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Commens
Digital Companion to C. S. Peirce
‘Essential Depth’ (pub. 25.11.15-10:35). Quote in M. Bergman & S. Paavola (Eds.), The Commens Dictionary: Peirce's Terms in His Own Words. New Edition. Retrieved from http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-upon-logical-comprehension-and-extension-2.
Term: 
Essential Depth
Quote: 

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.

By the essential depth of a term, then, I mean the really conceivable qualities predicated of it in its definition.

Source: 
Peirce, C. S. (1867). Upon Logical Comprehension and Extension. Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 7, 416-432.
References: 
W 2:79-80; CP 2.409-10
Date of Quote: 
1867
URL: 

http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-upon-logical-comprehension-and-extension-2