John, List ...
Yes, those are all the reasons that all of us who
have been reading Peirce for 50 or 40 or 30 years
have always read the Baldwin and Century Dictionary
entries that Peirce had a hand in with avid interest
for what we can glean of his own point of view. And
you remind us of all the sensible considerations that
every sensible reader eventually observes every time
this comes up. So we're all copacetic on that score.
Now I don't imagine those dictionary editors greeted Peirce's
contributions with quite the same screams of NOR! and NPOV!
that the WikiPeanut Gallery of “Editors” are duty bound to
hue and cry against any scent of original perspective or
creative thought, but still, the job of a lexicographer
will always have its constraints, in any place or time.
In view of all that, then, there is simply no reason
why we should not take seriously the lectures where
Peirce develops in breadth, depth, and length his
conception of information, however concise that
may fail to be.
What interests me so much about Peirce's first legislation of
the “laws of information” in his 1865-66 “Logic of Science” is
that the primal twins of Semiotics and Inquiry nestle so closely
in their first nest that we can see their kinship far better and
more easily than ever again. (I am cautiously optimistic their
further development won't go the same way it did for Rome.)
More than that, whatever disclaimers Peirce may issue about his own
originality, I don't think anyone can fairly encounter his definition
of information as “superfluous comprehension” without being downright
shocked at its novelty.
Reference
https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2016/05/19/information-comprehension-x-extension-%e2%80%a2-selection-1/
Regards,
Jon
On 6/29/2017 7:59 AM, John F Sowa wrote:
Jon A, Jeff D, and Gary F,
JA
Why don't we put this on hold for later discussion?
I was about to send the following when your note appeared in
my inbox. It should be sufficient for the word 'information',
but we can discuss other issues later.
JD
I take the following passage to indicate that Peirce changed his use of
"depth" and "breadth" in some respects some time between 1867 and 1896.
The change was a broadening of the use of both terms.
GF
What Peirce wrote in 1893 is that he had broadened the application
of the terms, i.e. the breadth of the propositions involving them.
That does not mean that their depth, or “signification” as Peirce
often called it, changed in any way;
I agree. One example I use is the broadening of the word 'number'
from integers to rational numbers to irrational numbers to complex
numbers to quaternions... That broadens the application of the word,
but it does not make the definitions for its earlier uses obsolete.
For any particular application, the definition can be narrowed
by adding an adjective, such as real, complex, hypercomplex...
JA
BTW, is it really necessary to point out once again that the job
of a lexicographer presenting a survey of significant usages in
common or technical [use] is very different from the role of
a philosopher expounding his or her own conception?
Many of Peirce's definitions for the Century Dictionary or Baldwin's
dictionary include short philosophical essays. They are as significant
for his Opera Omnia as any other publications.
And note his Ethics of Terminology. From EP 2.265:
The first rule of good taste in writing is to use words whose
meanings will not be misunderstood
Implication: For a common word such as 'information', a dictionary
that cites dates for the word senses, such as the OED, would be
sufficient to determine what Peirce had intended. But when he wrote
the definition himself, that's even better: I'm sure he would not
use a word in a sense that was inconsistent with his own definition.
John
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