John, have you considered ideal/actual for the root dichotomy? (Or the trichotomy ideal/actual/significant?)
Gary f. -----Original Message----- From: John F Sowa <s...@bestweb.net> Sent: 23-Aug-18 11:26 To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Possibility and actuality: What does a variable refer to? Jon AS and Edwina, JAS > I am curious--why insist on a dichotomy, when Peirce clearly advocated > a trichotomy? Signs and conditional necessity (3ns) are just as > distinct from pure mathematics and possibility (1ns) as existence and > actuality (2ns). Yes, of course. But if we have that pair signs/reality, we can put the trichotomy on the left-hand side. If you call it transcendental/physical, following Wilkins, we can put pure mathematics, signs, and metaphysics on the left. But the current ISO proposal (by a philosopher named Barry Smith) has only one mode of existence. That is why he uses the term 'information artifact'. He can't allow a quantified variable to refer to information by itself because it doesn't "exist". He allows tokens, but no types. The attached diagram bfo_cat.jpg shows the top-level Entity divided in two branches, Continuant and Occurrent. Everything that exists must be forced in one of those two branches. There is no room for mathematics, signs, laws, habits, goals, purposes, intentionality -- unless they're forced into some physical instance. According to BFO, an intention is something inside the brain of some animal. But a token of the statement of the intention would be an information artifact. ET > What about Peirce's Six Categorical modes: - which makes the world a > rather complex place. My goal is to get ISO to approve a new top level with just a simple two-way split, such as Transcendental/Physical, with the BFO hierarchy placed under Physical. As I said before, you can call the pair of terms Logos/Physis, Dharma/Maya, or Dao/Ten-Thousand-Things. (By the way, the New Testament in Chinese translates 'logos' as 'dao'.) Getting that split would open the door to more detailed proposals for the left-hand side. But the first step to convince people that such a split is needed. A good pair of terms would be helpful. John
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