List: Despite having already had much to say earlier today, I would like to add a couple of follow-up comments. First ...
JAS: ... in 1908 Peirce introduced the concept of the Continuous Predicate as what remains when everything else is instead thrown into the *subject*--specifically, everything that requires Collateral Experience on the part of the interpreting Quasi-mind in order to be understood. This highlights the distinguishing feature of a Proposition--the Continuous Predicate, the logical *form of relation* among the various Subjects, is the *only *new information that it is capable of providing to an interpreting Quasi-mind. The latter must *already *be acquainted with each of the Subjects by means of Collateral Experience. In other words, "everything that can be thrown into the subject" constitutes the (Immediate) *Object *of a Proposition, leaving the Continuous Predicate alone as its (Immediate) *Interpretant*. CSP: Its Interpretant is all that the Sign conveys: acquaintance with its Object must be gained by collateral experience. (EP 2:480; 1908) CSP: The person who interprets that sentence (or any other Sign whatsoever) must be determined by the Object of it through collateral observation quite independently of the action of the Sign ... All that part of the understanding of the Sign which the Interpreting Mind has needed collateral observation for is outside the Interpretant ... But by collateral observation, I mean previous acquaintance with what the Sign denotes ... All that is collateral observation and is no part of the Interpretant. But to put together the different subjects as the Sign represents them as related,--that is the main of the Interpretant-forming ... I think by this time you must understand what I mean when I say that no sign can be understood,--or at least that no *proposition *can be understood,--unless the interpreter has "collateral acquaintance" with every Object of it. (EP 2:493,494,496; 1909) I believe that this is another reason why Peirce called his 1908 analysis "proper" and "ultimate." Second, and more directly relevant to the thread topic ... JAS: Recalling Peirce's 1908 trichotomy for the Mode of Being of the Dynamic Object, that Subject will be *Abstractive *for a hypostatically abstracted quality, *Concretive *for a concrete existent, or *Collective *for a general class; and these obviously correspond to "possesses the character of," "is identical to," and "belongs to the class of," respectively. As Atkins discusses in his book, these correspond (in different order) to the three Aristotelian functions of the copula, which served as Peirce's starting point for "A New List of Categories." RKA: .... S is P actually takes three forms. The first is that S is identical to P. The second is that S is a member of the genus P. The third is that S has the accident P. (p. 31) However, Peirce ultimately deviated from these a bit, settling instead on reference to a ground, reference to a correlate, and reference to an interpretant as the bases for the Categories of quality, relation (later reaction), and representation (later mediation), respectively. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt >
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