There hasn't been much discussion of NP 3.7, but I'll assume that's because it's clear enough to everyone that we can press on to 3.8, where the concepts of "fact" and "truth" come to the fore. Here again our keynote text is "Kaina Stoicheia", which Frederik quotes to begin this section:
[[ What we call a "fact" is something having the structure of a proposition, but supposed to be an element of the very universe itself. ]] This needs to be placed in its context, EP2:304 (or for those who don't have EP2, http://www.gnusystems.ca/KainaStoicheia.htm .) This sentence is a prime implementation of Peirce's dictum that a scientific metaphysics must take its principles from logic (and not the other way round!). Those deeply committed to the metaphysical belief that the physical universe is the only real universe might jump ship here, because the very universe itself is the same one Peirce had referred to earlier in the paragraph as the Universe of being, the "Truth." This is an indispensible concept in logic because logic is the science of inquiry: "Every man is fully satisfied that there is such a thing as truth, or he would not ask any question" (EP2:240). However, as Peirce explains in this same paragraph of KS, the metaphysical formulation of this principle does not require us to cling tenaciously to it as a belief, but only to suppose that a "fact" is an element of the very universe itself. What we have to suppose, then, is that the structure of a proposition (or Dicisign) is an elementary structure of the Universe itself, or rather that we can find this structure wherever we can find the elements of Truth in any universe of discourse. It is precisely in this sense "that all this universe is perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs" (EP2:394). These 'elements of Truth' are called "facts", and this is the point where semiosis intersects with causality. This becomes clear later in KS (EP2:315), where Peirce rejects J.S. Mill's extraordinary misconception of the word "cause" because it deprives the word of all utility. The trouble with Mill is that he speaks of the cause of a singular event. Everybody else speaks of the cause of a "fact," which is an element of the event. According to the pragmatically useful concept of "cause", says Peirce, That which is caused, the causatum, is not the entire event, but such abstracted element of an event as is expressible in a proposition, or what we call a "fact." The cause is another "fact." NP 3.8 includes a clearer explanation of this, from a later Peirce manuscript (p. 74). In the present context, the crucial implication is that the syntax of the dicisign is an element of causality itself, insofar as causes can be investigated. In a sense, science is made of dicisigns because it supposes that the real relations involved in the intelligible universe are structured like dicisigns. Those who find this concept of causality questionable would do well to post their questions now. gary f.
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