2.1 Introduction

Extension of measurement to the “human” sciences parallels what Peirce called “psychics”. The problem is biology - which side of the physics/psychics line does biology lie on?

The book defines measurement in terms of “properties”. Peirce would call these “qualities” and the relationship between objects and properties given in the form of a proposition. Unfortunately, the short article that Peirce wrote on metrology departs from some of his later semiotic work, so I’m not sure if he would agree with this mapping.

They distinguish between words, concepts, and objects as “words”, and words, respectively.

2.2

Their first general definition of measurement is:

a process based on empirical interaction with an object and aimed at producing information on a property of that object in the form of values of that property.

My immediate take is that “empirical interaction” is not sufficient. I would substitute “interaction with a measuring instrument” for “empirical interaction”. This is one of the three main systems of measurement: a system under measurement, a measuring instrument system and an “interpreting system” that includes a system of units of measurement, measurement scales, legal metrology, etc. Restricting measuring instruments to technical systems focuses attention on the notion of reproducibility that is lost when human “detectors” are used. The word “observation” is available for such “empirical interactions”. They quote the philosopher Mario Bunge for the distinction between observation, measurement and experiment. However, Bunge distinguishes measurement from observation based on the fact that it is quantitative

2.2.3 Measurement as a process whose input is a property of an object

This section references the SEP entry on (properties)[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/properties/]. This looks like an interesting and detailed discussion of the problem. The entry does not distinguish between “property” and “relation”, whereas my semiotically-informed understanding is that there are important differences between these two things, even though they are strongly related. At some point I need to try to defend the idea that functors (tight arrows) model properties and loose arrows model relations.

In CST, objects are “potential interfaces” and follow the structural idea that the only way to know an object is through an interface. Then an interface is the collection of ways that an object can interact with it’s environment.

an empirical property of an object — and thus more specifically an empirical quantity of an object — such as the length of a rod or the reading comprehension ability of an individual is associated with a mode of empirical interaction of the object with its environment. p. 33

MAS distinguishes between “general properties” and “individual properties”, where the former can be said of different objects, while the latter applies to a specific object. Peirce distinguished between these as “qualities” and “propositions”. MAS distinguishes between “individual properties” and “properties fo a given object” which seems pedantic. Perhaps “individual properties” could be considered like the “spectrum” of a property, which can be distinguished from the general concept of the property. Compare this to a “type” that has possible “levels”. One interpretation could be that “individual properties” are like function types, while a “property of a given object” would be evaluation of a function type for a specific object.

Peirce distinguished between “objects” and “properties” in Kaina Stoicheia, considering these as two different universes that nevertheless can be related. Icons would correspond to “general properties”, a pure index would be an object and a proposition would correspond to “properties of a given object”. The notion of a “spectrum” of an icon doesn’t seem to fit these distinctions. Peirce talked about “redness” as a quality but not necessarily “color”.

Stjernfelt states that

dissociation is what permits the distinction between different independent qualities, such as “red” from “blue”.

so rather than “individual properties” we should speak of “dissociated properties”. The notion of “individual” seems more like “precission”, although it’s not an exact match. Stjernfelt quotes Peirce:

But even in the very first passage in which abstraction occurs as a term of logic, two distinct meanings of it are given, the one the contemplation of a form apart from matter, as when we think of whiteness, and the other the thinking of a nature indifferenter, or without regard to the differences of its individuals, as when we think of a white thing, generally. The latter process is called, also, precision (or better, prescission): and it would greatly contribute to perspicuity of thought and expression if we were to return to the usage of the best scholastic doctors and designate it by that name exclusively, restricting abstraction to the former process by which we obtain notions corresponding to the “abstract nouns.” (CP 2.427, “Terminology” 1893).

Peirce’s distinction closely corresponds to the distinction between “general properties” and “individual properties”, so a better terminology would be “abstract properties” and “precissed properties” (taking precissed to be the result of precission as “abstract” is the result of “abstraction”).

Aside. I couldn’t remember how to spell “Kaina Stoicheia”, so I searched for it using the first term and found a PDF version of The Symbolic Species Evolved [@deacon:2012:symbolic], a multi-authored volume revisiting Terrance Deacon’s The Symbolic Species, which has been on my reading list for a while. Created a separate notes document for this book.