Kidelonimerm and Grdelemuracy YD : Upp: dactyl. Tule proteblimous de CDIC. Comiqgé’ par Th. Bek, sion jubitic!‘ta hie! The Nature and Use of Symbols in Science Nomen symboli simiitudinem et cole . 1ectionem importat. Sr, Taowas. Logie, mathematies, and several departments of natural science must resort to symbols as distinguished from names. In logic and mathematics, symbols are the signs of what is now called ‘ formaliz~ ation ;’ and when Eddington, for instance, speaks of “ the symbalic character of the world of physics,” by symbolf he means something quite different from the linguistic signs we use to express the ob- jects of what he calls the “ familiar world,” or to talk about symbols.* ‘The origin of the word ‘ symbol ’ may help us to understand how it differs from a name, The Greek noun ‘ symbolon’ comes a the verb ‘ symballein ', meaning, literally, ‘ to throw together’ with, ballein, to throw. enesthe-mesving of symbor-as-the-resele -atthrowing together : a heap; or collection.? The word was used to mean a sign of aa agreement, like a wedding-ring;of membership in & group, such as a uniform, or a passport ; or a sign of rank, as the insignia of office. — Finally Tavg the general meaning of ‘ sign’, in which sense even a word isa symbol. But when weemployiarbitrary signs as logicians, mathematicians, and physicists understand them, wa thy... ‘symbol’ (With fexard 6° more‘ general meaning of sign, (is used ‘6 a synechdoche, sehras the word ‘animal’ when restricted to mean rrational animal’ as(distinguished-from ‘man’, though man is nok Jess an animal. at Like I, NAMMS REFER 70 THINGS THAT ARE PER SB ONE Our usual communicative signs are words or names. Now we should note that whenever we can give a name to something, it is because our mind grasps the thing, or the operation, as something’one per se, such as ‘man’, ‘ Socrates’, ‘ magnitude’, ‘ circle’, ‘to-run’, 1, In IIT Sent, dist.25, 4, 01. 2. The Nature ofthe Physical World, Cambridge, possi, 48, This meaning is retained inthe term ‘ Symbol of Fath’, such as The symbol of ‘the Apostles’, which means a collection of propositions held by faith; assembled in re to the partieular contingent needs ofthe time, es distinguished from an intrinsically Lex spon ordered presentation of doctrine, CI, Sm, Twoncas, [7a Jae. 9. 4.9. — Apropos of the Ressece deniton of mn cays “itis clear that number is « way of bringing to- gether certain colle those that heve a given number of terms.” He qualifies dumber ss logical fitions "and " symbole constructions" (Iatoduetion to Mathematical Piuph, onion, Allen and Ui 10809) ant 1 Ment on in ane Thitey 2 Ao pres a _ extended teand 52m 76 LAVAL THBOLOIQUE ET PHILOSOPHIQUE BST nk ertvan ak On “to taste’, ‘to add up’, ete. 4 . ‘a simple name for ‘ a pale house-building flutist’. The individual who lee oe og3 by the name of ‘Oscar’ may be'&person who is all thase things ; reality iMl@'i8 ond ber se But whatever Oscar may be, his being in realign one per séMioes not make ‘his being ‘ pale’, ‘ flutist ’, and ‘ builder’, one in notion ; for there is no per se connection bet wioon any of those thingy: MASSEY tan hrithout avy ae ah + such ngtes, or be subject one of them without the other — though _ there may be good enough reasons why this man is a flutist, (e.g. inclination, ability, choice, and practice), why he is pale (always in- doors),and why he can build # house (sufficient income, ete.). Yet, tha mot all af that cannot be named as one quality. (l)we could'say is ‘This | same fellow is all thigse things together ’, or, “he belongs to the class 1 of people who are all thgse things together’. Although we_.can,.. plore" devise no single name to signify the characteristic ‘of such a class, we | ~ canygssign to it a symbol, such as y. 2 fow the important thing to note is that the symbol y in the above- mentioned context, stands for ‘ the property of a class’ whose every member is both ‘pale’, ‘a flutist ', and ‘a housebuilder’. In other words, the symbol stands for a combination of notions, But the name ‘ triangle ” also stands for something that implies many notions, via. ‘figure’, ‘plane’, ‘bounded’, ‘three’, ‘lines’, ‘straight’. "The words ‘ figure ', ‘plane’, ete, like the words ‘ pale’, ‘ flutist’, and “housebuilder’, have meanings independent one of the other : a ‘fig- ure’ may be not plane, but'solid, i.e. bounded by a surface ; things may be ‘ three’ without being ‘lines’, and ‘lines’ without being ‘straight’. Nevertheless, these two sets of notions have a radical gp ala! difference : the notions implied by the word ‘ triangle’ do constitute, aut a utd actually, a single notion ; the notions referred to by the symbol p Ov "Saba SN, do not, “No name has been,or could be.designed to signify the com= 2 1 "55 a onl) One might object that this is irrelevant inasmuch as all those) words could be strung together and form an uninterrupted sequences € 7.91 -(an, rede at hy “nl of syllabes — as some languages permit. However, it 3 not tt!o Soyed peel or visual structure that constitutes th name, Since words signify by ‘te Sans pr we convention, a sign such as 2 name ismot allyessential to what it is “ ——Ved to sigity 34 Tp abier hand, what the tome sigs we indeed essential to the name/"X conventional sign is a name only when the signified is something one per se. If, in some language or other, ‘ pale, flutist, housebuilder’ might be written as a single word, this fusion would involve nonetheless as many names as there are distinct, sepa: rable meanings conveyed. bination of ‘ pale ’, ‘ flutist and ‘ housebuilder ’. Ae pte oo re “ 1. Tn terms of the ‘caleulus of classes Osoar belongs tothe class which is the logical Droduct of the three clases: ‘things that are pale’ al futsts(o, “housebuilders fe] viz, (6 x DMs, oF (able, whose product may be represented bY any, slag, afbitfaty sigit suchas y.