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I’m Ben UdeIΙ. Quadruplicity drinks procrastination, quoth Bertrand Russell making sense, and the best proof am I. Lifelong layabout layman. EMAIL: baudell@ΑntіѕраΜgmail.com . Delete the “ΑntіѕраΜ” from my email address; it’s there in order to avoid spam. Also, I post at peirce-l and currently am co-manager there and co-manager & webmaster at Arisbe: The Peirce Gateway. I'm not Tetrast in Greece or on Twitter or art websites.
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The Century Dictionary: empirical, entelechy, experience, pragmatic.
Permalink: http://peircematters.blogspot.com/2006/01/definitions.html
From a post on Jan. 13, 2006 by Joseph Ransdell to me and peirce-l:
François Latraverse, in the philosophy department at the University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM), is Director of the group editing the Century Dictionary volume of the new edition of CSP's work (Writings of CSP) for the Peirce Edition Project, which will be Volume 7. I have learned from him that the entries for "pragmatic", "pragmatism," etc., in the Supplementary volume of the Dictionary (the original version was published in 1889), are by John Dewey rather than Peirce. So you will want to make a note of that in the blog, but I think we would want to retain the entry nonetheless since it does do a creditable job of including Peirce's view. I doubt that Peirce himself would have done it much differently than Dewey did since it was certainly necessary by that time to take due account not only of Peirce as originator of the conception as it appears in the reference to him there but also of the looser or broader meanings that had accrued to those terms by that time in virtue of James' usages and others that had developed by that time. Dewey seems to me to have been as scrupulous about all this as Peirce would have been had it been him who made the entries in the supplementary volume.
From the Century Dictionary at http://www.global-language.com/century/ (From there, download and install special viewing software; it's free & well worth the trouble in order to be able to view the original pages through the links just below.)
-- Main Dictionary: empiric, empirical, empirically empiricism, empiricist, empirism, empiristic.
Century Dictionary, Vol. III, Page 1903, Empire to Emplaster (DjVu),
-- Supplement: empiricistic, empirico-psychological, empiriocritical, empiriocriticism.
Dictionary Supplement, Vol. XI, Page 0421, Emissivity to Enamel-Prism (DjVu),
-- Main Dictionary: entelechy
Century Dictionary, Vol. III, Page 1946, Entastic to Enter (DjVu),
-- Main Dictionary: experience (n.), experience (v.), experienced, experiencer, experient, experiential, experientialism, experientialist
Century Dictionary, Vol. III, Page 2079, Experience to Experimentalize (DjVu),
-- Main Dictionary: pragmatic, pragmatica, pragmatical, pragmatically, pragmaticalness, pragmatism, pragmatist, pragmatize, pragmatizer
Century Dictionary, Vol. VI, Page 4667, Praemunire to Pragmatize (DjVu),
-- Supplement: pragmatic, pragmaticism, pragmatism, pragmatist
Dictionary Supplement, Vol. XII, Page 1050, Pps to Prairie-Hare (DjVu),
Notes:
I've replaced the dagger symbol with "(obs.)" (for "obsolete").
I’ve replaced the greater-than & lesser-than symbols with braces (to indicate derivations of word forms).
In phonetic renditions, dots and accents after a character represent the Century Dictionary's placement of accents or dots above or below the character. So, herein, a raised dot after a vowel stands for the Century Dictionary's placement of a raised dot OVER the vowel. Greek transliteration is likewise with these two exceptions: "e^" will stand for the Greek letter eta, and "o^" will stand for the Greek letter omega. This is all in order that, if a reader wishes to copy & paste from here, s/he won’t need to worry about coding issues arising in emails etc. (Western Windows, Unicode, etc., etc.). This Webpage's characters are all or mostly ASCII.
EMPIRIC, EMPIRICAL, EMPIRICISM, EMPIRICIST, EMPIRISM, EMPIRISTICCentury Dictionary, Vol. III, Page 1903, Empire to Emplaster (DjVu)
EMPIRIC (em-pir'ik), a. and n. [Formerly empirick; { OF. empirique, F. empirique = Sp. empi'rico = Pg. It. empirico (cf. D. G. empirisch = Dan. Sw. empirisk), L. empiricus, { Gr. empeiriko's, experienced (or hoi empirikoi', the Empirics: see II., 1), { empeiri'a, experience, mere experience or practice without knowledge, esp. in medicine, empiricism, { empeiro's, experienced or practised in, { en, in, + peira, a trial, experiment, attempt; akin to po'ros, a way, { per, par = E. fare, go.]
I. a. 1. Same as empirical. -2. Versed in physical experimentation: as, an empiric alchemist. -- 3. Of or pertaining to the medical empirics.
It is accounted an error to commit a natural body to empiric physicians. Bacon, Advancement of Learning, i. 17.
II. n. 1. [cap.] One of an ancient sect of Greek physicians who maintained that practice or experience, and not theory, is the foundation of the science of medicine.
Among the Greek physicians, those who founded their practice on experience called themselves empirics; those who relied on theory, methodists; and those who held a middle course, dogmatists. Fleming, Vocab. of Philos. (ed. Krauth), p. 157.
2. An experimenter in medical practice, destitute of adequate knowledge; an irregular or unscientific physician; more distinctively, a quack or charlatan.
It is not safe for the Church of Christ when bishops learn what belongeth unto government, as empirics learn physic, by killing of the sick. Hooker, Eccles. Polity, vii. 24.
This is the cause why empirics and old women are more happy many times in their cures than learned physicians, because they are more religious in holding their medicines. Bacon, Advancement of Learning, it. 198.
There are many empiricks in the world who pretend to infallible methods of curing all patients. Bp. Atterbury, Sermons, II. viii.
Empiricks and mountebanks. Shaftesbury, Advice to an Author, it. § 2.
3. In general, one who depends mainly upon experience or intuition; one whose procedure in any field of action or inquiry is too exclusively empirical.
The empiric .... instead of ascending from sense to intellect (the natural progress of all true learning), . . . hurries, on the contrary, into the midst of sense, where he wanders at random without any end, and is lost in a labyrinth of infinite particulars. Harris, Hermes, iv.
Vague generalisations may form the stock-in-trade of the political empiric, but he is an empiric notwithstanding. Stubbs, Medieval and Modern Hist., p. 91.
=Syn. 2. Mountebank, etc. See quack, n.
EMPIRICAL (em-pir'i-ka..l), a. [{ empiric + -al.]
1. Pertaining to or derived from experience or experiments; depending upon or derived from the observation of phenomena.
In philosophical language the term empirical means simply what belongs to or is the product of experience or observation. Sir W. Hamilton.
