the relevant Peirce quotes already pass under
the bridge several times here with not so much cognizance of what
they say.

At level one, the argument is over before it starts.  The very idea
of reducing 1 thing to 1 thing plus 1 other thing is a triadic idea.

At level two, there is ordinary relational composition, or as Peirce
called it &quot;relative multiplication&quot;, and it defines the composition
of two 2-adic relations to be a 2-adic relation, which means that
you can never ever get a 3-adic relati