semiotic elements and classes of signs wikipedia

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Semiotic elements and classes of signs

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Logician, mathematician, philosopher, and scientistCharles Sanders Peirce(18391914) beganwriting onsemeiotic,semiotics,or the theory ofsign relationsin the 1860s, around the time thathe devised his system ofthree categories.He eventually definedsemiosisas an "action, orinfluence, which is, or involves, a cooperation of threesubjects, such as a sign, its object, and itsinterpretant, this tri-relative influence not being in any way resolvable into actions betweenpairs" (Houser 1998, 411). This specific type oftriadic relationis fundamental to Peirce'sunderstanding of "logic as formal semiotic". By "logic" he meant philosophical logic. Heeventually divided(philosophical) logic, or formal semiotic, into (1) speculative grammar, or

stechiology, on the elements of semiosis (sign, object, interpretant), how signs can signify and, inrelation to that, what kinds of signs, objects, and interpretants there are, how signs combine, andhow some signs embody or incorporate others; (2) logical critic, or logic proper, on the modes ofinference; and (3) speculative rhetoric, or methodeutic, the philosophical theory of inquiry,includinghis form of pragmatism.His speculative grammar, or stechiology, is this article'ssubject.

Peirce conceives of and discusses things like representations, interpretations, and assertionsbroadly and in terms of philosophical logic, rather than in terms of psychology, linguistics, orsocial studies. He places philosophy at a level of generality between mathematics and the specialsciences of nature and mind, such that it draws principles from mathematics and supplies

principles to special sciences.

[2]

On one hand, his semiotic does not resort to special experiencesor special experiments in order to settle its questions. On the other hand he draws continually onexamples from common experience, and his semiotic is not contained in a mathematical ordeductive system and does not proceed chiefly by drawing necessary conclusions about purelyhypothetical objects or cases. As philosophical logic, it is aboutthe drawing of conclusionsdeductive, inductive, or hypothetically explanatory. Peirce's semiotic, in its classifications, itscritical analysis of kinds of inference, and its theory of inquiry, is philosophical logic studied interms of signs and their triadic relations as positive phenomena in general.

Contents

1 Semiotic elementso 1.1 Sign relationo 1.2 Sign, object, interpretant

2 Classes of signso 2.1 I. Qualisign, sinsign, legisigno 2.2 II. Icon, index, symbolo 2.3 III. Rheme, dicisign, argumento 2.4 The three sign typologies together: ten classes of sign
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3 Notes 4 References and further reading 5 External links

Semiotic elements

Here is Peirce's definition of the triadic sign relation that formed the core of his definition oflogic.

Namely, a sign is something,A, which brings something,B, its interpretantsign determined orcreated by it, into the same sort of correspondence with something, C, its object, as that in whichitself stands to C. (Peirce 1902, NEM 4, 2021).

This definition, together with Peirce's definitions of correspondenceand determination, issufficient to derive all of the statements that are necessarily true for all sign relations. Yet, thereis much more to the theory of signs than simply proving universal theorems about generic sign

relations. There is also the task of classifying the various species and subspecies of signrelations. As a practical matter, of course, familiarity with the full range of concrete examples isindispensable to theory and application both.

In Peirce's theory of signs, asignis something that stands in a well-defined kind of relation totwo other things, its objectand its interpretant sign. Although Peirce's definition of a sign isindependent of psychological subject matter and his theory of signs covers more ground thanlinguistics alone, it is nevertheless the case that many of the more familiar examples andillustrations of sign relations will naturally be drawn fromlinguisticsandpsychology,along withour ordinary experience of their subject matters.

For example, one way to approach the concept of an interpretant is to think of a psycholinguisticprocess. In this context, an interpretant can be understood as a sign's effect on the mind, or onanything that acts like a mind, what Peirce calls a quasi-mind. An interpretant is what resultsfrom a process of interpretation, one of the types of activity that falls under the heading ofsemiosis. One usually says that a sign standsforan object toan agent, an interpreter. In theupshot, however, it is the sign's effect on the agent that is paramount. This effect is what Peircecalled the interpretant sign, or the interpretantfor short. An interpretant in its barest form is asign's meaning, implication, or ramification, and especial interest attaches to the types ofsemiosis that proceed from obscure signs to relatively clear interpretants. In logic andmathematics the most clarified and most succinct signs for an object are calledcanonical formsornormal forms.