Now here again we may observe the error into which Locke was led by confounding the cause of our ideas with their occasion. There can be no idea, he argues, prior to experience; granted. Therefore he concludes the mind previous to it is, as it were, a tabula rasa, owing every notion which it gains primarily to an empirical source. J. D. Morell.
The empirical generalization that guides the farmer in his rotation of crops serves to bring his actions into concord with certain of the actions going on in plants and soil. H. Spencer, Prin. of Biol, §28.
2. Derived, as a general proposition, from a narrow range of observation, without any warrant for its exactitude or for its wider validity.
The empirical diagram only represents the relative number and position of the parts, just as a careful observation shows them in the flower; but if the diagram also indicates the places where members are suppressed, . . . I call it a theoretical diagram. Sachs, Botany (trans.), p. 525.
It is not at all impossible that Henry II. may have been among the pupils of Vacarius: certainly he was more of a lawyer than mere empirical education could make him. Stubbs, Medieval and Modern Hist., p. 303.
3. Pertaining to the medical practice of an empiric, in either of the medical senses of that word; hence, charlatanical; quackish.
The empirical treatment he submitted to . . . hastened his end. Goldsmith, Bolingbroke.
Empirical certainty, cognition, ego, idealism, etc. See the nouns.
--Empirical formula or law, a formula which sufficiently satisfies certain observations, but which is not supported by any established theory or probable hypothesis. so that it cannot be relied upon far beyond the conditions of the observations upon which it rests. Thus, the formula of Dulong and Petit expressing the relation between the temperature of a body and its radiative power cannot be extended to the calculation of the heat of the sun, since there is no reason for supposing that it would approximate to the truth so far beyond the temperatures at which the experiments were made.
EMPIRICALLY (em-pir'i-ka..l-i), adv. In an empirical manner; by experiment; according to experience; without science; in the manner of quacks.
Every science begins by acumulating observations, and presently generalizes these empirically. H. Spencer, Data of Ethics, §22
EMPIRICISM (em-pir'-i-sizm), n. [{ empiric + ism, See empiric.]
1. The character of being empirical; reliance on direct experience and observation rather than on theory; empirical method; especially, an undue relilance upon mere individual experience.
He [Radcliffe] knew, it is true, that experience, the safest guide after the mind is prepared for her instructions by previous institution, is apt, without such preparation, to degenerate to a vulgar and presumptuous empiricism. V. Knox, Essays, xxxviii.
At present, he [Bacon] reflected, some were content to rest in empiricism and isolated facts; others ascended too hastily to first principles. E.A. Abbott, Bacon, p. 344.
What is called empiricism is the application of superficial truths, recognized in a loose, unsystematic way, to immediate and special needs. L. F. Ward, Dynam. Sociol., II. 203.
2. In med., the practice of empirics; hence, quackery; the pretension of an ignorant person to medical skill.
Shudder to destroy life, either by the naked knife or by the surer and safer medium of empiricism. Dwight.
3. The metaphysical theory that all ideas are derived from sensuous experience -- that is, that there are no innate or a priori conceptions.
The terms Empiricism, Empiricist, Empirical, although commonly employed by metaphysicians with contempt to mark a mode of investigation which admits no higher source than experience (by them often unwarrantably restricted to Sensation), may be accepted without demur, since even the flavor of contempt only serves to emphasize the distinction. G. H. Lewes, Probs. of Life and Mind, I. ii. §14.
EMPIRICIST (em-pir'i-sist), n. [( empiric + -ist.]
1. One who believes in philosophical empiricism; one who regards sensuous experience as the sole source of all ideas and knowledge.
Berkeley, as a consistent empiricist, saw that Sensation shuts itself up within its own home, and does not include its object. The object must be supplied from without, and he supplied it provisionally by the name of God. N. A. Rev., CXX. 409.
The empiricist can take no cognizance of anything that transcends experience. New Princeton Rev., II. 169.
2. A medical empiric.
EMPIRICTIC, EMPIRICUTIC (em-pi-rik'tik, em-pir-i-ku¯'-tik), a. [An unmeaning extension of empiric.] Empirical.
The most sovereign prescription in Galen is but empiricutick. Shak., Cor., if. 1.
EMPIRISM (em'pi-rizm), n. [= F. empirisme = Sp. Pg. It. empirismo = I). Dan. empirisme = Sw. empirism, ( NL. 'empirismus, ( Gr. empeiros, experienced: see empiric.] Empiricism. [Rare.]
It is to this sense [second muscular], mainly, that we owe the conception of force, the origin of which empirism could never otherwise explain. G. S. Hall, German Culture, p. 219.
EMPIRISTIC (em-pi-ris'tik), a. Of or pertaining to empiricism or to the empiricists; empirical. [Rare.]
The empiristic view which Helmholtz defends is that the space-determinations we perceive are in every case products of a process of unconscious inference. W. James, Mind, XlI. 545.
EMPIRICISTIC, EMPIRICO-PSYCHOLOGICAL, EMPIRIOCRITICAL, EMPIRIOCRITICISM
Dictionary Supplement, Vol. XI, Page 0421, Emissivity to Enamel-Prism (DjVu),
EMPIRICISTIC (em-pir-i-sis'tik), a. [empiricist + -ic.] Same as empiristic.
An empiricistic psychology [of Bernardino Telesio], the singular completeness and consistency of which accounts for its wide influence on Italian philosophy. Jour. Philos., Psychol. and Sci. Methods, May 26, 1904, p. 3O7.
EMPIRICO-PSYCHOLOGICAL (em-pir"-i-ko¯-si¯-ko¯-loj'-i-ka..l). a. Pertaining to or characteristic of empirical, as distinguished from speculative or philosophical, psychology.
The principle of psycho-physical parallelism has an empirico-psychological significance, and is thus totally different from certain metaphysical principles that have sometimes been designated by the same name. W. Wundt (trans.), Outlines of Psychol., p. 318.
EMPIRIOCRITICAL (em-pir"i-o¯-krit'i-ka..l), a. Of or pertaining to empiriocriticism.
EMPIRIOCRITICISM (em-pir"-i-o¯-krit'i-sism), n. [Gr. empeiri'a, experience, + NL. criticismus, criticism.] The system of philosophy of Richard Avenarius (1843-96), founded on pure experience, that is, natural experience conceptually amplified, clarified, and completed. The only assumption of the system not given in experience is supposed to be that the motions of our fellow-men have the same interpretation as our own. This is one of the most important philosophical developments of the latter half of the nineteenth century, but is understood by few, owing to the difficulty of its author's principal treatise and his employment of a novel terminology, which is insufficiently explained.
Empirio-criticism . . . is the hypothesis of the inseparability of subject and object, or . . . of ego and environment, in purely empirical, or a posteriori form. Encyc. Brit., XXX. 668.
