Jeff, I'm afraid your question is too abstruse for a simple backwoods scholar like me ... for one thing, granted that Peirce's 1897 paper on the Logic of Relatives is important, I don't see how the terminological distinctions in it clarify Peirce's 1903 remarks on the Nomenclature and Divisions of Triadic Relations (which to me are much clearer than the 1897 paper).
Also, the fact that rhemes can have any number of blanks, and thus -adicities of 0,1,2,3,4 and higher, is not directly correlated with the triadicity of the relation that constitutes a sign according to Peirce in 2.242. And finally, I just don't follow what you're saying in your penultimate paragraph about the relative itself having "the internal character of a triadic relationship, where that relative is connected to a triadic relationship." Maybe you're right that a diagram would help, but I'm afraid you (or somebody else) will have to supply the diagram, it's beyond me! (At this time of night, at least.) gary f. -----Original Message----- From: Jeffrey Brian Downard [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 16-Dec-14 5:07 PM Gary F., Lists, As we try to interpret the key passages where Peirce tries to spell out what is special about the nature of triadic relations, I think it might be helpful to look at the way Peirce tries to work through three grades of increasing clarity about the nature of such relations (CP 3.457). In this piece on the Logic of Relatives, he makes a distinction at the second grade of clarity between relatives, relations and relationships. How do you apply these different terms to the claim he makes at 2.242 about the character of a genuinely triadic relation? You've provided the passage: 242. A Representamen is the First Correlate of a triadic relation, the Second Correlate being termed its Object, and the possible Third Correlate being termed its Interpretant, by which triadic relation the possible Interpretant is determined to be the First Correlate of the same triadic relation to the same Object, and for some possible Interpretant. A Sign is a representamen of which some interpretant is a cognition of a mind. Signs are the only representamens that have been much studied. On my reading of the matter, we need to think about how a relative (say a monadic relative that serves as a first correlate) is connected to a triadic relationship. The connection between these two things (never mind what serves as second or third correlate in the triadic relationship) is the relation between this monadic relative and the triadic relationship. A genuinely triadic relation is what we have when the relative itself has the internal character of a triadic relationship, where that relative is connected to a triadic relationship. The relation between these two things (the relative having the internal structure of triad and the triadic relationship) is that of a genuine triad between it is a triad connected to a triad. A diagram or two would help clear matters up, I think. Is this the way you would apply Peirce distinction to that definition of a genuinely triadic relation or, would you explain things differently. --Jeff Jeff Downard Associate Professor Department of Philosophy NAU (o) 523-8354 ________________________________________ From: Gary Fuhrman [[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 2:32 PM Edwina, speaking of the three "members" of a triadic relation, you say that relations "are NOT composed of 'members' (where do you get that from?)" I get it from CP 2.274, the very passage (quoted by Gary R.) that you claimed to be in agreement with: "The triadic relation is genuine, that is its three members are bound together by it in a way that does not consist in any complexus of dyadic relations."
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