Charles Sanders Peirce · Philosophy

Signs: Icon, Index, and Symbol

Peirce’s semiotics - his general theory of signs - built on the triadic relation of sign, object, and interpretant, and his famous classification of signs into icons (which resemble), indices (which connect), and symbols (which signify by convention), with meaning understood as an endless process of one sign giving rise to another.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned that Peirce founded semiotics on a triadic relation - sign (representamen), object, and interpretant - and classified signs as icon (by resemblance), index (by real connection), and symbol (by convention), with meaning as an ongoing process in which each sign generates another. Explain the triad and the th…

Leads to Immanuel Kant.

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