Bibliography

The Basis of Pragmaticism

To assert a proposition means to accept responsibility for it, so that if it turns out ill, or as Mr. Schiller says (by implication) unsatisfactory, in a certain way which we need not define, but which is called proving to be false, he who has asserted it regrets having done so.

…the term existence is properly a term, not of logic, but of metaphysics; and metaphysically understood, an object exists, if and only if, it reacts with every other existing object of the same universe. But in the definition of a logical proper name, exist is used in its logical sense, and means merely to be a singular of a logical universe, or universe of discourse.

The peculiar characteristic of the proposition lies not in its possibly being false, but in its possibly turning out to be false, and this whether it has been positively held or merely by not suspecting the possibility of its denial. That is wherein all advancement and diffusion of knowledge consists.

Note that a proposition is nothing existent, but is a general model, type, or law according to which existents are shaped. [—]

Now a proposition consists of two parts, the predicate, which excites something like an image or dream in the mind of its interpreter, and the subject, or subjects, each of which serves to identify something which the predicate represents.

Take any proposition and erase certain parts of it, so that it is no longer a proposition but only a blank form which after every blank had been filled by a proper name would become a proposition, however nonsensical. Such a blank form of proposition which can be converted into a proposition by filling every blank with a proper name has been called by the writer a rheme. There may be any integer non-negative number of blanks, so that the term rheme is extended even to a full proposition, when it is looked upon as having a number of blanks which happens to be zero