Peirce on Injustice, Degenerate Thirdness. and Reason.

CP 1.366. Among thirds, there are two degrees of degeneracy. The first is where there is in the fact itself no Thirdness or mediation, but where there is true duality; the second degree is where there is not even true Secondness in the fact itself. Consider, first, the thirds degenerate in the first degree. A pin fastens two things together by sticking through one and also through the other: either might be annihilated, and the pin would continue to stick through the one which remained. A mixture brings its ingredients together by containing each. We may term these accidental thirds. "How did I slay thy son?" asked the merchant, and the jinnee replied, "When thou threwest away the date-stone, it smote my son, who was passing at the time, on the breast, and he died forthright." Here there were two independent facts, first that the merchant threw away the date-stone, and second that the date-stone struck and killed the jinnee's son. Had it been aimed at him, the case would have been different; for then there would have been a relation of aiming which would have connected together the aimer, the thing aimed, and the object aimed at, in one fact. What monstrous injustice and inhumanity on the part of that jinnee to hold that poor merchant responsible for such an accident! I remember how I wept at it, as I lay in my father's arms and he first told me the story. It is certainly just that a man, even though he had no evil intention, should be held responsible for the immediate effects of his actions; but not for such as might result from them in a sporadic case here and there, but only for such as might have been guarded against by a reasonable rule of prudence. Nature herself often supplies the place of the intention of a rational agent in making a Thirdness genuine and not merely accidental; as when a spark, as third, falling into a barrel of gunpowder, as first, causes an explosion, as second. But how does nature do this? By virtue of an intelligible law according to which she acts. If two forces are combined according to the parallelogram of forces, their resultant is a real third. Yet any force may, by the parallelogram of forces, be mathematically resolved into the sum of two others, in an infinity of different ways. Such components, however, are mere creations of the mind. What is the difference? As far as one isolated event goes, there is none; the real forces are no more present in the resultant than any components that the mathematician may imagine. But what makes the real forces really there is the general law of nature which calls for them, and not for any other components of the resultant. Thus, intelligibility, or reason objectified, is what makes Thirdness genuine. END

This quote, difficult in some respects, is rewarding. It explains why Peirce was a triadic thinker -- because thirdness is mediation. It takes the bluntness he attributes to Secondness and mediates it. In Triadic Philosophy I soften Secondess to positive ethics. They would be seen as blunt only by those who are already mired in fear, harm and hurt.

Triadic Philosophy ultimately makes no distinctions between logic, reason and love. This Peirce's conclusion parses well with the third in Triadic Philosophy which is a positive conclusion that is expression or action.

In this exploration of Peirce, I intend to introduce key parts of his understanding in a number of contexts which will have the effect of enlightening us gradually to the full significance of his thought. This quote resulted from a search for "justice".