Peircers, I have been duly chastised for posting a link that I thought needed no introduction, as they say, but in my defense I was away from home with only my phone, making it inconvenient to post a whole text, and besides I thought the context would be clear enough from the context of discussion on the List, etc., etc.
At any rate, the context was yet another recurring discussion, this time concerning Peirce's use of the adjectives “formal” and “quasi-necessary” with normative connotations, all of which I think is clear from the following sample of texts: C.S. Peirce (c. 1897), “Ground, Object, and Interpretant” (CP 2.227) https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2012/06/04/c-s-peirce-%E2%80%A2-logic-as-semiotic/ C.S. Peirce (1902), “Carnegie Application” (NEM 4, 20–21, 54) https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2012/06/01/c-s-peirce-%e2%80%a2-on-the-definition-of-logic/ C.S. Peirce (1902), “Minute Logic” (CP 2.111–118) https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2012/03/09/c-s-peirce-%E2%80%A2-objective-logic/ As it happens, we had pretty much this same discussion regarding the meanings of “formal”, normal and peculiar, about this time five years ago, as the following instance, among others, shows: Definition and Determination : 8 https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2012/06/13/definition-and-determination-8/ <QUOTE author="JA"> The most general meaning of “formal” is “concerned with form”, but the Latin “forma” can mean “beauty” in addition to “form”, so perhaps a normative “goodness of form” enters at this root. The Latin word “norma” literally means a “carpenter’s square”. The Greek “gnomon” is a sundial pointer taking a similar form. The most general meaning of “normative” is “having to do with what a person ought to do”, but a pragmatic interpretation of ethical imperatives tends to treat that as “having to do with what a person ought to do in order to achieve a given object”, so another formula might be “relating to the good that befits a being of our kind, what must be done in order to bring that good into being, and how to tell the signs that show the way”. Defining logic as formal or normative semiotic differentiates logic from other species of semiotic under the general theory of signs, leaving a niche open for descriptive semiotic, just to mention the obvious branch. This brings us to the question: How does a concern with form, or goodness of form, along with the question of what is required to achieve an object, modify our perspective on sign relations in a way that duly marks it as a logical point of view? </QUOTE> If I had to add any finer point now, I would take pains to point out that “formal” in the sense of “concerned with form” can mean either “syntactic form” or “objective form”, and that it's good form to keep that distinction in mind. Regards, Jon On 6/17/2017 3:15 PM, Jon Awbrey wrote:
https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2012/06/04/c-s-peirce-•-logic-as-semiotic/ http://inquiryintoinquiry.com
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