ENTELECHY
Century Dictionary, Vol. III, Page 1946, Entastic to Enter (DjVu)
ENTELECHY (en-tel' e-ki), n. [{L. entelechia, { Gr. entele'cheia, actuality, (en te'lei e'chein, be complete (cf. entele^'s, complete, full): en, in; dat. of te'los, end, completion; e'chein, have, hold, intr. be.] Realization: opposed to power or potentiality, and nearly the same as energy or act (actuality). The only difference is that entelechy implies a more perfect realization. The idea of entelechy is connected with that of form, the idea of power with that of matter. Thus, iron is potentially in its ore, which to be made iron must be worked; when this is done, the iron exists in entelechy. The development from being in posse or in germ to entelechy takes place, according to Aristotle, by means of a change, the imperfect action or energy, of which the perfected result is the entelechy. Entelechy is, however, either first or second. First entelechy is being in working order; second entelechy is being in action. The soul is said to be the first entelechy of the body, which seems to imply that it grows out of the body as its germ; but the idea more insisted upon is that man without the soul would be but a body, while the soul, once developed, is not lost when the man sleeps. Cudworth terms his plastic nature (which see, under nature) a first entelechy, and Leibnitz calls a monad an entelechy.
EXPERIENCE (n.), EXPERIENCE (v.), EXPERIENCED, EXPERIENCER, EXPERIENT, EXPERIENTIAL, EXPERIENTIALISM, EXPERIENTIALIST
Century Dictionary, Vol. III, Page 2079, Experience to Experimentalize (DjVu)
EXPERIENCE (eks-pe¯' ri-ens), n. [{ ME. Experience, experiens, { OF. experience, F. expe'rience = Pr. experientia, esperientia = Sp. Pg. experiencia = It. esperienza, sperienza, esperienzia, sperienzia, { L. experientia, a trial, proof, experiment, experimental knowledge, experience, { experien(t-)s, ppr. of experiri, try, put to the test, undertake, undergo, { ex, out, +*periri, go through, in pp. peritus, experienced, expert: see expert and peril.]
1. The state or fact of having made trial or proof, or of having acquired knowledge, wisdom, skill, etc., by actual trial or observation; also, the knowledge so acquired; personal and practical acquaintance with anything; experimental cognition or perception: as, he knows what suffering is by long experience; experience teaches even fools.
He that hath as much Experience of you as I have had will confess that the Handmaid of God Almighty was never so prodigal of her Gifts to any. Howell, Letters, I. iv. 14.
We were sufficiently instructed by experience what the holy Psalmist means by the Dew of Hermon, our Tents being as wet with it as if it had rain'd all Night. Maundrell, Aleppo to Jerusalem, p. 57.
A man of science who . . . had made experience of a spiritual affinity more attractive than any chemical one. Hawthorne, Birthmark.
Till we have some experience of the duties of religion, we are incapable of entering duly into the privileges. J. H. Newman, Parochial Sermons, i. 245.
2. In philos., knowledge acquired through external or internal perception; also, the totality of the cognitions given by perception, taken in their connection; all that is perceived, understood, and remembered. Locke defines it as our observation, employed either about external sensible objects or about the internal operations of our minds, perceived and reflected upon by ourselves. The Latin experientia was used in its philosophical sense by Celsus and others, and in the middle ages by Roger Bacon. It translates the Greek empeiri'a of the Stoics. See empiric.
The great and indeed the only ultimate source of our knowledge of nature and her laws is experience, by which we mean not the experience of one man only, or of one generation, but the accumulated experience of all mankind in all ages, registered in books, or recorded by tradition. Sir J. Herschel.
The unity of experience embraces both the inner and the outer life. E. Caird, Philos. of Kant, p. 387.
Specifically--3. That which has been learned, suffered, or done, considered as productive of practical judgment and skill; the sum of practical wisdom taught by all the events, vicissitudes, and observations of one's life, or by any particular class or division of them.
That which all men's experience teacheth them may not in any wise be denied. Hooker, Eccles. Polity, iii. 8.
Who shall march out before ye, coy'd and courted By all the mistresses of war, care, counsel, Quick-ey'd experience, and victory twin'd to him? Fletcher, Bonduca, iv. 3.
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers, and he bears a laden breast, Full of sad experience, moving toward the stillness of his rest. Tennyson, Locksley Hall.
In a world so charged and sparkling with power, a man does not live long and actively without costly additions of experience, which, though not spoken, are recorded in his mind. Emerson, Old Age.
4. An individual or particular instance of trim or observation.
Real apprehension is, as I have said, in the first instance an experience or information about the concrete. J. H. Newman, Gram. of Assent, p. 21.
The like holds good with respect to the relations between sounds and vibrating objects, which we learn only by a generalization of experiences. H. Spencer, Prim of Psychol.
This is what distance does for us; the harsh and bitter features of this or that experience are slowly obliterated, and memory begins to look on the past. W. Black.
5(Obs.). An experiment.
She caused him to make experience Upon wild beasts. Spenser, F. Q.
If my affection be suspected, make Experience of my loyalty, by some service. Shirley, Love Tricks, i. 1.
6. A fixed mental impression or emotion; specifically, a guiding or controlling religious feeling, as at the time of conversion or resulting from subsequent influences.
All that can be argued from the purity and perfection of the word of God, with respect to experiences, is this,that those experiences which are agreeable to the word of God are right and cannot be otherwise and not that those affections which must be right which arise on occasion of the word of God coming to the mind. Edwards, Wrks, III. 32.
The rapture of the Moravian and Quietist, . . . the revival of the Calvinistic churches, the experiences of the Methodists, are varying forms of that shudder of awe and delight with which the individual soul always mingles with the universal soul. Emerson, Essays, 1st ser., p. 256.
Experience meeting, a meeting, especially in the Methodist Church, where the members relate their religious experiences; a covenant or conference meeting.
He is in that ecstasy of mind which prompts those who were never orators before to rise in an experience meeting and pour out a flood of feeling in the tritest language and the most conventional terms. C. D. Warner, Backlog Studies, p. 127.
= Syn. Experience, Experiment, Observation.
Experience is strictly that which befalls a man, or which he goes through, while experiment is that which one actively undertakes. Observation is looking on, without necessarily having any connection with the matter: it is one thing to know of a man's goodness or of the horrors of war by observation, and quite another to know of it or them by experience. To know of a man's goodness by experiment would be to have put it to actual and intentional test. See practice.
EXPERIENCE (eks-pe¯'ri-ens), v. t.; pret. and pp. experienced, ppr. experiencing. [{ experience, n.]
