Make somebody to do something

Question

I know this verb does not take "to" after the direct object. Although, I spot T.L. Short in his "Peirce's Theory of Signs" always inserting "to" in this construction. What happens? Is it some formal-style feature or something idiosynctratic? Is there something inaccurate with the rule instead?

For example:

But Peirce supposed that the argument for realism (the underlying argument that he discerned, and not an argument found in his Scholastic sources) denies the existence of anything not general and that the argument for nominalism (again, one he discerned) makes the individual to be the cause, external to experience, of those sensations that make up experience.

...

It also makes the real to be independent of what you or I think about it, which allows for there to be real thoughts, dreams, mistakes, and so on, that is, things that are not independent of what is thought.

...

Those are the three problems with Peirce’s early semeiotic: it makes the object signified to disappear; it makes significance to be arbitrary; and it fails to tell us what significance is.

Lambie · Answer

Here is one sentence from the book that uses "make [x] to", twice in one sentence:

For the latter differs from the evolutionary semantics of Millikan,
  Papineau, et al. in this respect: it does not make significance, in
  general, to be a function, whether biological or cultural, nor does it
  make signs, in general, to have a function (i.e., a purpose, whether
  biological or cultural.

Here, "make" does not mean to "force someone to do something" as in: "I made him wash the car."

to make something to be: to define it as or to do something for the purpose of.

"I did not make [defined or produced] the argument to be a shibboleth."

Make here means produce or cause to exist in the first sense given for the word in most dictionaries.

Pierce's Theory of Signs, see Page 309

Phil Sweet · Answer

In the first example "makes the individual to be" is short for "makes the individual out to be". The phrasal verb makes ST out takes the to infinitive. It can be used to either mean figures out what ST is, or establishes ST to be.

make somebody/something out
  to manage to see someone or something or read or hear something
  synonym distinguish
  I could just make out a figure in the darkness.
  make out what, who, etc… I could hear voices but I couldn't make out what they were saying.  
  to say that something is true when it may not be
  synonym claim
  She's not as rich as people make out.
  make out that… He made out that he had been robbed.
  make out to be/do something She makes herself out to be smarter than she really is.

bold mine.https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/american_english/make-out

The bold shows the to infinitive use, albeit applied to the second definition instead of the first one that is applicable to your sentence. There is a difference in meaning with or without the out. With the out, there is the implication of doubt or uncertainty about the claim. Without the out, there isn't any issue of doubt, and it reads as establishes to be.

Making something to last a lifetime is different than making something last a lifetime.

Make somebody to do something

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