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This remarkable text is drawn from Joseph Brent, Charles Sanders Peirce: A Life, Bloomington and Indianapolis 1993, Page 331. I have taken the liberty of publishing this in the form of a poem
“There are only three fundamental kinds of relations:
monadic, dyadic and triadic ; …
[B]y combining triads,
all relations greater than the number three can be generated;
and … all those of a greater number than three
can be reduced to triads.
Since, in addition, triads cannot be reduced to dyads,
nor dyads to monads, monads, dyads and triads
constitute the fundamental categories of relations.
At the same time, triads are made up of dyads and monads, and dyads of monads.
Hence, in logical order, monads are first, dyads second, and triads third,
which gives a second group of relations:
first,
second,
and third.
Hypostatic abstraction provides a third group of relations:
firstness, secondness, and thirdness, which contain first, second and third,
which in turn contain monads, dyads, and triads.
Altogether, these elements constitute the abstract, formal
mathematical categories and relations that constitute the elements of thought.”
Thus ends the poesy of Mr. Brent.
Let me confess that I am an admiring follower of Mr. Brent despite the fact that his biography of Peirce is rather more judgmental than I might be. What I value in Brent is that he genuinely tried to understand what Peirce was saying and its applicability to our actual intellectual life.
I am not among those who rest easy with a sense that Peirce has come into his own. I think some of the atmosphere of the academy Peirce was so ambivalent about lingers in the precincts of official Peirce organizations.
I believe that the contentions of Triadic Philosophy are a reasonable extension of pragmaticism, a stab at a quite simple theory that might find its way into the nooks and crannies of thinking. We are after all hypothesizing a radical change in the direction of human history.
This is a round-about invitation to the reader to sample and perhaps even purchase the Brent book noted above.
Let it frustrate you as you appreciate Brent’s willingness to seek to understand things many have skirted but may have failed to grasp.
PS
This was published when I began creating Triadic Philosophy. This forum is an effort to show the relationship it has and does not have with Peirce. It also is evident that Triadic Philosophy is taking root as a huge change is moving in the very directions proposed by TP.
“There are only three fundamental kinds of relations:
monadic, dyadic and triadic ; …
[B]y combining triads,
all relations greater than the number three can be generated;
and … all those of a greater number than three
can be reduced to triads.
Since, in addition, triads cannot be reduced to dyads,
nor dyads to monads, monads, dyads and triads
constitute the fundamental categories of relations.
At the same time, triads are made up of dyads and monads, and dyads of monads.
Hence, in logical order, monads are first, dyads second, and triads third,
which gives a second group of relations:
first,
second,
and third.
Hypostatic abstraction provides a third group of relations:
firstness, secondness, and thirdness, which contain first, second and third,
which in turn contain monads, dyads, and triads.
Altogether, these elements constitute the abstract, formal
mathematical categories and relations that constitute the elements of thought.”
Thus ends the poesy of Mr. Brent.
Let me confess that I am an admiring follower of Mr. Brent despite the fact that his biography of Peirce is rather more judgmental than I might be. What I value in Brent is that he genuinely tried to understand what Peirce was saying and its applicability to our actual intellectual life.
I am not among those who rest easy with a sense that Peirce has come into his own. I think some of the atmosphere of the academy Peirce was so ambivalent about lingers in the precincts of official Peirce organizations.
I believe that the contentions of Triadic Philosophy are a reasonable extension of pragmaticism, a stab at a quite simple theory that might find its way into the nooks and crannies of thinking. We are after all hypothesizing a radical change in the direction of human history.
This is a round-about invitation to the reader to sample and perhaps even purchase the Brent book noted above.
Let it frustrate you as you appreciate Brent’s willingness to seek to understand things many have skirted but may have failed to grasp.
PS
This was published when I began creating Triadic Philosophy. This forum is an effort to show the relationship it has and does not have with Peirce. It also is evident that Triadic Philosophy is taking root as a huge change is moving in the very directions proposed by TP.