Peirce argued that logic is the formal study of signs in the broadest sense, not only signs that areartificial, linguistic, or symbolic, but also signs that are semblances or are indexical such asreactions. Peirce held that "all this universe is perfused with signs, if it is not composedexclusively of signs",[3]along with their representational and inferential relations. He argued that,since all thought takes time, all thought is in signs:
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To say, therefore, that thought cannot happen in an instant, but requires a time, is but anotherway of saying that every thought must be interpreted in another, or that all thought is in signs.(Peirce, 1868[4])

Thought is not necessarily connected with a brain. It appears in the work of bees, of crystals, and

throughout the purely physical world; and one can no more deny that it is really there, than thatthe colors, the shapes, etc., of objects are really there. Consistently adhere to that unwarrantabledenial, and you will be driven to some form of idealistic nominalism akin to Fichte's. Not only isthought in the organic world, but it develops there. But as there cannot be a General withoutInstances embodying it, so there cannot be thought without Signs. We must here give "Sign" avery wide sense, no doubt, but not too wide a sense to come within our definition. Admitting thatconnected Signs must have a Quasi-mind, it may further be declared that there can be no isolatedsign. Moreover, signs require at least two Quasi-minds; a Quasi-utterer and a Quasi-interpreter;and although these two are at one (i.e., are one mind) in the sign itself, they must nevertheless bedistinct. In the Sign they are, so to say, welded. Accordingly, it is not merely a fact of humanPsychology, but a necessity of Logic, that every logical evolution of thought should be dialogic.

(Peirce, 1906

[5]

)

Sign relation

Signhood is a way of being in relation, not a way of being in itself. Anything is a signnot asitself, but in some relation or other. The role of sign is constituted as one role among three:object, sign, and interpretant sign. It is an irreducible triadic relation; the roles are distinct evenwhen the things that fill them are not. The roles are but three: a sign of an object leads tointerpretants, which, as signs, lead to further interpretants. In various relations, the same thingmay be sign or semiotic object. The question of what a sign is depends on the concept of asignrelation,which depends on the concept of atriadic relation.This, in turn, depends on the

concept of arelationitself. Peirce depended on mathematical ideas about thereducibilityofrelationsdyadic, triadic, tetradic, and so forth. According to Peirce's Reduction Thesis,[6](a)triads are necessary because genuinely triadic relations cannot be completely analyzed in termsof monadic and dyadic predicates, and (b) triads are sufficient because there are no genuinelytetradic or larger polyadic relationsall higher-arityn-adic relations can be analyzed in terms oftriadic and lower-arity relations and are reducible to them. Peirce and others, notably RobertBurch (1991) and Joachim Hereth Correia and Reinhard Pschel (2006), have offered proofs ofthe Reduction Thesis.[7]According to Peirce, a genuinely monadic predicate characteristicallyexpresses quality. A genuinely dyadic predicatereaction or resistance. A genuinely triadicpredicaterepresentation or mediation. Thus Peirce's theory of relations underpins hisphilosophical theory of three basic categories (see below).

Extension intension = information.Two traditional approaches to sign relation, necessarythough insufficient, are the way ofextension(a sign's objects, also called breadth, denotation, orapplication) and the way ofintension(the objects' characteristics, qualities, attributes referencedby the sign, also called depth,comprehension,significance, or connotation). Peirce adds a third,the way ofinformation,including change of information, in order to integrate the other twoapproaches into a unified whole.[8]For example, because of the equation above, if a term's totalamount of information stays the same, then the more that the term 'intends' or signifies about
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objects, the fewer are the objects to which the term 'extends' or applies. A proposition'scomprehension consists in its implications.[9]

Determination.A sign depends on its object in such a way as to represent its object the objectenables and, in a sense, determines the sign. A physically causal sense of this stands out

especially when a sign consists in an indicative reaction. The interpretant depends likewise onboth the sign and the objectthe object determines the sign to determine the interpretant. Butthis determination is not a succession of dyadic events, like a row of toppling dominoes; signdetermination is triadic. For example, an interpretant does not merely represent something whichrepresented an object; instead an interpretant represents something asa sign representing anobject. It is an informational kind of determination, a rendering of something more determinatelyrepresentative.[10]Peirce used the word "determine" not in strictly deterministic sense, but in asense of "specializes", bestimmt,[10]involving variation in measure, like an influence. Peircecame to define sign, object, and interpretant by their (triadic) mode of determination, not by theidea of representation, since that is part of what is being defined.[11]The object determines thesign to determine another signthe interpretantto be related to the object as the sign is

related to the object, hence the interpretant, fulfilling its function as sign of the object,determines a further interpretant sign. The process is logically structured to perpetuate itself, andis definitive of sign, object, and interpretant in general.[12]In semiosis, every sign is aninterpretant in a chain stretching both fore and aft. The relation of informational or logicaldetermination which constrains object, sign, and interpretant is more general than the specialcases of causal or physical determination. In general terms, any information about one of theitems in the sign relation tells you something about the others, although the actual amount of thisinformation may be nil in some species of sign relations.

