Home > Bellucci, Francesco (2015). Neat, Swine, Sheep, and Deer: Mill and Peirce on Natural Kinds
Record in the Commens Bibliography. Retrieved from http://www.commens.org/bibliography/journal_article/bellucci-francesco-2015-neat-swine-sheep-and-deer-mill-and-peirce, 01.10.2023.
Title:
Neat, Swine, Sheep, and Deer: Mill and Peirce on Natural Kinds
Journal:
British Journal for the History of Philosophy
Keywords:
Natural Kind, Natural Class, Information, Symbol
Abstract:
In the earliest phase of his logical investigations (1865–1870), Peirce adopts Mill's doctrine of real Kinds as discussed in the System of Logic and adapts it to the logical conceptions he was then developing. In Peirce's definition of natural class, a crucial role is played by the notion of information: a natural class is a class of which some non-analytical proposition is true. In Peirce's hands, Mill's distinction between connotative and non-connotative terms becomes a distinction between symbolic and informative and pseudo-symbolic and non-informative forms of representation. A symbol is for Peirce a representation which has information. Just as for Mill all names of Kind connote their being such, so for Peirce all symbols profess to correspond to a natural class.