Template:C. S. Peirce categorial table
| Name | Typical characterizaton | As universe of experience | As quantity | Technical definition | Valence, "adicity" |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Firstness[2] | Quality of feeling | Ideas, chance, possibility | Vagueness, "some" | Reference to a ground (a ground is a pure abstraction of a quality)[3] | Essentially monadic (the quale, in the sense of the such,[4] which has the quality) |
| Secondness[5] | Reaction, resistance, (dyadic) relation | Brute facts, actuality | Singularity, discreteness, "this" | Reference to a correlate (by its relate) | Essentially dyadic (the relate and the correlate) |
| Thirdness[6] | Representation, mediation | Habits, laws, necessity | Generality, continuity, "all" | Reference to an interpretant* | Essentially triadic (sign, object, interpretant*) |
*Note: An interpretant is an interpretation (human or otherwise) in the sense of the product of an interpretive process.
References
- ^ "Minute Logic", CP 2.87, c. 1902 and A Letter to Lady Welby, CP 8.329, 1904. See relevant quotes under "Categories, Cenopythagorean Categories" in Commens Dictionary of Peirce's Terms (CDPT), Bergman & Paalova, eds., U. of Helsinki.
- ^ See quotes under "Firstness, First [as a category]" in CDPT.
- ^ The ground blackness is the pure abstraction of the quality black. Something black is something embodying blackness, pointing us back to the abstraction. The quality black amounts to reference to its own pure abstraction, the ground blackness. The question is not merely of noun (the ground) versus adjective (the quality), but rather of whether we are considering the black(ness) as abstracted away from application to an object, or instead as so applied (for instance to a stove). Yet note that Peirce's distinction here is not that between a property-general and a property-individual (a trope). See "On a New List of Categories" (1867), in the section appearing in CP 1.551. Regarding the ground, cf. the Scholastic conception of a relation's foundation, Google limited preview Deely 1982, p. 61.
- ^ A quale in this sense is a such, just as a quality is a suchness. Cf. under "Use of Letters" in §3 of Peirce's "Description of a Notation for the Logic of Relatives", Memoirs of the American Academy, v. 9, pp. 317–378 (1870), separately reprinted (1870), from which see p. 6 via Google books, also reprinted in CP 3.63:
Now logical terms are of three grand classes. The first embraces those whose logical form involves only the conception of quality, and which therefore represent a thing simply as "a —." These discriminate objects in the most rudimentary way, which does not involve any consciousness of discrimination. They regard an object as it is in itself as such (quale); for example, as horse, tree, or man. These are absolute terms. (Peirce, 1870. But also see "Quale-Consciousness", 1898, in CP 6.222–237.)
- ^ See quotes under "Secondness, Second [as a category]" in CDPT.
- ^ See quotes under "Thirdness, Third [as a category]" in CDPT.
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