1. To learn by practical trial or proof; try or prove by use, by suffering, or by enjoyment; have happen to or befall one; acquire a perception of; undergo: as, we all experience pain, sorrow, and pleasure; we experience good and evil; we often experience a change of sentiments and views, or pleasurable or painful sensations.
Your soul will then experience the most terrible fears. Southwell, Poetical Works, Pref., p. 56.
You have not yet experienced at her hands My treatment. Browning, Ring and Book, I. 309.
2(obs.). To practise or drill; exercise.
The youthful sailors thus with early care Their arms experience and for sea prepare. W. Harte, tr. of Sixth Thebaid of Statius.
To experience religion, to become converted. [Colloq.]
I experienced religion at one of brother Armstrong's protracted meetings. Widow Bedott Papers, p. 108.
EXPERIENCED (eks-pe¯'ri-enst), p. a. Taught by practice or by repeated observations; skilful or wise by means of trials, use, or observation: as, an experienced artist; an experienced physician.
I esteem it a greater Advantage that so worthy and well-experienced a Knight as Sir Talbot Bows is to be my Collegue and Fellow-Burgess. Howell, Letters, I. v. 4.
We must perfect, as much as we can, our ideas of the distinct species; or learn them from such as are used to that sort of things, and are experienced in them. Locke.
EXPERIENCER (eks-pe¯'ri-en-se.r), n. One who experiences; one who makes trials or experiments. [rare.]
A curious experiencer did affirm that the likeness of any object, . . . if strongly inlightned, will appear to another, in the eye of him that looks strongly and steadily upon it,. . . even after he shall have turned his eyes from it. Sir K. Digby, Nature of Bodies, viii.
EXPERIENT (eks-pe¯'ri-ent), a. [{ OF. experient, { L. experien(t-)s, ppr. of experiri: see experience.] Experienced.
Which wisdom sure he learn'd Of his experient father. Chapman, All Fools, i. 1.
Why is the Prince, now ripe and full experient,
Not made a dore in the State? Beau. and Fl., Cupid's Revenge, iii. 1.
EXPERIENTIAL (eks-pe¯-ri-en'shal), a. [{ L. experientia, experience, + -al.] relating to or having experience; derived from experience; empirical.
Again, what are called physical laws--laws of nature-- are all generalisations from observation, are only empirical or experiential information. Sir W. Hamilton.
It is evident that this distinction of necessary and experiential truths involves the same antithesis which we have already considered--the antithesis of thoughts and things. Necessary truths are derived from our own thoughts; experiential truths are derived from our observation of things about us. The opposition of necessary and experiential truths is another aspect of the fundamental antithesis of philosophy. Whewell, Hist. Scientific Ideas, I. 27.
But notwithstanding the utter darkness regarding ways and means, our imagination can reach much more readily the final outcome of our transcendental than of our experiential attitude. Mind, IX. 358.
EXPERIENTIALISM (eks-pe¯-ri-en'sha..l-izm), n. [{ experiential + -ism.] The doctrine that all our knowledge has its origin in experience, and must submit to the test of experience.
Experientialism is, in short, a philosophical or logical theory, not a psychological one. G.C. Bobertson.
EXPERIENTIALIST (eks-pe¯-ri-en'sha..l-ist), n. and a. [{experiential + -ist.] I. n. One who holds the doctrines of experientialism. II. a. Pertaining or relating to experientialism.
PRAGMATIC, PRAGMATICA, PRAGMATICAL, PRAGMATICALLY, PRAGMATICALNESS, PRAGMATISM, PRAGMATIST, PRAGMATIZE, PRAGMATIZER
Century Dictionary, Vol. VI, Page 4667, Praemunire to Pragmatize (DjVu)
PRAGMATIC (prag-mat'ik), a. and n. [{ F. pragmatique = Sp. pragma'tico = Pg. pragmatico = It. prammatico, pragmatico (cf. D. G. pragmatisch = Sw. Dan. pragmatisk), adj., pragmatic (as a noun, masc., in def. 1; fem. F. pragmatique = Sp. pragma'tica, n., = Pg. pragmatica, n., = It. prammatica, pragmatica. in def. 3); { LL. pragmaticus, relating to civil affairs (pragmatica sanctio or jussio or annotatio or constitutio, a pragmatic sanction, i.e. an imperial decree relating to the affairs of a community, ML. simply pragmatica, a decree); in L., as a noun, a person versed in the law who furnished arguments and points to advocates and orators, a kind of attorney; { Gr. pragmatiko's, active, versed in affairs, etc., { pra^gma (} LL. pragma), a thing done, a fact, pl. prag'mata, affairs, state affairs, public business, etc., { pra'ssein (root prag), do: see practic, practice, etc.]
I.a. 1. relating to civil affairs; relating or pertaining to the affairs of a community. See pragmatic sanction, below.
--2. Same as pragmatical, in any sense.
nor can your Palace be a dwelling-place For Safety, whilst pragmatic Logos or Sly Charis revel in your princely Grace. J. Beaumont, Psyche, v. 153.
I love to hit These pragmatic young men at their own weapons. B. Jonson, Devil is an Ass, i. 3.
3. In the Kantian philos., practical in a particular way--namely, having reference to happiness.
--Pragmatic method, pragmatic treatment, the treatment of historical phenomena with special reference to their causes, antecedent conditions, and results. Also pragmatism.
--Pragmatic sanction, a term first applied to certain decrees of the Byzantine emperors, regulating the interests of their subject provinces and towns; then to a system of limitations set to the spiritual power of the Pope in European countries: as, for instance, the French pragmatic sanction of 1268, and that of 1438. Lastly, it became the name for an arrangement or family compact, made by different potentates, regarding succession to sovereignty -- the most noted being the instrument by which the emperor Charles VI., being without male issue, endeavored to secure the succession to his female descendants, settling his dominions on his daughter Maria Theresa.
II. n. 1(obs.). A man of business; one who is versed or active in affairs.
He's my attorney and solicitor too; a fine pragmatic. B. Jonson.
2(obs.). A busybody; a meddlesome person.
Such pragmaticks . . . labour impertinently. Bp. Gauden, Tears of the Church, p. 502. (Davies.)
Keep to your problems of ten groats; these matters are not for pragmaticks and folkmooters to babble in. Milton, Prose Works, I. 336.
3. A decree or ordinance issued by the head of a state.
A pragmatic was issued, September 18th, 1495, prescribing the weapons and the seasons for a regular training of the militia. Prescott, Ferd. and Isa., ii. 26, note.
PRAGMATICA (prag-mat'i-ka..¨), n. [ML.: see pragmatic.] Same as pragmatic, n., 3.
Royal pragmaticas began to take the place of constitutional laws. Encyc. Brit., IX. 811.
PRAGMATICAL (prag-mat'i-ka..l), a. and n. [{ pragmatic + -al.]
