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    Digital Companion to C. S. Peirce



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    Upcoming Events & Deadlines

    01/09/2017 Call for Papers | SAAP 2018 Annual Meeting preview
    10/09/2017 Call for Papers | Pragmatist Graduate Conference: "From interactions to institutions: pragmatism and collective experience" preview
    12/09/2017 to 16/09/2017 Meeting | Panel: Charles S. Peirce. Bridging the Disciplinary Boundaries of the Natural Sciences and Humanities preview
    25/10/2017 to 29/10/2017 Meeting | 42nd Annual Meeting of the Semiotic Society of America preview
    06/11/2017 to 09/11/2017 Meeting | 17th International Meeting on Pragmatism preview
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    Some Wit, Wisdom & Bewilderment

    When we speak of an "idea," or "notion," or "conception of the mind," we are most usually thinking - or trying to think - of an idea abstracted from all efficiency. But a court without a sheriff, or the means of creating one, would not be a court at all; and did it ever occur to you, my reader, that an idea without efficiency is something equally absurd and unthinkable? Imagine such an idea if you can! Have you done so? Well, where did you get this idea? If it was communicated to you viva voce from another person, it must have had efficiency enough to get the particles of air vibrating. If you read it in a newspaper, it had set a monstrous printing press in motion. If you thought it out yourself, it had caused something to happen in your brain.
    Minute Logic, 1902