Sign, object, interpretant

Peirce held that there are exactly three basic semiotic elements, the sign, object, and interpretant,as outlined above and fleshed out here in a bit more detail:

Asign(or representamen) represents, in the broadest possible sense of "represents". It issomething interpretable as saying something about something. It is not necessarilysymbolic, linguistic, or artificial.

An object(orsemiotic object) is a subject matter of a sign and an interpretant. It can beanything discussable or thinkable, a thing, event, relationship, quality, law, argument,etc., and can even be fictional, for instance Hamlet.[13]All of those are special or partialobjects. The object most accurately is theuniverse of discourseto which the partial orspecial object belongs.[14]For instance, a perturbation of Pluto's orbit is a sign about Pluto

but ultimately not only about Pluto. An interpretant(or interpretant sign) is the sign's more or less clarified meaning orramification, a kind of form or idea of the difference which the sign's being true orundeceptive would make. (Peirce's sign theory concerns meaning in the broadest sense,including logical implication, not just the meanings of words as properly clarified by adictionary.) The interpretant is a sign (a) of the object and (b) of the interpretant's"predecessor" (the interpreted sign) as being a sign of the same object. The interpretant isan interpretationin the sense of aproductof an interpretive process or a contentin which
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an interpretive relation culminates, though this product or content may itself be an act, astate of agitation, a conduct, etc. Such is what is summed up in saying that the sign standsforthe object tothe interpretant.

Some of the understanding needed by the mind depends on familiarity with the object. In order

to know what a given sign denotes, the mind needs some experience of that sign's objectcollaterally to that sign or sign system, and in this context Peirce speaks of collateral experience,collateral observation, collateral acquaintance, all in much the same terms.[15]

"Representamen"(properly with the "a" long and stressed:/rprzntemn/)was adopted (notcoined)by Peirce as his blanket technical term for any and every sign or sign-like thing coveredby his theory. It is a question of whether the theoretically defined "representamen" covers onlythe cases covered by the popular word "sign." The word "representamen" is there in case adivergence should emerge. Peirce's example was this: Sign action always involves a mind. If asunflower, by doing nothing more than turning toward the sun, were thereby to become fullyable to reproduce a sunflower turning in just the same way toward the sun, then the first

sunflower's turning would be a representamen of the sun yet not a sign of the sun .

[16]

Peirceeventually stopped using the word "representamen."[17]

Peirce made various classifications of his semiotic elements, especially of the sign and theinterpretant. Of particular concern in understanding the sign-object-interpretant triad is this: Inrelation to a sign, its object and its interpretant are either immediate (present in the sign) ormediate.

1. Sign, always immediate to itselfthat is, in a tautologous sense, present in or at itself,even if it is not immediate to a mind or immediately accomplished without processing oris a general apprehended only in its instances.

2.

Objecti. Immediate object, the object as represented in the sign.ii. Dynamic object, the object as it really is, on which the idea which is the immediate

object is "founded, as on bedrock"[18]Also called the dynamoid object, the dynamicalobject.

3. Interpretanti. Immediate interpretant, the quality of the impression which a sign is fit to produce,

not any actual reaction, and which the sign carries with it even before there is aninterpreter or quasi-interpreter. It is what is ordinarily called the sign's meaning.

ii. Dynamic interpretant, the actual effect (apart from the feeling) of the sign on a mindor quasi-mind, for instance the agitation of the feeling.

iii. Final interpretant, the effect which the sign wouldhave on the conduct of any mindor quasi-mind if circumstances allowed that effect to be fully achieved. It is the sign'send or purpose. The final interpretant of one's inquiry about the weather is theinquiry's purpose, the effect which the response would have on the plans for the dayof anybody in one's shoes. The final interpretant of a line of investigation as such isthe truth as the ideal final opinion and wouldbe reached sooner or later but stillinevitably by investigation adequately prolonged, though the truth remainsindependent of that which you or I or any finite community of investigators believe.
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The immediate object is, from the viewpoint of a theorist, really a kind of sign of the dynamicobject; but phenomenologically it isthe object until there is reason to go beyond it, andsomebody analyzing (critically but not theoretically) a given semiosis will consider theimmediate object to be theobject until there is reason to do otherwise.[19]

Peirce preferred phrases like dynamic objectover real objectsince the object might be fictiveHamlet, for instance, to whom one grants a fictive reality, a reality within the universe ofdiscourse of the playHamlet.[13]

It is initially tempting to regard immediate, dynamic, and final interpretants as forming atemporal succession in an actual process of semiosis, especially since their conceptions refer tobeginning, midstages, and end of a semiotic process. But instead their distinctions from eachother are modal or categorial. The immediate interpretant is a quality of impression which a signis fitted to produce, a special potentiality. The dynamic interpretant is an actuality. The finalinterpretant is a kind of norm or necessity unaffected by actual trends of opinion orinterpretation. One does not actually obtain a final interpretant per se; instead one may

successfully coincidewith it.

