[Inquiry] Questions Involving Pure Symbols

[Jon Awbrey]

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QUIPS.  Note 1

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I think it will be useful to take in a few whole paragraphs here.
For ease of discussion, I have broken them into smaller portions.

| Remark how peculiar a sign the line of identity is.
|
| A sign, or, to use a more general and more
| definite term, a 'representamen', is one
| or other of three kinds:  it is either
| an 'icon', an 'index', or a 'symbol'.
|
| An icon is a representamen of what it represents and for the mind
| that interprets it as such, by virtue of its being an immediate image,
| that is to say by virtue of characters which belong to it in itself as
| a sensible object, and which it would possess just the same were there no
| object in nature that it resembled, and though it never were interpreted
| as a sign.  It is of the nature of an appearance, and as such, strictly
| speaking, exists only in consciousness, although for convenience in
| ordinary parlance and when extreme precision is not called for,
| we extend the term 'icon' to the outward objects which excite
| in consciousness the image itself.  A geometrical diagram
| is a good example of an icon.
|
| A pure icon can convey no positive or factual information;
| for it affords no assurance that there is any such thing
| in nature.  But it is of the utmost value for enabling
| its interpreter to study what would be the character
| of such an object in case any such did exist.
| Geometry sufficiently illustrates that.
|
| Of a completely opposite nature is the kind of representamen termed an 'index'.
| This is a real thing or fact which is a sign of its object by virtue of being
| connected with it as a matter of fact and also by forcibly intruding upon the
| mind, quite regardless of its being interpreted as a sign.  It may simply
| serve to identify its object and assure us of its existence and presence.
| But very often the nature of the factual connexion of the index with its
| object is such as to excite in consciousness an image of some features
| of the object, and in that way affords evidence from which positive
| assurance as to truth of fact may be drawn.
|
| A photograph, for example, not only excites an image, has an appearance,
| but owing to its optical connexion with the object, is evidence that
| that appearance corresponds to a reality.
|
| A 'symbol' is a representamen whose special significance or fitness to
| represent just what it does represent lies in nothing but the very fact
| of there being a habit, disposition, or other effective general rule that
| it will be so interpreted.  Take, for example, the word "man".  These three
| letters are not in the least like a man;  nor is the sound with which they
| are associated.  Neither is the word existentially connected with any man
| as an index.  It cannot be so, since the word is not an existence at all.
| The word does not consist of three films of ink.  If the word "man" occurs
| hundreds of times in a book of which myriads of copiesre printed, all those
| millions of triplets of patches of ink are embodiments of one and the same
| word.  I call each of those embodiments a 'replica' of the symbol.  This
| shows that the word is not a thing.  What is its nature?  It consists in
| the really working general rule that three such patches seen by a person
| who knows English will effect his conduct and thoughts according to a rule.
|
| Thus the mode of being of the symbol is different from that of
| the icon and from that of the index.  An icon has such being as
| belongs to past experience.  It exists only as an image in the
| mind.  An index has the being of present experience.  The being
| of a symbol consists in the real fact that something surely will
| be experienced if certain conditions be satisfied.  Namely, it
| will influence the thought and conduct of its interpreter.
|
| Every word is a symbol.  Every sentence is a symbol.  Every book is
| a symbol.  Every representamen depending upon conventions is a symbol.
| Just as a photograph is an index having an icon incorporated into it,
| that is, excited in the mind by its force, so a symbol may have an icon
| or an index incorporated into it, that is, the active law that it is may
| require its interpretation to involve the calling up of an image, or a
| composite photograph of many images of past experiences, as ordinary
| common nouns and verbs do;  or it may require its interpretation to
| refer to the actual surrounding circumstances of the occasion of its
| embodiment, like such words as 'that', 'this', 'I', 'you', 'which',
| 'here', 'now', 'yonder', etc.  Or it may be pure symbol, neither
| 'iconic' nor 'indicative', like the words 'and', 'or', 'of', etc.
|
| C.S. Peirce, 'Collected Papers', CP 4.447
|
|"On Existential Graphs, Euler's Diagrams, and Logical Algebra",
|"Logical Tracts, No. 2" (c. 1903), in 'Collected Papers', CP 4.418-509.
| http://www.existentialgraphs.com/peirceoneg/existentialgraphs4.418-529.htm

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