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In this question about the symbol's capacity for meaning, then, is found another contact between the theory of signs and the logic of inquiry.  As C.S. Peirce expressed it:

In this question about the symbol's capacity for meaning, then, is found another contact between the theory of signs and the logic of inquiry.  As C.S. Peirce expressed it:

<p>Now, I ask, how is it that anything can be done with a symbol, without reflecting upon the conception, much less imagining the object that belongs to it? It is simply because the symbol has acquired a nature, which may be described thus, that when it is brought before the mind certain principles of its use — whether reflected on or not — by association immediately regulate the action of the mind;  and these may be regarded as laws of the symbol itself which it cannot ''as a symbol'' transgress.  (Peirce, CE 1, 173).</p>

<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The information of a term is the measure of its superfluous comprehension. That is to say that the proper office of the comprehension is to determine the extension of the term.  &hellip;</p>

<p>Inference in general obviously supposes symbolization; and all symbolization is inference.  For every symbol as we have seen contains information.  And … all kinds of information involve inference.  Inference, then, is symbolization.  They are the same notions.  Now we have already analyzed the notion of a ''symbol'', and we have found that it depends upon the possibility of representations acquiring a nature, that is to say an immediate representative power.  This principle is therefore the ground of inference in general.  (Peirce, CE 1, 280).</p>

<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Every addition to the comprehension of a term, lessens its extension up to a certain point, after that further additions increase the information instead.  &hellip;</p>

<p>A symbol which has connotation and denotation contains information.  Whatever symbol contains information contains more connotation than is necessary to limit its possible denotation to those things which it may denote.  That is, every symbol contains more than is sufficient for a principle of selection.  (Peirce, CE 1, 282).</p>

<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;And therefore as every term must have information, every term has superfluous comprehension.  And, hence, whenever we make a symbol to express any thing or any attribute we cannot make it so empty that it shall have no superfluous comprehension.</p>

<p>The information of a term is the measure of its superfluous comprehension.  That is to say that the proper office of the comprehension is to determine the extension of the term.  …</p>

<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I am going, next, to show that inference is symbolization and that the puzzle of the validity of scientific inference lies merely in this superfluous comprehension and is therefore entirely removed by a consideration of the laws of ''information''.</p>

 

| align="right" | (Peirce, CE 1, 467).

 

 

<p>I am going, next, to show that inference is symbolization and that the puzzle of the validity of scientific inference lies merely in this superfluous comprehension and is therefore entirely removed by a consideration of the laws of ''information''. (Peirce, CE 1, 467).</p>

A full explanation of these statements, linking scientific inference, symbolization, and information together in such an integral fashion, would require an excursion into the pragmatic theory of information that Peirce was already presenting in lectures at Harvard as early as 1865.  For now, let it suffice to say that this anticipation of the information concept, fully recognizing the reality of its dimension, would not sound too remote from the varieties of ''law abiding constraint exploitation'' that have become increasingly familiar since the dawn of cybernetics.

A full explanation of these statements, linking scientific inference, symbolization, and information together in such an integral fashion, would require an excursion into the pragmatic theory of information that Peirce was already presenting in lectures at Harvard as early as 1865.  For now, let it suffice to say that this anticipation of the information concept, fully recognizing the reality of its dimension, would not sound too remote from the varieties of ''law abiding constraint exploitation'' that have become increasingly familiar since the dawn of cybernetics.