Substantial Depth   

Substantial Depth

Commens
Digital Companion to C. S. Peirce
Substantial Depth
1867 | Upon Logical Comprehension and Extension | W 2:79-81; CP 2.409-14

The informed breadth and depth suppose a state of information which lies somewhere between two imaginary extremes. These are, first, the state in which no fact would be known, but only the meaning of terms; and, second, the state in which the information would amount to an absolute intuition of all there is, so that the things we should know would be the very substances themselves, and the qualities we should know would be the very concrete forms themselves. This suggests two other sorts of breadth and depth corresponding to these two states of information, and which I shall term respectively the essential and the substantial breadth and depth.

[—]

Substantial depth is the real concrete form which belongs to everything of which a term is predicable with absolute truth.

1873 | Chap. XI. On Logical Breadth and Depth | W 3:102

Substantial depth is the real character as it exists in the object, which belongs to every thing of which a term is predicable with absolute truth.