Triple Facts

Title

Triple Facts

Description

We are here able to express the synthesis of the two facts into one, because a triple character involves the conception of synthesis. Analysis involves the same relations as synthesis; so that we may explain the fact that all plural facts can be reduced to triple facts in this way. A road with a fork in it is the analogue of a triple fact, because it brings three termini into relation with one another. A dual fact is like a road without a fork; it only connects two termini. Now, no combination of roads without forks can have more than two termini; but any number of termini can be connected by roads which nowhere have a knot of more than three ways. See the figure, where I have drawn the termini as self-returning roads, in order to introduce nothing beyond the road itself. Thus, the three essential elements of a network of roads are road about a terminus, roadway-connection, and branching; and in like manner, the three fundamental categories of fact are, fact about an object, fact about two objects (relation), fact about several objects (synthetic fact).

Designer

Peirce, Charles Sanders

Date

1885

Source

One, Two, Three: Fundamental Categories of Thought and of Nature

Bibliographic Citation

Peirce, Charles Sanders (C.S.). 1885. "One, Two, Three: Fundamental Categories of Thought and of Nature." In Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A Chronological Edition, Volume 5: 1884-1886. Edited by Christian J. W. Kloesel, Nathan Househ, Marc Simon, André De Tienne, Ursula Niklas, Aleta Houser, Cathy L. Clark and Max H. Fisch. Indiana University Press. Page 244.

Peirce, Charles Sanders (C.S.). 1885. "One, Two, Three: Fundamental Categories of Thought and of Nature." In Peirce on Signs (1991). Edited by James Hoopes. University of North Carolina Press. Pages 182-183.

Peirce, Charles Sanders (C.S.). 1885. "One, Two, Three: Fundamental Categories of Thought and of Nature." Manuscript 546: Summer-Fall 1885

is composed of

Circle

has attribute

Solid Line

Angled Line

depict things of type

Conceptual

Alternative Title

The Triad in Reasoning

Coverage

reasoning

semiotics