
> effectively "implies the reality of abstractions," which is fully consistent
> with scholastic realism and utterly incompatible with nominalism.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
> Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian
> www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt
> <http://www.linkedin.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt> / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
> <http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt>
> On Wed, Sep 17, 2025 at 4:39 PM Atila Bayat <[email protected]
> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>> I think the Stoic definition of “fact” confuses the sense Peirce was driving
>> at. Your entry seems to reflect the 1st entry in Century Dictionary which
>> Peirce wrote, I believe.
>>
>> Actually the second entry is more fitting for a discussion on fact and
>> truth. I think Peirce suggests/implies a representative characteristic to
>> fact in his semiotics. Or I will check into that again later today. But I
>> had the Century dictionary vols handy.
>>
>> Atila
> _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
> ► PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON
> PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] .
> ► <a href="mailto:[email protected]?subject=SIG%20peirce-l";>UNSUBSCRIBE FROM
> PEIRCE-L</a> . But, if your subscribed email account is not your default
> email account, then go to
> https://list.iu.edu/sympa/signoff/peirce-l .
> ► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP; moderated by Gary Richmond; and
> co-managed by him and Ben Udell.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
► PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON
PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] .
► <a href="mailto:[email protected]?subject=SIG%20peirce-l";>UNSUBSCRIBE FROM
PEIRCE-L</a> . But, if your subscribed email account is not your default email
account, then go to
https://list.iu.edu/sympa/signoff/peirce-l .
► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP; moderated by Gary Richmond; and
co-managed by him and Ben Udell.