I.a. 1(obs.). Versed in affairs; skilled in business; engaged in business pursuits.
Pragmatical men may not go away with an opinion that learning is like a lark, that can mount, and sing, and please herself, and nothing else. Bacon, Advancement of Learning, ii. 323.
2. Active; diligent; busy.
I received instructions how to behave in town, with directions to masters and hooks to take in search of the antiquities, churches, collections, etc. Accordingly, the next day, Nov. 6th, I began to be very pragmatical. Evelyn, Diary, Nov. 4, 1644.
3. Pertaining to business or to material interests; hence, material; commonplace.
Low pragmatical earthly views of the gospel. Hare.
"In One Town," though a little pragmatical and matter of fact, is not uninteresting. Athenaeum, So. 8068, p. 203.
4(obs.). Practical; authoritative.
Can a man thus imployd find himselfe discontented or dishonour'd for want of admittance to have a pragmaticall voyce at Sessions and Jayle deliveries? Milton, On Def. of Humb. Remonst.
5. Unduly busy over the affairs of others; meddlesome; interfering; officious.
The fellow grew so pragmatical that he took on him the management of my whole family. --- Arbuthnot.
6. Characterized by officiousness; performed or delivered by an officious person; intrusive.
It is like you to give a pragmatical opinion without being acquainted with any of the circumstances of the case. Charlotte Bronte¨, The Professor.
Suddenly an unknown individual, in plain clothes and with a pragmatical demeanor, interrupted the discourse by giving a flat contradiction to some of the doctrines advanced. Motley, Dutch Republic, I. 544.
7. Busy over trifles; self-important; busy.
You cannot imagine what airs all the little pragmatical fellows about us have given themselves since the reading of those papers. Addison, The Tall Club.
II. (obs.) n. A professional opinion or decision.
The eloquent persuasions and pragmaticals of Mr. Secretary Windwood. Bacon, To the King, 1617, July 25, Works, XIII. 232.
PRAGMATICALLY (prag-mat'i-ka..l-i), adv. In a pragmatic manner.
Over busy, or pragmatically curious. --- Barrow, Sermons, I. 597.
PRAGMATICALNESS (prag-mat'i-ka..l-nes), n. The character of being pragmatical, in any sense; especially, meddlesomeness; officiousness; excessive zeal.
PRAGMATISM (prag'ma..-tizm), n. [{ pragmat(ic) + -ism.] 1. Pragmatical character or conduct; officiousness; busy impertinence.
Mrs. Dollop, the spirited landlady of the Tankard in Slaughter Lane, . . . had often to resist the shallow pragmatism of customers disposed to think that their reports from the outer world were of equal force with what had "come up" in her mind. George Eliot, Middlemarch, lxxi.
2. In hist., same as pragmatic method. See pragmatic, a.
PRAGMATIST (prag'ma..-tist), n [{pragmat(ic) + -ist.] One who is impertinently busy or meddling.
We may say of pragmatists that their eyes look all ways but inward. Bp. Reynolds, The Passions, xvi.
PRAGMATIZE (prag'ma..-ti¯z),; v. t.; pref. and pp. pragmatized, ppr. pragmatizing. [{pragmat(ic) + -ize.] To make real or material; attribute a practical objective existence to (some product of imagination or fancy).
The merest shadowy fancy or broken-down metaphor, when once it gains a sense of reality, may begin to be spoken of as an actual event . . . . One of the miraculous passages in the life of Mohammed himself is traced plausibly by Sprenger to such a pragmatized metaphor. E. B. Tyler, Prim. Culture, I. 407.
PRAGMATIZER (prag'ma..-ti¯-ze.r), n. [{ pragmatize+ -er1.] One who pragmatizes, or attributes objective existence to what is subjective, imaginary, or fanciful.
The pragmatizer is a stupid creature; nothing is too beautiful or too sacred to be made dull and vulgar by his touch. E.B. Tyler, Prim. Culture, I. 368.
PRAGMATIC, PRAGMATICISM, PRAGMATISM, PRAGMATIST
Dictionary Supplement, Vol. XII, Page 1050, Pps to Prairie-Hare (DjVu)
PRAGMATIC, a. 3. A term used (by Kant) to denote rules of action (otherwise denominated 'counsels of prudence') which have to do with the attainment of happiness. As used by him, it is antithetic to the term 'practical,' which refers to principles of action (otherwise called 'categorical imperatives') which have to do with the attainment of virtue.
We might . . . call the first kind of imperatives technical (belonging to art), the second pragmatic (to welfare), the third moral (belonging to free conduct generally, that is, to morals). Kant (trans.), Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Ethics, p. 40.
4. Having to do with pragmatism as a philosophy: as, the pragmatic movement; pragmatic thought. See *pragmatism, 3.
PRAGMATICISM (prag-mat' i-sizm), n. [pragmatic + ism.] A special and limited form of pragmatism, in which the pragmatism is restricted to the determining of the meaning of concepts (particularly of philosophic concepts) by consideration of the experimental differences in the conduct of life which would conceivably result from the affirmation or denial of the meaning in question.<
He [the writer] framed the theory that a conception, that is, the rational purport of a word or other expression, lies exclusively in its conceivable bearing upon-the conduct of life. . . . To serve the precise purpose of expressing the original definition, he begs to announce the birth of the word "pragmaticism." C. S. Peirce, in The Monist, April, 1905, p. 166.
PRAGMATISM, n. 3. In philos., a method of thought, a general movement or tendency of thought, and a specific school, in which stress is placed upon practical consequences and practical values as standards for explicating philosophic conceptions and as tests for determining their value and, especially, their truth.
The word is used in a variety of senses, of greater or less breadth and definiteness. The following meanings of the term are arranged in the order of descending generality:
(a) An attitude of mind, namely that of
"looking away from first things, principles, 'categories, supposed necessities, and of looking toward last things, fruits, consequences, facts." W. James, Pragmatism, a New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking, p. 55.
(b) A theory concerning the proper method of determining the meaning of conceptions. "Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object." C.S. Peirce, in Baldwin's Dict. of Philos. and Psychol., II. This theory was first propounded by Mr. Peirce in an article upon "How to Make our Ideas Clear" in the "Popular Science Monthly" in 1878. The term 'pragmatism' does not, however, appear there. In an article in the "Monist" for 1905, Mr. Peirce says that he "has used it continually in philosophic conversation, since, perhaps, the mid-seventies." The term was publicly introduced in print by Professor William James in 1898 in an address upon "Philosophic Conceptions and Practical Realities," in which the authorship of the term and of the method is credited to Mr. Peirce. The latter has recently used the term 'pragmaticism ' to express this meaning.
