Ben: Of course, "universal" as employed by the scholastics came from Latin, probably by combining "unum" (one) and "versus" (turned), thus meaning something like "turned into one." Presumably the current connotation, "true of absolutely everything," was a later linguistic development within English.
Note also Peirce's stance that universal propositions do not assert the existence of anything. So "if a cat, then a mammal" could be true even if neither cats nor mammals exist. Peirce's identification of generality with continuity leads me to think that every general is a continuum of possibilities. Hence multiple instantiations of the same general are not identical, just different parts of the same continuum, which is why they are continua themselves and not necessarily distinguishable from each other. Regards, Jon On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 2:58 PM, Benjamin Udell <baud...@gmail.com> wrote: > Jon S., list, > > You may well be right. "General" was one of the words of which Peirce was > in charge in the Century Dictionary - > > http://web.archive.org/web/20120324152427/http://www.pep. > uqam.ca/listsofwords.pep?l=G > > but the definition that appears in the Century Dictionary - > > http://triggs.djvu.org/century-dictionary.com/djvu2jpg.php?query=&djvuurl= > http://triggs.djvu.org/century-dictionary.com/03/ > INDEX.djvu&hittype=page&volno=&page=706&zoom=25&format= > htmlimage&label=Volume%203&fromallhits= > > - involves both senses of "general" - as exceptionless and as allowing > exceptions. > > I always liked his use of "general" since the word "universal" unqualified > in English seems to mean true of absolutely everything, and that's > certainly not what Aristotle meant by the Greek word traditionally > translated as "universal". But it seems like I'm the only person who minds > this, so maybe Peirce was just concerned with the idea of allowing > exceptions in a given class to which a general is applied, rather than > avoiding the sense in which "universal" evokes "maximally general". On the > other hand, Peirce's generals typically have a "G→H" form, which could be > taken as totally universal, though not pertinent outside of a class of > things that at least could be G (I.e., "if a cat, then a mammal" could be > perfectly universal but beside the point for, say, mathematical > structures). The genuinely monadic "G" as true at least potentially of more > than one thing turns out to be a quality of feeling, general only for > reflection. > > Best, Ben > > On 1/9/2017 3:36 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote: > > Ben, List: > > Yes, I have obviously made some progress since I first posed the question > to Gary. The more I read about all of this, the more I am inclined to > think that Peirce's preference for "general" over "universal" does indeed > simply reflect his position that no law or habit is absolutely > exceptionless. > > Thanks, > > Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA > Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman > www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt > > On Mon, Jan 9, 2017 at 1:13 PM, Benjamin Udell <baud...@gmail.com > wrote: > > Sorry, I forgot to adjust the email message subject line. Repaired here. - > Best, Ben > > Jon S., Gary R., Jon A., list, > > As promised in my previous message, here is the first off-list response > that I made to Jon S.'s messages in this thread to peirce-l: > > Jon S., > > You've out-researched me! I'm not sure what to say on-list at this point. > I found some backup for some of your claims. I found that, as you said, > indeed Peirce says that particular and universal propositions are general > propositions, it's in CP 2.271 (from "Nomenclature and Divisions of Triadic > Relations" 1903), > > §10. Kinds of Propositions > 271. A Dicent Symbol, or general proposition, is either *Particular* or > *Universal* . > > I've found elsewhere that Peirce tended to regard 'general' and > 'universal' as being mostly alternate terms for the same thing., > > It may take me a while to muster a response., > > Best, Ben > >
----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
