Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Hermarchus, Charles Sanders Peirce and Douglas Lackey

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6 ideas

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 1. Possibility
Some logical possibility concerns single propositions, but there is also compatibility between propositions [Peirce]
     Full Idea: Many say everything is logically possible which involves no contradiction. In this sense two contradictory propositions may be severally possible. In the substantive sense, the contradictory of a possible proposition is impossible (if we were omniscient).
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Nature of Mathematics [1898], III)
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 7. Chance
Is chance just unknown laws? But the laws operate the same, whatever chance occurs [Peirce]
     Full Idea: Chance is the name for some law that is unknown to us? If you say 'each die moves under the influence of precise mechanical laws', it seems to me it is not these laws which made the tie turn up sixes, for the laws act the same when other throws come up.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Doctrine of Necessity Examined [1892], p.333)
Objective chance is the property of a distribution [Peirce]
     Full Idea: Chance, as an objective phenomenon, is a property of a distribution. ...In order to have any meaning, it must refer to some definite arrangement of all the things.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], VI)
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / d. Non-truthfunction conditionals
Truth-functional conditionals have a simple falsification, when A is true and B is false [Peirce]
     Full Idea: The utility of [truth-functional conditionals] is that it puts us in possession of a rule...[namely] The hypothetical proposition may be ...falsified by a single state of things, but only by one in which A [antecedent] is true and B [consequent] is false.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (On the Algebra of Logic [1895], p.218), quoted by Stephen Mumford - Dispositions
     A reaction: Personally I am rather more interested in verifying conditionals than in falsifying them. I certainly don't accept them until they are falsified, unless they have massive support from surrounding facts.
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / e. Supposition conditionals
In ordinary language a conditional statement assumes that the antecedent is true [Peirce]
     Full Idea: In our ordinary use of language we always understand the range of possibility in such a sense that in some possible case the antecedent shall be true.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (Reasoning and the Logic of Things [1898], II)
     A reaction: Peirce is discussing Diodorus, and proposes the view nowadays defended by Edgington, though in the end Peirce defends the standard material conditional as simpler. I suspect that this discussion by Peirce is not well known.
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / d. Possible worlds actualism
The possible can only be general, and the force of actuality is needed to produce a particular [Peirce]
     Full Idea: The possible is necessarily general…..It is only actuality, the force of existence, which bursts the fluidity of the general and produces a discrete unit.
     From: Charles Sanders Peirce (works [1892]), quoted by François Recanati - Mental Files 13.1
     A reaction: [Papers 4 1967:147] This was quoted by Prior, and is often cited. Recanati is interested in the notion of a singular thought being tied to actuality, by generating a mental file.