(c) The theory that the processes and the materials of knowledge are determined by practical or purposive considerations--that there is no such thing as knowledge determined by exclusively theoretical. speculative, or abstract intellectual considerations. This definition expresses the net or mean sense of the term in its various uses.
"Now quite the most striking feature of the new theory was its recognition of an inseparable connection between rational cognition and rational purpose; and that consideration it was which determined the preference for the name 'pragmatism.'" C.S. Peirce, in The Monist, 1905.
F. C. S. Schiller has defined pragmatism as "the thorough recognition that the purposive character of mental life generally must influence and pervade also our most remotely cognitive activities." Humanism, Philosophic Essays, p. 8.
Pragmatism -- by which I mean the doctrine that reality possesses practical character and that this character is most efficaciously expressed in the function of intelligence. J. Dewey, in Essays Philosophical and Psychological, p. 59.
(d) A theory of the nature of truth, namely, that the correspondence between fact and idea which constitutes truth consists in the power of the idea in question to work satisfactorily, or to produce the results intended by it.
Such then would be the scope of pragmatism --first, a method, and second, a genetic theory of what is meant by truth. W. James, Pragmatism, p. 65.
(e) A metaphysical theory regarding the nature of reality, namely that it is still in process of making, and that human ideas and efforts play a fundamental role in its making: the equivalent of humanism as a metaphysical term.
The essential contrast is that for rationalism reality is ready-made and complete from all eternity, while for pragmatism it is still in the making, and awaits part of its complexion from the future. W. James, Pragmatism, p. 257.
Pragmatism . . . is a conscious application to epistemology (or logic) of a teleological psychology, which implies, ultimately, a voluntaristic metaphysic. F. C. S. Schiller, Studies in,Humanism, p. 12.
PRAGMATIST, n. 2. One who adheres to or professes the philosophy of pragmatism; more loosely, an opponent of rationalism and absolutism in philosophy; a supporter of the experimental method of reasoning in philosophy; a supporter of empiricism, but, unlike other empiricists, one who judges by consequences rather than by antecedents. See *pragmatism, 3.
- posted by The Tetrast @ 6:43 PM 0 comments
Update: Thomas L. Short points to “a long and important section of MS318, first published by Helmut Pape in Nous 1990 and now found in EP2:404-9, that adds much to our understanding of what collateral observation is and how it works and what purpose it serves,” in a post from Tom forwarded to the peirce-l electronic forum by its manager-moderator Joseph Ransdell on Friday, February 25, 2005. Six pages is a bit much to excerpt here, but The Essential Peirce, Volume 2, is in print. End of update.
Back in April 2003, Joseph Ransdell most helpfully compiled the following quotations from C.S. Peirce on the subject of collateral observation, collateral experience, etc., and sent them out to his peirce-l electronic forum. I find myself posting them to peirce-l every six months or so. It’s easier to blog them once and for all to the Internet, and such is the occasion for my setting this blog up. Included are some comments by Joe from the peirce-l post in which he sent the quotes. I have regularized the quotes’ labeling for convenience of use of this blog and, in particular, so that every quote’s permalink can target its quote’s label. (The permalink for the entire “Collateral Observations (Quotes)” post is http://peircematters.blogspot.com/2005/02/collateral-observation-quotes.html ). Within the quotes, even though italic formatting itself appears, I have retained the underlines girding italicized words in case somebody copies a quote into a plaintext environment where the italic formatting would be lost.
[Joseph Ransdell wrote:] The result of a string search through the CP and some notes. These passages are not arranged by me in any special order other than that order in which they came to my attention in collating them. At this time I would not know how to order them effectively, so I leave them unordered other than by an arbitrary numbering for reference purposes.
“CP” abbreviates “Collected Papers of Charles S. Peirce, 8 volumes.”
[1] Peirce: CP 6.318 (c. 1909) permalink: http://peircematters.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_peircematters_archive.html#CP_6.318
318. . . . An existential relation or relationship is distinguished from others by two marks. In the first place, its different subjects all belong to one universe; which distinguishes it very strikingly from such relations as that which subsists between a thing and its qualities, and that which subsists between portions of matter and the form into which they are built; as for example between the cells of a living body and the whole body, and often times between the different singulars of a plural and the plural itself. In the second place, an existential relation or relationship differs from some other relations and relationships in a respect which may be described in two ways, according as we employ collective or distributive forms of expression and thought. Speaking collectively, the one logical universe, to which all the correlates of an existential relationship belong, is ultimately composed of units, or subjects, none of which is in any sense separable into parts that are members of the same universe. For example, no relation between different lapses of time -- say, between the age of Agamemnon and that of Homer -- can be an existential relation, if we conceive every lapse of time to be made up of lapses of time, so that there are no indivisible units of time. To state the same thing distributively, every correlate of an existential relation is a single object which may be indefinite, or may be distributed; that is, may be chosen from a class by the interpreter of the assertion of which the relation or relationship is the predicate, or may be designated by a proper name, but in itself, though in some guise or under some mask, it can always be perceived, yet never can it be unmistakably identified by any sign whatever, without collateral observation. Far less can it be defined. It is existent, in that its being does not consist in any qualities, but in its effects -- in its actually acting and being acted on, so long as this action and suffering endures. Those who experience its effects perceive and know it in that action; and just that constitutes its very being. It is not in perceiving its qualities that they know it, but in hefting its insistency then and there, which Duns called its haecceitas -- or, if he didn’t, it was this that he was groping after. However, let me not lapse further into metaphysics just now.
[2] Peirce: CP 6.338 (c. 1909) permalink: http://peircematters.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_peircematters_archive.html#CP_6.338
338. All thinking is dialogic in form. Your self of one instant appeals to your deeper self for his assent. Consequently, all thinking is conducted in signs that are mainly of the same general structure as words; those which are not so, being of the nature of those signs of which we have need now and then in our converse with one another to eke out the defects of words, or symbols. These non-symbolic thought-signs are of two classes: first, pictures or diagrams or other images (I call them Icons) such as have to be used to explain the significations of words; and secondly, signs more or less analogous to symptoms (I call them Indices) of which the collateral observations, by which we know what a man is talking about, are examples. The Icons chiefly illustrate the significations of predicate-thoughts, the Indices the denotations of subject-thoughts. The substance of thoughts consists of these three species of ingredients.
