Comment 2 ========= <QUOTE>
For instance, you and I are men because we possess those attributes — having two legs, being rational, &c. — which make up the comprehension of ''man''. Every addition to the comprehension of a term lessens its extension up to a certain point, after that further additions increase the information instead. Thus, let us commence with the term ''colour''; add to the comprehension of this term, that of ''red''. ''Red colour'' has considerably less extension than ''colour''; add to this the comprehension of ''dark''; ''dark red colour'' has still less [extension]. Add to this the comprehension of ''non-blue'' — ''non-blue dark red colour'' has the same extension as ''dark red colour'', so that the ''non-blue'' here performs a work of supererogation; it tells us that no ''dark red colour'' is blue, but does none of the proper business of connotation, that of diminishing the extension at all. (Peirce 1866, Lowell Lecture 7, CE 1, 467). </QUOTE> Peircers, When we set about comprehending the comprehension of a sign, say, a term or expression, we run into a very troublesome issue as to how many intensions (predicates, properties, qualities) an object of that sign has. For how do we quantify the number of qualities a thing has? Without some more or less artificial strait imposed on the collection of qualities, the number appears without limit. Let's pass this by, as Peirce does, for now, and imagine that we have fixed on some way of speaking sensibly about ''the'' comprehension of a sign in a particular set of signs, the collection of which we may use as a language or a medium. Then we can begin to talk about the amount of redundancy, the superfluidity of comprehension, if you will, as Peirce does, that belongs to a given sign, and thus to its object. Regards, Jon -- academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey my word press blog: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/ isw: http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/JLA
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