[20]

Peirce, afallibilist,holds that one has no guarantees that one hasdone so, but only compelling reasons, sometimes very compelling, to think so and, in practicalmatters, must sometimes act with complete confidence of having done so. (Peirce said that it isoften better in practical matters to rely on instinct, sentiment, and tradition, than on theoreticalinquiry.[21])In any case, insofar as truth is the final interpretant of a pursuit of truth, one believes,in effect, that one coincides with a final interpretant of some question about what is true,whenever and to whatever extent that one believes that one reaches a truth.

Classes of signs

Peirce proposes several typologies and definitions of the signs. More than 76 definitions of what

a sign is have been collected throughout Peirce's work.[22]Some canonical typologies cannonetheless be observed, one crucial one being the distinction between "icons", "indices" and"symbols" (CP 2.228, CP 2.229 and CP 5.473). The icon-index-symbol typology ischronologically the first but structurally the second of three that fit together as a trio of three-valued parameters in regular scheme of nine kinds of sign. (The three "parameters" (not Peirce'sterm) are not independent of one another, and the result is a system of ten classes of sign, whichare shown further down in this article.)

Peirce's three basic phenomenologicalcategoriescome into central play in these classifications.The 1-2-3 numerations used further below in the exposition of sign classes represents Peirce'sassociations of sign classes with the categories. The categories are as follows:

Peirce's Categories (technical name: the cenopythagorean categories)

Name:Typical

characterizaton:

As universe

of

experience:

As quantity:Technical

definition:

Valence,

"adicity":

Firstness.[24] Quality of feeling.Ideas,chance,

Vagueness,"some".

Reference to aground (a

Essentiallymonadic (the
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possibility. ground is a pureabstraction of aquality).[25]

quale, in thesense of thesuch,[26]whichhas the quality).

Secondness.[27]Reaction,resistance,(dyadic) relation.

Brute facts,actuality.

Singularity,discreteness,this.

Reference to acorrelate (by itsrelate).

Essentially

dyadic (the relateand thecorrelate).

Thirdness.[28]Representation,mediation.

Habits, laws,necessity.

Generality,continuity,"all".

Reference to aninterpretant*.

Essentiallytriadic (sign,object,interpretant*).

*Note:An interpretant is an interpretation (human or otherwise) in the sense of the product of aninterpretive process.

The three sign typologies depend respectively on (I) the sign itself, (II) how the sign stands forits denoted object, and (III) how the signs stands for its object to its interpretant. Each of thethree typologies is a three-way division, atrichotomy,via Peirce's three phenomenologicalcategories.

1. Qualisigns,sinsigns, and legisigns. Every sign is either (qualisign) a quality orpossibility, or (sinsign) an actual individual thing, fact, event, state, etc., or (legisign) anorm, habit, rule, law. (Also called types, tokens, and tones, alsopotisigns, actisigns, andfamisigns.)

2. Icons, indices, andsymbols. Every sign refers either (icon) through similarity to itsobject, or (index) through factual connection to its object, or (symbol) through

interpretive habit or norm of reference to its object.3. Rhemes, dicisigns, and arguments. Every sign is interpreted either as (rheme) term-like,

standing for its object in respect of quality, or as (dicisign) proposition-like, standing forits object in respect of fact, or as (argument) argumentative, standing for its object inrespect of habit or law. This is the trichotomy of all signs as building blocks of inference.(Also calledsumisigns, dicisigns, andsuadisigns, alsosemes,phemes, and delomes.)

Every sign falls under one class or another within (I) andwithin (II) and' within (III). Thus eachof the three typologies is a three-valued parameter for every sign. The three parameters are notindependent of each other; many co-classifications aren't found.[29]The result is not 27 butinstead ten classes of signs fully specified at this level of analysis.

In later years, Peirce attempted a finer level of analysis, defining sign classes in terms ofrelations not just to sign, object, and interpretant, but to sign, immediate object, dynamic object,immediate interpretant, dynamic interpretant, and final or normal interpretant. He aimed at 10trichotomies of signs, with the above three trichotomies interspersed among them, and issuing in66 classes of signs. He did not bring that system into a finished form. In any case, in that system,icon, index, and symbol were classed by category of how they stood for the dynamic object,
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while rheme, dicisign, and argument were classed by the category of how they stood to the finalor normal interpretant.[30]

These conceptions are specific to Peirce's theory of signs and are not exactly equivalent togeneral uses of the notions of "icon", "symbol", "index", "tone", "token", "type", "term",

"proposition", "argument", and "rhema".

I. Qualisign, sinsign, legisign

Also called tone, token, type; and also calledpotisign, actisign, famisign.

