From the Robin Catalogue: A. MS., n.p., 1898, pp. 1-35, with a variant p. 24. Peircean categories of Firstness, Secondness, Thirdness. The system of graphs is a consequence of CSP’s study of the categories. Logic of relatives and the notion of generality (universality). The continuum as the true universal. Kant on continua. The question of reality. The nominalist-realist controversy. The tendency to think of nature as syllogizing, even on the part of the mechanist. But nature also makes inductions and retroductions. Infinite variety of nature testifies to her originality (or power of retroduction). That continuity is real and the significance of this fact for a philosophy of life. CSP’s extreme realism lies in his acceptance of the view “that every true universal, every continuum, is a living and conscious being.” On page 28, there is a marginal note signed “WJ” (William James?): “This is too abrupt along here. Should be more mediated to the common mind.”
Published as RLT 146-164 (“Three: The Logic of Relatives”) and the same as NEM 4:331-346 (“Detached Ideas continued and the Dispute between Nominalists and Realists (439)”)
The entry in BibTeX format.
…although all my conclusions about abnumerals were brought to ruin, what I now say about continuity would stand firm. Namely, a continuum is a collection of so vast a multitude that in the whole universe of possibility there is not room for them to retain their distinct identities, but they become welded into one another. Thus the continuum is all that is possible, in whatever dimension it be continuous. But the general or universal of ordinary logic also comprises whatever of a certain description is possible. And thus the continuum is that which the Logic of Relatives shows the true universal to be.
There are three ways in which signs can be studied, first as to the general conditions of their having any meaning, which is the Grammatica Speculativa of Duns Scotus, second as to the condions of their truth, which is logic, and thirdly, as to the conditions of their transferring their meaning to other signs.
I distinguish verbs according to the numbers of their subject blanks, as medads, monads, dyads, triads, etc. A medad, or impersonal verb, is a complete assertion, like “It rains,” “you are a good girl.”
