Cf: Peirce’s 1870 “Logic of Relatives” • Comment 9.2
https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2014/02/26/peirces-1870-logic-of-relatives-c…
Peirce’s 1870 “Logic of Relatives” • Comment 9.2
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https://oeis.org/wiki/Peirce%27s_1870_Logic_Of_Relatives_%E2%80%A2_Part_1#C…
All,
In setting up his discussion of selective operations and their
corresponding selective symbols, Boole writes the following.
<QUOTE Boole>
The operation which we really perform is one of “selection according to
a prescribed principle or idea”. To what faculties of the mind such an
operation would be referred, according to the received classification
of its powers, it is not important to inquire, but I suppose that it
would be considered as dependent upon the two faculties of Conception
or Imagination, and Attention. To the one of these faculties might
be referred the formation of the general conception; to the other
the fixing of the mental regard upon those individuals within the
prescribed universe of discourse which answer to the conception.
If, however, as seems not improbable, the power of Attention is
nothing more than the power of continuing the exercise of any
other faculty of the mind, we might properly regard the whole
of the mental process above described as referrible to the
mental faculty of Imagination or Conception, the first step
of the process being the conception of the Universe itself,
and each succeeding step limiting in a definite manner the
conception thus formed. Adopting this view, I shall describe
each such step, or any definite combination of such steps, as
a “definite act of conception”.
(Boole, Laws of Thought, 43)
</QUOTE>
Regards,
Jon