This is the typology of the sign as distinguished bysign's ownphenomenological category (setforth in 1903, 1904, etc.).

1. A qualisign(also called tone,potisign, and mark) is a sign which consists in a quality offeeling, a possibility, a "First."

2. Asinsign(also called tokenand actisign) is a sign which consists in a reaction/resistance,an actual singular thing, an actual occurrence or fact, a "Second."3. A legisign(also called typeandfamisign) is a sign which consists in a (general) idea, a

norm or law or habit, a representational relation, a "Third."

A replica(also called instance) of a legisign is a sign, often an actual individual one (a sinsign),which embodies that legisign. A replica is a sign for the associated legisign, and therefore is alsoa sign for the legisign's object. All legisigns need sinsigns as replicas, for expression. Some butnot all legisigns are symbols. All symbols are legisigns. Different words with the same meaningare symbols which are replicas of that symbol which consists in their meaning but doesn'tprescribe qualities of its replicas.[31]

II. Icon, index, symbol

This is the typology of the sign as distinguished by phenomenological category of its way ofdenoting the object(set forth in 1867 and many times in later years). This typology emphasizesthe different ways in which the sign refers to its objectthe icon by a quality of its own, theindex by real connection to its object, and the symbol by a habit or rule for its interpretant. Themodes may be compounded, for instance, in a sign that displays a forking line iconically for afork in the road and stands indicatively near a fork in the road.

1. An icon(also called likenessandsemblance) is a sign that denotes its object by virtue ofa quality which is shared by them but which the icon has irrespectively of the object. Theicon (for instance, a portrait or a diagram) resembles or imitatesits object. The icon has,of itself, a certain character or aspect, one which the object also has (or is supposed tohave) and which lets the icon be interpreted as a sign even if the object does not exist.The icon signifies essentially on the basis of its "ground." (Peirce defined the ground asthe pure abstraction of a quality, and the sign's ground as the pure abstraction of thequality in respectof which the sign refers to its object, whether by resemblance or, as asymbol, by imputing the quality to the object.[32]). Peirce called an icon apart from a
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label, legend, or other index attached to it, a "hypoicon", and divided the hypoicon intothree classes: (a) the image, which depends on a simple quality; (b) the diagram, whoseinternal relations, mainly dyadic or so taken, represent by analogy the relations insomething; and (c) the metaphor, which represents the representative character of a signby representing a parallelism in something else.[33]A diagram can be geometric, or can

consist in an array of algebraic expressions, or even in the common form "All __ is ___"which is subjectable, like any diagram, to logical or mathematical transformations. Peirceheld that mathematics is done by diagrammatic thinkingobservation of, andexperimentation on, diagrams.

2. An index* is a sign that denotes its object by virtue of an actual connectioninvolvingthem, one that he also calls a real relationin virtue of its being irrespective ofinterpretation. It is in any case a relation which is in fact, in contrast to the icon, whichhas only agroundfor denotation of its object, and in contrast to the symbol, whichdenotes by an interpretive habit or law. An index which compels attention withoutconveying any information about its object is apureindex, though that may be an ideallimit never actually reached. If an indexical relation is a resistance or reaction physically

or causally connecting an index to its object, then the index is a reagent(for examplesmoke coming from a building is a reagent index of fire). Such an index is really affectedor modified by the object, and is the only kind of index which can be used in order toascertain facts about its object. Peirce also usually held that an index does not have to bean actual individual fact or thing, but can be a general; a disease symptom is general, itsoccurrence singular; and he usually considered a designationto be an index, e.g., apronoun, a proper name, a label on a diagram, etc. (In 1903 Peirce said that only anindividual is an index,[34]gave "seme" as an alternate expression for "index", and calleddesignations "subindices or hyposemes,[35]which were a kind of symbol; he allowed of a"degenerate index" indicating a non-individual object, as exemplified by an individualthing indicating its own characteristics. But by 1904 he allowed indices to be generalsand returned to classing designations as indices. In 1906 he changed the meaning of"seme" to that of theearlier "sumisign" and "rheme".)

