Informed Breadth   

Informed Breadth

Commens
Digital Companion to C. S. Peirce
Informed Breadth
1867 | Upon Logical Comprehension and Extension | W 2:79; CP 2.407

By the informed breadth of a term, I shall mean all the real things of which it is predicable, with logical truth on the whole in a supposed state of information. By the phrase “on the whole” I mean to indicate that all the information at hand must be taken into account, and that those things only of which there is on the whole reason to believe that a term is truly predicable are to be reckoned as part of its breadth.

1873 | Chap. XI. On Logical Breadth and Depth | W 3:100

By the ‘informed breadth’ of a term I shall mean all the real objects of which it is predicable with logical truth in the supposed state of information as our knowledge is never absolute but consists only of probabilities that all the information at hand must be taken into account and those things of which there is not on the whole reason to believe that the term is truly predicable are not to be reckoned as part of its breadth.

1901-1902 [c.] | Definitions for Baldwin's Dictionary [R] | MS [R] 1147

The logical aggregate of all the subjects of which a term can be universally and affirmatively predicated in any particular state of information, over and above any of which its meaning implies that it is predicable, constitutes, when regarded as a quantity, its informed breadth. Thus, if, by definition any rational animal is a man, the aggregate of all the subjects of which non-man is predicable, excepting ‘non-rational’ and ‘non-animal’ make up the informed breath of non-man.