Synthese

DOI 10.1007/s11229-014-0406-5

Dicisigns
Peirces semiotic doctrine of propositions
Frederik Stjernfelt

Received: 24 July 2013 / Accepted: 21 January 2014

Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Abstract The paper gives a detailed reconstruction and discussion of Peirces doctrine of propositions, so-called Dicisigns, developed in the years around 1900. The
special features different from the logical mainstream are highlighted: the functional
definition not dependent upon conscious stances nor human language, the semiotic
characterization extending propositions and quasi-propositions to cover prelinguistic
and prehuman occurrences of signs, the relations of Dicisigns to the conception of
facts, of diagrammatical reasoning, of icons and indices, of meanings, of objects, of
syntax in Peirces logic-as-semiotics.
Keywords

Propositions Dicisigns Peirce Logic Semiotics

I do not, for my part, regard the usages of language as forming a satisfactory basis for logical doctrine.
Logic, for me, is the study of the essential conditions to which signs must conform in order to function
as such. (Kaina Stoicheia 1904)

1 Introduction
Peirces doctrine of propositionsDicisignshas been strangely neglegted. To take
an example: no single paper title in the 50-odd years of publication history of Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society involves the notion of Dicisign, and only a
small handful of papers address the doctrine under the headline of propositions.1
Compared to the voluminous literature on Peircean sign types such as the icon-index1 Major contributions include Murphey (1961), Shorts (1984) paper Some Problems Concerning
Peirces Conceptions of Concepts and Propositions which leads up to his treatment of the issue in
his Peirces Theory of Signs (2008), the two related 1992 papers of Hilpinen (1992, pp. 467488) and
Houser (1992) (ibid. pp. 489504), as well as and Hilpinen (2007).

F. Stjernfelt (B)
Humanomics Center, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
e-mail: [email protected]

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symbol trichotomy, the type-token distinction, or the types of inferences, Dicisigns

are close to being neglected. In the development of 20 C logic, Peirces philosophy
of propositionsunlike his logic formalizations and many other ideas of Peircean
logichas had little influence, if any.
Yet, Dicisigns not only form an early and fairly elaborated doctrine of propositions
independent of that of Bolzano, contemporaneous with those of Brentano and Frege,
and earlier than those of Russell, Wittgenstein, the positivists, etc. (cf. Coffa 1991).
Dicisigns also take a very central place in the mature Peirces semiotics and epistemology, closely related to his doctrine of diagrammatical reasoning. Peircean Dicisigns
differ, in important respects, from received doctrines of propositions, and aspects of
the Dicisign doctrine may add to the current discussion of structured propositions
and reinvigorate the connections between logic and semiotics, giving the former more
cognitive relevance and taking the latter away from relativism.
Already in the period from 18801885, Peirce constructed his linear formalizations of propositional logic and first order predicate logicfollowing immediately,
but unknowingly, in Freges 1879 footsteps.2 These few years apart, Frege and Peirce
independently discovered predicate logic with polyvalent predicates and quantification. As has gradually become known, it was Peirces rather than Freges much more
cumbersome formalization of the Begriffsschrift which came, via Schrder, Peano,
and Russell, to be taken as the basis for modern formal logic. So Peirces elaborated
doctrine of the Dicisign, primarily developed only in the years around 1900, takes
these formal logical breakthroughs of the years around 1880 as their background: the
distinction between a quantification part and a Boolean part of propositions (today:
the prefix and matrix parts, respectively) becoming central to Peirces later analysis
of the two functions of Dicisigns. But why did Peirce actually care to develop, on
the top of these achievements in formal logic, a doctrine of Dicisigns? Two reasons
may be inferred. One is that, during the same period, he developed the competing
set of logical formalizations known as Existential Graphs, giving, on several points,
a new perspective on propositions. The other is that, in this period, he developed his
general semiotics, highlighting an interest in which sign vehicles are capable of performing which logical functions, taking him to generalize basic sets of distinctions to
cover all signs, thus his old icon-index-symbol trichotomy and the classical logical
term-proposition-argument triad.
In this paper I shall reconstruct and discuss Peirces theory of Dicisigns with a
special emphasis on the extension of empirical sign vehicles capable of instantiate
propositions or quasi-propositionsas Peirces interest in this issue forms the most
important difference in his doctrine to mainstream ideas of propositions. So let me
begin by outlining the extension of Peirces Dicisign concept.3

2 It can not be excluded that Peirce knew about the Begriffsschrift but did not care to read it due to the many

unfavorable reviews of it at the time; his student Christine Ladd-Franklin mentions it in the 1883 Studies in
Logic by Peirce and his students (cf. Anellis 2012). Frege probably learned Peirces name from Schrders
(disparaging) 1880 review, but neither of the two explicitly faced the others ideas nor referred to them.
3 References to Peirce (1934) are given by CP followed by volume and paragraph number; references to
Peirce (1992) and (1998) are given by EPI and EPII, respectively. References to unpublished Peirce Mss.
in the Houghton Library, Harvard, are given to Ms. number following Robin (1967).

