Name [in Semeiotic]   

Name [in Semeiotic]

Commens
Digital Companion to C. S. Peirce
Name [in Semeiotic]
1885 | One, Two, Three: Fundamental Categories of Thought and of Nature | W 5:243

One very important triad is this: it has been found that there are three kinds of signs which are all indispensable in all reasoning; the first is the diagrammatic sign or icon, which exhibits a similarity or analogy to the subject of discourse; the second is the index, which like a pronoun demonstrative or relative, forces the attention to the particular object intended without describing it; the third is the general name or description which signifies its object by means of an association of ideas or habitual connection between the name and the character signified.

1885 | One, Two, Three: Fundamental Categories of Thought and of Nature | W 5:245

There may be a mere relation of reason between the sign and the thing signified; in that case the sign is an icon. Or there may be a direct physical connection; in that case, the sign is an index. Or there may be a relation which consists in the fact that the mind associates the sign with its object; in that case the sign is a name.