3. Asymbol* is a sign that denotes its object solely by virtue of the fact that it will beinterpreted to do so. The symbol consists in a natural or conventional or logical rule,norm, or habit, a habit that lacks (or has shed) dependence on the symbolic sign's havinga resemblance or real connection to the denoted object. Thus, a symbol denotes by virtueof its interpretant. Its sign-action (semeiosis) is ruled by a habit, a more or less systematicset of associations that ensures its interpretation. For Peirce, every symbol is a general,and that which we call an actual individual symbol (e.g., on the page) is called by Peircea replicaor instanceof the symbol. Symbols, like all other legisigns (also called "types"),need actual, individual replicas for expression. The propositionis an example of asymbol which is irrespective of language and of any form of expression and does notprescribe qualities of its replicas.[36]A wordthat is symbolic (rather than indexical like"this" or iconic like "whoosh!") is an example of a symbol that prescribes qualities(especially looks or sound) of its replicas.[37]Not every replica is actual and individual.Two word-symbols with the same meaning (such as English "horse" and Spanishcaballo) are symbols which are replicas of that symbol which consists in their sharedmeaning.[31]A book, a theory, a person, each is a complex symbol.
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*Note:in "On a New List of Categories" (1867) Peirce gave the unqualified term "sign" as analternate expression for "index", and gave "general sign" as an alternate expression for "symbol"."Representamen"was his blanket technical term for any and every sign or signlike thing coveredby his theory.[38]Peirce soon reserved "sign" to its broadest sense, for index, icon, and symbolalike. He also eventually decided that the symbol is not the only sign which can be called a

"general sign" in some sense, and that indices and icons can be generals, generalities, too. Thegeneral sign, as such, the generality as a sign, he eventually called, at various times, the"legisign" (1903, 1904), the "type" (1906, 1908), and the "famisign" (1908).

III. Rheme, dicisign, argument

Also calledsumisign, dicisign, suadisign; also calledseme, pheme, delome; and seen as verybroadened versions of the traditional term, proposition, argument

This is the typology of the sign as distinguished by the phenomenological category which thesign's interpretant attributes to the sign's way of denoting the object (set forth in 1902, 1903,

etc.):

1. A rheme(also calledsumisignandseme*) is a sign that represents its object in respect ofquality and so, in its signified interpretant, is represented as a character or mark,[39]though it actually may be icon, index, or symbol. The rheme* (seme) stands as its objectfor some purpose.[40]A proposition with the subject places left blank is a rheme; butsubject terms by themselves are also rhemes. A proposition, said Peirce, can beconsidered a zero-place rheme, a zero-place predicate.

2. A dicisign(also called dicent signandpheme) is a sign that represents its object inrespect of actual existence and so, in its signified interpretant, is represented asindexical,[41]though it actually may be either index or symbol. The dicisign separately

indicates its object (as subject of the predicate).

[42]

The dicisign "is intended to have somecompulsive effect on the interpreter of it".[40]Peirce had generalized the idea ofproposition to where a weathercock, photograph, etc., could be considered propositions(or "dicisigns", as he came to call them). A proposition in the conventional sense is adicent symbol (also called symbolic dicisign). Assertions are also dicisigns.

3. An argument(also calledsuadisignand delome) is a sign that represents its object inrespect of law or habit and so, in its signified interpretant, is represented as symbolic (andwas indeed a symbol in the first place).[43]The argument separately "monstrates" itssignified interpretant (the argument's conclusion); an argument stripped of all signs ofsuch monstrative relationship is, or becomes, a dicisign.[42]It represents "a process ofchange in thoughts or signs, as if to induce this change in the Interpreter" through the

interpreter's own self-control.

[40]

A novel, a work of art, the universe, can be a delome inPeirce's terms.

*Note:In his "Prolegomena To an Apology For Pragmaticism" (The Monist, v. XVI, no. 4, Oct.1906), Peirce uses the words "seme", "pheme", and "delome" (pp. 506,507, etc.) for the rheme-dicisign-argument typology, but retains the word "rheme" for the predicate (p. 530)in his systemof Existential Graphs. Also note that Peirce once offered "seme" as an alternate expression for"index" in 1903[34]
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The three sign typologies together: ten classes of sign

The three typologies, labeled "I.", "II.", and "III.", are shown together in the table below. Asparameters, they are not independent of one another. As previously said, many co-classificationsaren't found.[29]The slanting and vertical lines show the options for co-classification of a given

sign (and appear in MS 339, August 7, 1904, viewablehereat the Lyris peirce-l archive[44]

). Theresult is ten classes of sign.

Words in parentheses in the table are alternate names for the same kinds of signs.

Phenomenological category:

Sign is distinguished byphenomenologicalcategory of...

1. Qualityof feeling.Possibility.

Reference toa ground.

OR

2. Reaction,resistance.Brute fact.

Reference toa correlate.

OR

3.Representation,

mediation.Habit, law.

Reference toan interpretant.

I. ...the SIGN ITSELF: QUALISIGN(Tone,Potisign)

OR SINSIGN(Token,Actisign)

OR LEGISIGN(Type,Famisign)

AND

II. ...the sign's way of denoting itsOBJECT:

ICON(Likeness, etc.)

