At 09:30 PM 2/14/2015, Benjamin Udell wrote:
The strange rule really isn't so strange. In CP 4.569 Peirce (without calling it the 'strange rule') says: "The logical Principle is that to say that there is some one individual of which one or other of two predicates is true is no more than to say that there either is some individual of which one is true or else there is some individual of which the other is true."
HP: This "strange rule" illustrates Poincaré's criticism of logic as an impoverishment of natural language that can neither count nor tell time.
BU: In other words, 'there is something round or blue' is equivalent to 'there is something round or there is something blue'. It seems kind of strange because in the first case one seems to mention one individual thing, while in the second case one seems to mention possibly two things.
HP: I think Ben's instinct is correct. It is indeed strange that the difference between two different numbers, like one and two, are ignored. Only using logic rules is such indifference possible. The past and future succumb to the same logical indifference.
Howard
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