ONT Felix Culpa
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Note 11
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| §6. Relatives of Second Intention
|
| The general method of graphical representation of propositions has now
| been given in all its essential elements, except, of course, that we
| have not, as yet, studied any truths concerning special relatives;
| for to do so would seem, at first, to be "extralogical". Logic in
| this stage of its development may be called 'paradisaical logic',
| because it represents the state of Man's cognition before the
| Fall. For although, with this apparatus, it is easy to write
| propositions necessarily true, it is absolutely impossible to
| write any which is necessarily false, or, in any way which
| that stage of logic affords, to find out that anything is
| false. The mind has not as yet eaten of the fruit of the
| Tree of Knowledge of Truth and Falsity. Probably it will
| not be doubted that every child in its mental development
| necessarily passes through a stage in which he has some
| ideas, but yet has never recognised that an idea may be
| erroneous; and a stage that every child necessarily
| passes through must have been formerly passed through
| by the race in its adult development. It may be doubted
| whether many of the lower animals have any clear and steady
| conception of falsehood; for their instincts work so unerringly
| that there is little to force it upon their attention. Yet plainly
| without a knowledge of falsehood no development of discursive reason
| can take place.
|
| Charles Sanders Peirce, 'Collected Papers', CP 3.488.
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