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Commens
Digital Companion to C. S. Peirce
‘External’ (pub. 06.09.15-12:27). Quote in M. Bergman & S. Paavola (Eds.), The Commens Dictionary: Peirce's Terms in His Own Words. New Edition. Retrieved from http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-fourth-curiosity-5.
Term: 
External
Quote: 

Any object whose attributes, i.e. all that may truly be predicated, or asserted, of it, will, and always would, remain exactly what they are, unchanged, though you or I or any man or men should think or should have thought as variously as you please, I term external, in contradistinction to mental. [—]

The main difference between the external, as I use the term, and the real, as I employ that term, seems to be that the question whether anything is external or not is the question of what a word or other symbol or concept (for thinking proper is always conducted in general signs of some sort) is, I say, a question of what a symbol signifies; while the question of whether anything is real or is a figment is the question what a word or other symbol or concept denotes.

Source: 
Peirce, C. S. (1907). The Fourth Curiosity. MS [R] 200.
References: 
CP 8.327-8
Date of Quote: 
1907
URL: 

http://www.commens.org/dictionary/entry/quote-fourth-curiosity-5