ORINDEX(Sign*)

ORSYMBOL

(General sign*)

AND

III. ...the sign's wayas represented in theINTERPRETANTof denoting the sign's object:

RHEME(Sumisign,

Seme;e.g., a term)

OR

DICISIGN(Dicent sign,

Pheme;

e.g., aproposition)

ORARGUMENT

(Suadisign,

Delome)

*Note:As noted above, in "On a New List of Categories" (1867) Peirce gave the unqualifiedword "sign" as an alternate expression for "index", and gave "general sign" as an alternateexpression for "symbol." Peirce soon reserved "sign" to its broadest sense, for index, icon, andsymbol alike, and eventually decided that symbols are not the only signs which can be called"general signs" in some sense. Seenoteat end of section "II. Icon, index, symbol" for details.Note that a term (in the conventional sense) is not just any rheme; it is a kind of rhematicsymbol. Likewise a proposition (in the conventional sense) is not just any dicisign, it is a kind ofdicent symbol.

Peirce's Ten Classes of Sign (from CP2.254-263 1903)

Sign'sownphenome-nologicalcategory

Relationtoobject

Relationtointerpretant

Specificationalredundanciesin parentheses

Some examples
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(I) Qualisign Icon Rheme(Rhematic Iconic)Qualisign

A feeling of "red"

(II)

Sinsign

Icon Rheme(Rhematic) IconicSinsign

An individual diagram

(III)Index

RhemeRhematic IndexicalSinsign A spontaneous cry

(IV) DicisignDicent (Indexical)Sinsign

A weathercock or photograph

(V)

Legisign

Icon Rheme(Rhematic) IconicLegisign

A diagram, apart from itsfactual individuality

(VI)Index

RhemeRhematic IndexicalLegisign

A demonstrative pronoun

(VII) DicisignDicent IndexicalLegisign

A street cry (identifying theindividual by tone, theme)

(VIII)

Symbol

Rheme Rhematic Symbol (icLegisign)

A common noun

(IX) DicisignDicent Symbol (icLegisign)

A proposition (in theconventional sense)

(X) ArgumentArgument (ativeSymbolic Legisign)

A syllogism

Peirce's triangular arrangement from MS 540.17Boldface is Peirce's own and indicates non-redundant specifications. Any

two adjacent cells have two aspects in common except in three caseswhere there is only one aspect in common (II & VI; VI & IX; and III &

VIII); there the border between the adjacent cells appears extra thick.(The Roman numerals appear on the manuscript but

were added by an editor.[45])

(I)Rhematic

IconicQualisign

(V)Rhematic

Iconic

Legisign

(VIII)Rhematic

SymbolLegisign

(X)ArgumentSymbolicLegisign

(II)Rhematic

Iconic

Sinsign

(VI)Rhematic

Indexical

Legisign

(IX)Dicent

Symbol

Legisign(III)

Rhematic

Indexical

Sinsign

(VII)Dicent

Indexical

Legisign

(IV)Dicent
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IndexicalSinsign

Notes

1. Jump up ^Brent, Joseph (1998), Charles Sanders Peirce: A Life, 2nd edition,Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press (catalog page); alsoNetLibrary.

2. Jump up ^For Peirce's definitions of philosophy, see for instance "A Syllabus of CertainTopics of Logic", CP 1.183-186, 1903 and "Minute Logic", CP 1.239-241, 1902. SeePeirce's definitions of philosophy atCDPTunder "Cenoscopy"and "Philosophy".

3. Jump up ^Peirce, C.S., CP 5.448 footnote, from "The Basis of Pragmaticism" in 1906.4. Jump up ^"Questions Concerning Certain Faculties Claimed for Man" (ArisbeEprint),

Journal of Speculative Philosophyvol. 2 (1868), pp. 103-114. Reprinted (CP 5.213-263,the quote is from para. 253).

5. Jump up ^"Prolegomena To an Apology For Pragmaticism", pp.492546, The Monist,vol. XVI, no. 4(mislabeled "VI"), Oct. 1906, seep. 523.Reprinted CP 4.530572; seepara. 551Eprint.

6. Jump up ^See "The Logic of Relatives", TheMonist, Vol. 7, 1897, pp.161-217, seep.183(via Google Books with registration apparently not required). Reprinted in theCollected Papers, vol. 3, paragraphs 456-552, see paragraph 483.