[3 & 4] Peirce: CP 8.178-179 (undated ms) (Also appears in EP 2, 493-4, which states year as 1909 --BU) permalink: http://peircematters.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_peircematters_archive.html#CP_8.178&179
[3] 178. This involves regarding the matter in an unfamiliar way. It may be asked, for example, how a lying or erroneous Sign is determined by its Object, or how if, as not infrequently happens, the Object is brought into existence by the Sign. To be puzzled by this is an indication of the word _determine_ being taken in too narrow a sense. A person who says Napoleon was a lethargic creature has evidently his mind determined by Napoleon. For otherwise he could not attend to him at all. But here is a paradoxical circumstance. 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. Otherwise he will not be determined to thought of that object. If he never heard of Napoleon before, the sentence will mean no more to him than that some person or thing to which the name “Napoleon” has been attached was a lethargic creature. For Napoleon cannot determine his mind unless the word in the sentence calls his attention to the right man and that can only be if, independently, [a] habit has been established in him by which that word calls up a variety of attributes of Napoleon the man. Much the same thing is true in regard to any sign. In the sentence instanced Napoleon is not the only Object. Another Partial Object is Lethargy; and the sentence cannot convey its meaning unless collateral experience has taught its Interpreter what Lethargy is, or what that is that ‘lethargy’ means in this sentence. The Object of a Sign may be something to be created by the sign. For the Object of “Napoleon” is the Universe of Existence so far as it is determined by the fact of Napoleon being a Member of it. The Object of the sentence “Hamlet was insane” is the Universe of Shakespeare’s Creation so far as it is determined by Hamlet being a part of it. The Object of the Command “Ground arms!” is the immediately subsequent action of the soldiers so far as it is affected by the molition expressed in the command. It cannot be understood unless collateral observation shows the speaker's relation to the rank of soldiers. You may say, if you like, that the Object is in the Universe of things desired by the Commanding Captain at that moment. Or since the obedience is fully expected, it is in the Universe of his expectation. At any rate, it determines the Sign although it is to be created by the Sign by the circumstance that its Universe is relative to the momentary state of mind of the officer.
[3 & 4] Peirce: CP 8.178-179 (undated MS) (Also appears in EP 2, 293-4, which states year as 1909, as in EP2:493-4 --BU) (continued) permalink: http://peircematters.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_peircematters_archive.html#CP_8.178&179contd
[4] 179. Now let us pass to the Interpretant. I am far from having fully explained what the Object of a Sign is; but I have reached the point where further explanation must suppose some understanding of what the Interpretant is. The Sign creates something in the Mind of the Interpreter, which something, in that it has been so created by the sign, has been, in a mediate and relative way, also created by the Object of the Sign, although the Object is essentially other than the Sign. And this creature of the sign is called the Interpretant. It is created by the Sign; but not by the Sign qua member of whichever of the Universes it belongs to; but it has been created by the Sign in its capacity of bearing the determination by the Object. It is created in a Mind (how far this mind must be real we shall see). All that part of the understanding of the Sign which the Interpreting Mind has needed collateral observation for is outside the Interpretant. I do not mean by “collateral observation” acquaintance with the system of signs. What is so gathered is not COLLATERAL. It is on the contrary the prerequisite for getting any idea signified by the sign. But by collateral observation, I mean previous acquaintance with what the sign denotes. Thus if the Sign be the sentence “Hamlet was mad,” to understand what this means one must know that men are sometimes in that strange state; one must have seen madmen or read about them; and it will be all the better if one specifically knows (and need not be driven to presume) what Shakespeare’s notion of insanity was. 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 [i.e., force] of the Interpretant-forming. Take as an example of a Sign a genre painting. There is usually a lot in such a picture which can only be understood by virtue of acquaintance with customs. The style of the dresses for example, is no part of the significance, i.e. the deliverance, of the painting. It only tells what the subject of it is. Subject and Object are the same thing except for trifling distinctions . . . . But that which the writer aimed to point out to you, presuming you to have all the requisite collateral information, that is to say just the quality of the sympathetic element of the situation, generally a very familiar one -- a something you probably never did so clearly realize before -- that is the Interpretant of the Sign, -- its “significance.”
[5] Peirce: CP 8.183 (undated, same as above) (Also appears in EP 2, 485-6, which states year as 1909 --BU) permalink: http://peircematters.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_peircematters_archive.html#CP_8.183
183. As to the Object, that may mean the Object as cognized in the Sign and therefore an Idea, or it may be the Object as it is regardless of any particular aspect of it, the Object in such relations as unlimited and final study would show it to be. The former I call the Immediate Object, the latter the Dynamical Object. For the latter is the Object that Dynamical Science (or what at this day would be called “Objective” science,) can investigate. Take for example, the sentence “the Sun is blue.” Its Objects are “the Sun” and “blueness.” If by “blueness” be meant the Immediate Object, which is the quality of the sensation, it can only be known by Feeling. But if it means that “Real,” existential condition, which causes the emitted light to have short mean wave-length, Langley has already proved that the proposition is true. So the “Sun” may mean the occasion of sundry sensations, and so is Immediate Object, or it may mean our usual interpretation of such sensations in terms of place, of mass, etc., when it is the Dynamical Object. It is true of both Immediate and Dynamical Object that acquaintance cannot be given by a Picture or a Description, nor by any other sign which has the Sun for its Object. If a person points to it and says, See there! That is what we call the “Sun,” the Sun is not the Object of that sign. It is the Sign of the sun, the word “sun” that his declaration is about; and that word we must become acquainted with by collateral experience. Suppose a teacher of French says to an English-speaking pupil, who asks “comment appelle-t-on ça?” pointing to the Sun, . . . “C’est le soleil,” he begins to furnish that collateral experience by speaking in French of the Sun itself. Suppose, on the other hand, he says “Notre mot est ‘soleil’ ” then instead of expressing himself in language and describing the word he offers a pure Icon of it. Now the Object of an Icon is entirely indefinite, equivalent to “something.” He virtually says “our word is like this:” and makes the sound. He informs the pupil that the word, (meaning, of course, a certain habit) has an effect which he pictures acoustically. But a pure picture without a legend only says “something is like this:”. True he attaches what amounts to a legend. But that only makes his sentence analogous to a portrait we will say of Leopardi with Leopardi written below it. It conveys its information to a person who knows who Leopardi was, and to anybody else it only says “something called Leopardi looked like this.” The pupil is in the state of a person who was pretty sure there was a man Leopardi; for he is pretty sure there must be a word in French for the sun and thus is already acquainted with it, only he does not know how it sounds when spoken nor how it looks when written. 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. As for a mere substantive, it must be borne in mind that it is not an indispensable part of speech. The Semitic languages seem to be descendants of a language that had no “common nouns.” Such a word is really nothing but a blank form of proposition and the Subject is the blank, and a blank can only mean “something” or something even more indefinite. So now I believe I can leave you to consider carefully whether my doctrine is correct or not.
