Cf: Peirce’s 1870 “Logic of Relatives” • Comment 10.2
https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2014/03/14/peirces-1870-logic-of-relatives-c…
Peirce’s 1870 “Logic of Relatives” • Comment 10.2
https://oeis.org/wiki/Peirce%27s_1870_Logic_Of_Relatives_%E2%80%A2_Part_1#C…
All,
To say a relative term “imparts a relation” is to say it conveys information
about the space of tuples in a cartesian product, that is, it determines a
particular subset of that space. When we study the combinations of relative
terms, from the most elementary forms of composition to the most complex
patterns of correlation, we are considering the ways these constraints,
determinations, and informations, as imparted by relative terms, are
compounded in the formation of syntax.
Let us go back and look more carefully at just how it happens that Peirce’s
adjacent terms and subjacent indices manage to impart their respective measures
of information about relations. Consider the examples shown in Figures 7 and 8,
where connecting lines of identity have been drawn between the corresponding
occurrences of the subjacent marks of reference: †, ‡, ∥, §, ¶.
Figure 7. Lover of a Servant of a Woman
https://inquiryintoinquiry.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/lor-1870-lsw-2.0.png
Figure 8. Giver of a Horse to a Lover of a Woman
https://inquiryintoinquiry.files.wordpress.com/2022/01/lor-1870-glwh-2.0.png
One way to approach the problem of “information fusion” in Peirce’s syntax
is to soften the distinction between adjacent terms and subjacent signs and
treat the types of constraints they separately signify more on a par with
each other. To that purpose, let us consider a way of thinking about
relational composition that emphasizes the set-theoretic constraints
involved in the construction of a composite relation.
For example, given the relations L ⊆ X × Y and M ⊆ Y × Z,
Table 9 and Figure 10 present two ways of picturing the
constraints involved in constructing the relational
composition L ∘ M ⊆ X × Z.
Table 9. Relational Composition L ◦ M
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The way to read Table 9 is to imagine you are playing a game
which involves placing tokens on the squares of a board marked
in just that way. The rules are you have to place a single token
on each marked square in the middle of the board in such a way that
all the indicated constraints are satisfied. That is, you have to
place a token whose denomination is a value in the set X on each of
the squares marked X, and similarly for the squares marked Y and Z,
meanwhile leaving all the blank squares empty.
Furthermore, the tokens placed in each row and column have to
obey the relational constraints indicated at the heads of the
corresponding row and column. Thus, the two tokens from X have
to denote the very same value from X, and likewise for Y and Z,
while the pairs of tokens on the rows marked L and M are required
to denote elements in the relations L and M, respectively.
The upshot is, when all that has been done, when the L, M, and 1
relations are satisfied, then the row marked L ∘ M will automatically
bear the tokens of a pair of elements in the composite relation L ∘ M.
Figure 10 shows a different way of viewing the same situation.
Figure 10. Relational Composition L ◦ M
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Regards,
Jon