Selective

Along with such indexical directions of what to do to find the object meant, ought to be classed those pronouns which should be entitled selective pronouns [or quantifiers] because they inform the hearer how he is to pick out one of the objects intended, but which grammarians call by the very indefinite designation of indefinite pronouns. Two varieties of these are particularly important in logic, the universal selectives, such as quivis, quilibet, quisquam, ullus, nullus, nemo, quisque, uterque, and in English, any, every, all, no, none, whatever, whoever, everybody, anybody, nobody. These mean that the hearer is at liberty to select any instance he likes within limits expressed or understood, and the assertion is intended to apply to that one. The other logically important variety consists of the particular selectives, quis, quispiam, nescio quis, aliquis, quidam, and in English, some, something, somebody, a, a certain, some or other, a suitable, one.

A symbol for a single individual, which individual is more than once referred to, but is not identified as the object of a proper name, shall be termed a Selective.

… in any case in which the lines of identity become too intricate to be perspicuous, it is advantageous to replace some of them by signs of a sort that in this system are called selectives. A selective is very much of the same nature as a proper name; for it denotes an individual and its outermost occurrence denotes a wholly indesignate individual of a certain category (generally a thing) existing in the universe, just as a proper name, on the first occasion of hearing it, conveys no more. But, just as on any subsequent hearing of a proper name, the hearer identifies it with that individual concerning which he has some information, so all occurrences of the selective other than the outermost must be understood to denote that identical individual. If, however, the outermost occurrence of any given selective is oddly enclosed, then, on that first occurrence the selective will refer to any individual whom the interpreter may choose, and in all other occurrences to the same individual.

The first time one hears a Proper Name pronounced, it is but a name, predicated, as one usually gathers, of an existent, or at least historically existent, individual object, of which, or of whom, one almost always gathers some additional information. The next time one hears the name, it is by so much the more definite; and almost every time one hears the name, one gains in familiarity with the object. A Selective is a Proper Name met with by the Interpreter for the first time.

… a selective cannot be used without being attached to a Ligature, and Ligatures without Selectives will express all that Selectives with Ligatures express. The second aim, to make the representations as iconical as possible, is likewise missed; since Ligatures are far more iconic than Selectives. For the comparison of the above figures shows that a Selective can only serve its purpose through a special habit of interpretation that is otherwise needless in the system, and that makes the Selective a Symbol and not an Icon; while a Ligature expresses the same thing as a necessary consequence regarding each sizeable dot as an Icon of what we call an “individual object”; and it must be such an Icon if we are to regard an invisible mathematical point as an Icon of the strict individual, absolutely determinate in all respects, which imagination cannot realize. Meantime, the fact that a special convention (a clause of the fourth) is required to distinguish a Selective from an ordinary univalent Spot constitutes a second infraction of the purpose of simplicity.