[6] Peirce: CP 8.314 (March 14, 1909) permalink: http://peircematters.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_peircematters_archive.html#CP_8.314
314. We must distinguish between the Immediate Object, -- i.e. the Object as represented in the sign, -- and the Real (no, because perhaps the Object is altogether fictive, I must choose a different term, therefore), say rather the Dynamical Object, which, from the nature of things, the Sign cannot express, which it can only indicate and leave the interpreter to find out by collateral experience. For instance, I point my finger to what I mean, but I can't make my companion know what I mean, if he can't see it, or if seeing it, it does not, to his mind, separate itself from the surrounding objects in the field of vision. It is useless to attempt to discuss the genuineness and possession of a personality beneath the histrionic presentation of Theodore Roosevelt with a person who recently has come from Mars and never heard of Theodore before. A similar distinction must be made as to the Interpretant. But in respect to that Interpretant, the dichotomy is not enough by any means. For instance, suppose I awake in the morning before my wife, and that afterwards she wakes up and inquires, “What sort of a day is it?” This is a sign, whose Object, as expressed, is the weather at that time, but whose Dynamical Object is the impression which I have presumably derived from peeping between the window-curtains. Whose Interpretant, as expressed, is the quality of the weather, but whose Dynamical Interpretant, is my answering her question. But beyond that, there is a third Interpretant. The Immediate Interpretant is what the Question expresses, all that it immediately expresses, which I have imperfectly restated above. The Dynamical Interpretant is the actual effect that it has upon me, its interpreter. But the Significance of it, the Ultimate, or Final, Interpretant is her purpose in asking it, what effect its answer will have as to her plans for the ensuing day. I reply, let us suppose: “It is a stormy day.” Here is another sign. Its Immediate Object is the notion of the present weather so far as this is common to her mind and mine -- not the character of it, but the identity of it. The Dynamical Object is the identity of the actual or Real meteorological conditions at the moment. The Immediate Interpretant is the schema in her imagination, i.e. the vague Image or what there is in common to the different Images of a stormy day. The Dynamical Interpretant is the disappointment or whatever actual effect it at once has upon her. The Final Interpretant is the sum of the Lessons of the reply, Moral, Scientific, etc. Now it is easy to see that my attempt to draw this three-way, “trivialis” distinction, relates to a real and important three-way distinction, and yet that it is quite hazy and needs a vast deal of study before it is rendered perfect. Lady Welby has got hold of the same real distinction in her “Sense, Meaning, Significance,” but conceives it as imperfectly as I do, but imperfectly in other ways. Her Sense is the Impression made or normally to be made. Her meaning is what is intended, its purpose. Her Significance is the real upshot.
[7] Transcribed from MS318 pp. 37-40 permalink: http://peircematters.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_peircematters_archive.html#MS_318pp37to40
. . . the Immediate Object is not the Object Proper to which the collateral operation is directed, but is the consequent apprehension of the Real Object, or intelligential cause of the sign, which that collateral observation brings about. For example, suppose the sign to consist in some remark about “the Shakespearean diction.” What is meant by this can only be known through collateral observation, which like all observation, must be exercised upon single experiences. But a generalization from such observations results in a sort of schema in the imagination which in the guise of a singular, really presents a general, -- a sort of imaginary presentment of Shakespearean diction that preserves in its entirety and undefaced the feelings that are excited in the naive reader by the diction of Shakespeare. This is an example of an Immediate Object; and it is evident that it may present a type, as in this very example, or a circumstance or thing thought as actual, or a possible array of qualities of feeling.
[8] Transcribed from MS318 pp. 39-50 permalink: http://peircematters.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_peircematters_archive.html#MS_318pp39to50
But merely producing a mental effect is not sufficient to constitute an object a sign; for a thunder-clap or avalanche may do that without conveying any meaning at all. In order that a thing may be a true sign its proper significate mental effect must be _conveyed_ from another object which the sign is concerned in indicating and which is by this conveyance the ultimate cause of the mental effect. In order to be the cause of an effect, -- or _efficient cause_, as the old phrase was, -- it must either be an existent thing or an actual event. Now such things are only known by observation. It cannot be itself any part of the mental effect, and therefore can only be known by collateral observation of the context or circumstances of utterance, or putting forth, of the sign. But the sign may describe the kind of observation that is appropriate and even indicate how the right object is to be recognized. The meaning of the sign is not conveyed until not merely the interpretant but also this object is recognized. But although the full realization of the meaning requires the actual observation, direct or indirect, of the object, yet a close approach to this may be made by imagining the observation. If the sign is not a _true_, but only a _fictitious_ sign, it is the mere semblance of a sign. If, however, it be so far true as to profess to be in certain respects fictitious, the conditions of a true sign hold in slackened force. This is vague, but I will not go into details.
[9] Transcribed from MS 849.9-10 (1911) permalink: http://peircematters.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_peircematters_archive.html#MS_849.9-10
Every sign denotes something, and anything it denotes is termed an _Object_ of it. By what means does the word “man” draw thought to a single man? It does so by being associated, by a habit in the mind of the interpreter, with characters that are true of men alone, these characters constituting what is called in Logic the “_essence_” of the word ‘man’, while by its grammatical form, -- called the “singular number,” -- it informs the interpreter that but a single one is to be thought of. I term the idea or mental action that a Sign excites and which it causes the interpreter to attribute to the Object or Objects of it, its _interpretant_. If the word, instead of “man”, were the name of some quadruped not found in America, it would probably fail to create in my mind any very definite idea. For a Sign cannot denote an Object not otherwise known to its interpreter, for the obvious reason that if he does not already know the Object at all, he cannot possess those ideas by means of which alone his attention can be narrowed to the very Object denoted. Every object of experience excites an idea of some sort; but if that idea is not associated, sufficiently and in the right way with some previous experience, so as to narrow the attention, it will not be a Sign. A Sign necessarily has for its Object some fragment of history, that is, of the history of ideas. It must excite some idea. That idea may go wholly to narrowing the attention, and in such signs as “man,” “virtue,” “manner,” {it either breaks off here or else there is more to this MS than I have a copy of}
[10] Transcribed from Letter to Lady Welby Dec 23, 1908 (in Semiotics and Significs: Correspondence Between Charles S. Peirce and Victoria Lady Welby, ed. Charles Hardwick, Indiana U. Press, 1977, p.83) permalink: http://peircematters.blogspot.com/2005_02_01_peircematters_archive.html#LtrLadyWelbyDec23-1908
It is usual and proper to distinguish two Objects of a Sign, the Mediate without, and Immediate within the Sign. Its Interpretant is all that the Sign conveys: acquaintance with its Object must be gained by collateral experience. The Mediate Object is the Object outside of the Sign; I call it the Dynamoid Object. The Sign must indicate it by a hint; and this hint, or its substance, is the Immediate Object.