7. Jump up ^* Burch, Robert (1991),A Peircean Reduction Thesis: The Foundations ofTopological Logic, Texas Tech University Press, Lubbock, Texas

o Anellis, Irving (1993) "Review ofA Peircean Reduction Thesis: The Foundationsof Topological Logicby Robert Burch" inModern Logicv. 3, n. 4, 401-406,Project Euclid Open AccessPDF 697 KB.Criticism and some suggestions forimprovements.

o Anellis, Irving (1997), "Tarski's Development of Peirce's Logic of Relations"(Google Book SearchEprint)in Houser, Nathan, Roberts, Don D., and Van Evra,James (eds., 1997), Studies in the Logic of Charles Sanders Peirce. Anellis givesan account of a Reduction Thesis proof discussed and presented by Peirce in hisletter to William James of August 1905 (L224, 40-76, printed in Peirce, C. S. andEisele, Carolyn, ed. (1976), The New Elements of Mathematics by Charles S.Peirce, v. 3, 809-835).

o Hereth Correia, Joachimand Pschel, Reinhard (2006), "The Teridentity andPeircean Algebraic Logic" in Conceptual Structures: Inspiration and Application(ICCS 2006): 229-246,Springer.Frithjof Daucalled it"the strong version" ofproof of Peirce's Reduction Thesis.John F. Sowain the same discussionclaimedthat an explanation in terms of conceptual graphs is sufficiently convincing aboutthe Reduction Thesis for those without the time to understand what Peirce wassaying.

o In 1954 W.V.O Quine claimed to prove the reducibility of larger predicates todyadic predicates, in Quine, W.V.O., "Reduction to a dyadic predicate", SelectedLogic Papers.

8. Jump up ^Peirce, C. S. (1867), "Upon Logical Comprehension and Extension" (CP2.391-426), (W 2:70-86, PEPEprint).
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9. Jump up ^Peirce, C.S and Ladd-Franklin, Christine, "Signification (and Application, inlogic)",Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychologyv. 2,p. 528.Reprinted CP 2.431-4.

10.^Jump up to: abPeirce, letter to William James, dated 1909, see EP 2:492.11.Jump up ^Peirce, C.S., "A Letter to Lady Welby" (1908), Semiotic and Significs, pp.

80-81:

I define a Sign as anything which is so determined by something else, called its Object,and so determines an effect upon a person, which effect I call its Interpretant, that thelatter is thereby mediately determined by the former. My insertion of "upon a person" is asop to Cerberus, because I despair of making my own broader conception understood.

12.Jump up ^See "76 definitions of the sign by C.S.Peirce", collected by Professor RobertMarty (University of Perpignan, France).

13.^Jump up to: abA Letter to William James, EP 2:498, 1909, viewable atCDPTunderDynamical Object

14.Jump up Â Letter to William James, EP 2:492, 1909, viewable atCDPTunder"Object".15.Jump up ^See pp. 404-409 in "Pragmatism", EP 2. Ten quotes on collateral observationfrom Peirce provided by Joseph Ransdell can be viewedhere.Note: Ransdell's quotesfrom CP 8.178-179, are also in EP 2:493-4, which gives their date as 1909; and his quotefrom CP 8.183, is also in EP 2:495-6, which gives its date as 1909.

16.Jump up ^"A Syllabus of Certain Topics of Logic", EP 2:272-3, 190317.Jump up Â Draft of a Letter to Lady Welby, Semiotic and Significs, p. 193, 190518.Jump up În EP 2:407, viewable atCDPTunder "Real Object"19.Jump up ^See Ransdell, Joseph, "On the Use and Abuse of the Immediate/Dynamical

Object Distinction" draft 2007,ArisbeEprint20.Jump up ^See Peirce's 1909 letter (or letters) to William James, CP 8.314 and 8.315,

andEssential Peircev. 2, pp. 496-7, and a 1909 letter toLady Welby,Semiotic andSignificspp. 110-1, all under "Final Interpretant"at CDPT. Also see 1873, MS 218(Robin 379) in Writings of Charles S. Peircev. 3, p. 79, on the final opinion, and CP8.184, on final opinion as final interpretant, in a review of a book by Lady Welby.

21.Jump up ^"Philosophy and the Conduct of Life", 1898, Lecture 1 of the Cambridge(MA) Conferences Lectures, published CP 1.616-48 in part and inReasoning and theLogic of Things, Ketner (ed., intro.) and Putnam (intro., comm.), pp. 105-22, reprinted inEssential Peircev. 2, pp. 27-41.

22.Jump up ^See "76 Definitions of The Sign by C. S. Peirce" collected and analyzed byRobert Marty, Department of Mathematics, University of Perpignan, Perpignan, France,With an Appendix of 12 Further Definitions or Equivalents proposed by Alfred Lang,Dept of Psychology, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland,ArisbeEprint.

23.Jump up ^"Minute Logic", CP 2.87, c.1902 and A Letter to Lady Welby, CP 8.329,1904. See relevant quotes under "Categories, Cenopythagorean Categories"in CommensDictionary of Peirce's Terms(CDPT), Bergman & Paalova, eds., U. of Helsinki.

24.Jump up ^See quotes under "Firstness, First [as a category]"in CDPT.25.Jump up ^The ground blacknessis the pure abstraction of the quality black. Something

blackis something embodying blackness, pointing us back to the abstraction. The qualityblackamounts to reference to its own pure abstraction, the ground blackness. The
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