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1.1 The extension of the Dicisign concept

Dicisigns are signs, to put it bluntly, which say something about something. This is,
for a pragmatist, absolutely centralwhich is why Dicisigns are taken to be central
among genuine signs while simpler signs like icons and indices are taken by Peirce to
be degenerate signs, and unsaturated propositional functionsso-called rhemes
are characterized as fragmentary signs (in the Kaina Stoicheia 1904, NEM IV).4
The fine-grained varieties of degenerate signs regularly appear as parts or aspects of
Dicisigns, but they do not, in themselves, satisify the basic semiotic task of Dicisigns,
namely, to convey information: no sign of a thing or kind of thingthe ideas of
signs to which concepts belongcan arise except in a proposition; and no logical
operation upon a proposition can result in anything but a proposition; so that nonpropositional signs can only exist as constituents of propositions. (An Improvement
on the Gamma graphs, 1906, CP 4.583).
Thus, Peirces doctrine of Dicisigns constitutes an original and far-reaching account
for the semiotics of propositionsalso when compared to the doctrines of Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein and the tradition to which they gave rise. Most importantly, Peirces
semiotic theory of Dicisigns does not tie propositions to human language exclusively,
neither in the shape of ordinary language nor special, formalized languages. This more
general doctrine of Dicisigns thus has several important merits. First, it allows for the
consideration of the role played by Dicisigns in pre-human cognition and communication in biologyand thus to envisage an evolutionary account for the development
of propositions from very simple biological versions of quasi-propositions and to the
much more explicit, articulated, nested, and varied propositions in human cognition
and communication.5 Second, it allows for the investigation of the broad range of
human Dicisigns which do not involve languageor which only partially involve language. This makes possible the study of how pictures, diagrams, gestures, movies, etc.
may constitute Dicisigns or participate in Dicisignshighlighting how non-linguistic
signs may facilitate reasoning and appear in speech acts taken in a wider sense, including what could be called picture acts. Third, it connects propositions closely to perception, cf. Peirces doctrine of perceptual judgments as making explicit general
aspects of perception. Fourth, Peirces functional definition of Dicisigns liberates
them from the idea that conscious intention, propositional stances, and the like
form an indispensable presupposition for propositions to appear. And fifth, it embeds
4 Peirces initial argument here is that symbols are genuine signs in contradistinction to the degenerate sign
types of icons and indices. The notion of degeneracy comes from the geometry of conic sections where
certain sections (the point, the crossing lines, the circle, the parabola) only obtain with particular, nongeneric values of the variables, simplifying the equations, as opposed to the generic sections giving ellipses
and hyperbolas. Degenerate cases are thus limit phenomena only.From this observation Peirce moves to the
special type of symbols which is propositions, the central issue of Kaina Stoicheia, able to express facts:
What we call a fact is something having the structure of a proposition, but supposed to be an element of
the very universe itself. The purpose of every sign is to express fact, and by being joined with other signs,
to approach as nearly as possible to determining an interpretant which would be the perfect Truth () (p.
304). Not all Dicisigns, however, are symbols, cf. below.
5 Thus, most if not all animal sign use displays the characteristic double structure of Dicisigns, e.g. firefly
signaling (El-Hani et al. 2010; Stjernfelt 2014).

