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Directory:Jon Awbrey/Papers/Information = Comprehension × Extension (view source)
Revision as of 18:56, 31 March 2009
, 18:56, 31 March 2009→Selection 35
<p>The last lecture was devoted to the fundamental inquiry of the whole course, that of the grounds of inference.</p>
<p>The last lecture was devoted to the fundamental inquiry of the whole course, that of the grounds of inference.</p>
<p>We first distingushed three kinds of reference which every true symbol has to its object.</p>
<p>We first distinguished three kinds of reference which every true symbol has to its object.</p>
<p>In the first place, every true symbol is applicable to some real thing. Hence, every symbol whether true or not asserts itself to be applicable to some real thing. This is the ''denotation'' of the symbol. All that we know of things is as denotative objects of symbols. And thus all denotation is comparative, merely. One symbol has more denotation than another or is more extensive when it asserts itself to be applicable to all the things of which the first asserts itself to be applicable and also to others.</p>
<p>In the first place, every true symbol is applicable to some real thing. Hence, every symbol whether true or not asserts itself to be applicable to some real thing. This is the ''denotation'' of the symbol. All that we know of things is as denotative objects of symbols. And thus all denotation is comparative, merely. One symbol has more denotation than another or is more extensive when it asserts itself to be applicable to all the things of which the first asserts itself to be applicable and also to others.</p>
<p>Thus, no matter how general a symbol may be, it must have some connotation limiting its denotation; it must refer to some determinate form; but it must also connote ''reality'' in order to denote at all; but ''all'' that has any determinate form has reality and thus this reality is a part of the connotation which does not limit the extension of the symbol.</p>
<p>Thus, no matter how general a symbol may be, it must have some connotation limiting its denotation; it must refer to some determinate form; but it must also connote ''reality'' in order to denote at all; but ''all'' that has any determinate form has reality and thus this reality is a part of the connotation which does not limit the extension of the symbol.</p>
<p>And so every symbol has information. To say that a symbol has information is as much as to say that it implies that it is equivalent to another symbol different in connotation. (Peirce 1865, "Harvard Lecture 11", CE 1, 286–288).</p>
<p>And so every symbol has information. To say that a symbol has information is as much as to say that it implies that it is equivalent to another symbol different in connotation.</p>
<p>(Peirce 1865, Harvard Lecture 11, CE 1, 286–288).</p>
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