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Dicisigns and their development in a social setting, Peirce taking the steps from proposition to proposition in thought to be dialogical and to presuppose the knowledge of
a Universe of Discouse shared among dialogue participants. This further allows for
a plasticity of interpretation of Dicisigns, relative to the Universe of Discourse in
which they partake. This radical extension of Dicisigns, embracing animal sign use
on the one hand and non-linguistic human semiotics, perception, and dialogical reasoning on the other does not come without problems, though. The Dicisigns at stake
here may appear more implicit, indirect, and vague as compared to the explicitness
of declarative sentences in the indicative, expressed in human language, ordinary or
formalized, and thus form a notion of proposition which is, in important respects,
deflated.
Peirces doctrine of Dicisigns comprehends propositions proper, linguistically represented and objects of fully conscious propositional attitudesas well as what he
himself calls quasi-propositions, Dicisigns which are not necessarily Symbols. This is
why I stick to the term Dicisign addressing Peirces broad notion of propositions
while using proposition about the received notion as well as proposition as opposed
to quasi-proposition when these more specific subtypes come up.6 Here my aim is
threefold. First, to give an account of Peirces notion of Dicisigns as it appears in
the mature version of his semiotics in the years after 1900, peaking in his Dicisign
doctrine of 1903 presented in the Pragmatism and Lowell lectures and the Syllabus,
further elaborated in the Kaina Stoicheia (1904), the 19051906 Monist papers and
the letters to lady Welby 19041908. Second, to indicate its relation to other central
tenets of his theory, particularly that of diagrams and diagrammatical reasoning. Third,
to trace the possible contributions of Peirces doctrine to actual issues of structured
propositions, their meaning, objects, type of existence, etc.
1.2 Dicisigns: signs separately indicating their object
A striking peculiarity of Peirces logic is its emphasis on logic as semioticsand,
correspondingly, the status of all logic entities and figures as signsas he expresses
it by a recurring onion metaphor: A pure idea without metaphor or other significant
clothing is an onion without a peel. (The Basis of Pragmatism, ca. 1906, EPII,
392). At the same time, Peirce holds an idea of propositions in themselves as ideal
entitiesas typesfacilitating the appearance of one and the same proposition in very
different semiotic acts. The existence mode of propositions is not that of numerical, hic
et nunc individual existence, but that of sign types, mere possibilitieswhich is why
they need semiotic machinery to be able to appear and play a role in actual discourse.
For that same reason, the character of that machinery comes to play center stage in
Peirces Dicisign doctrine.
6 It should be added that Peirces terminology referring to Dicisigns varies, to say the least. Taking his
departure in the classic logical trichotomy of Terms, Propositions, Arguments, he invents new terminology in
order to indicate his own generalization of that trichotomy to cover all signs. That gives terminological results
like Rhemes, Dicisigns, Arguments, Semes, Phemes, Delomes, or Sumisigns, Dicisigns, Suadisigns,
just like the parallel version of Dicent Signs to Dicisigns. Here, we shall generally stick to the Rhemes,
Dicisigns, Arguments version.

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True to Peirces general way of investigating sign types, he describes Dicisigns both
compositionally, functionally, and systematically. As Hilpinen (1992) says, Peirces
recurrent and standard definition of Dicisigns is given in the following italicized
passage from Kaina stoicheia:
It is remarkable that while neither a pure icon or a pure index can assert anything,
an index which forces something to be an icon, as a weathercock does, or which
forces us to regard it as an icon, as the legend under the portrait does, does
make an assertion, and forms a proposition. This suggests a true definition of a
proposition, which is a question in much dispute at the moment. A proposition
is a sign which separately, or independently, indicates its object. (EPII, 307,
emphasis Hilpinens).7
This definition implicitly posits propositions against predicates without any reference
indicated, the so-called Rhemes (cf. the Dicisign The sky is blue vs the unsaturated
Rheme or propositional function _ is blue). And it sets Dicisigns apart from simple
indices which do nothing but exactly indicating their object (the pointing gesture, the
proper name, the pronoun, etc.), thus not performing its indicating separately from
other aspects of their functioning. Moreover, it is this definition which implies that
Dicisigns comprehend more than full-blown general, symbolic propositions and also
involve quasi-propositions like Dicent Sinsigns and Dicent Legisigns8 they qualify
for the basic reason that they, too, separately indicate their object. Photographs, for
instance, may function as Dicent Sinsigns, just like statements of identity, location
or naming may function as Dicent Legisigns. Such Dicisigns, like the pointing of
a weathercock, even give the core of the definition: It is, thus, clear that the vital
spark of every proposition, the peculiar propositional element of the proposition, is
an indexical proposition, an index involving an icon. (Kaina Stoicheia 1904, EPII,
310, our italics). The weathercock is a Dicisign because its indexical connection with
the wind, involving the icon of turning in the winds direction. Full-fledged linguistic
propositions realize this same structure by grammatical meansbut this is no special
capacity of language as such. Rather, language is adapted to fit Dicisign structure. Thus,
this basic definition makes clear the large extension of Peirces Dicisign category. This
maybe surprising definition of the Dicisign is closely connected, however, to the basic
function of the Dicisign, namely to convey information to relay claims, true or
false. Only by separately indicating an object it becomes possible for a sign to convey
information about that object, correctly or not:
the essential nature of the Dicisign, in general, that is, the kind of sign that
conveys information, in contradistinction to a sign from which information may
be derived.

7 This idea is present already in On a New List of Categories (1868) where Peirce outlines the classic
distinction term-proposition-argument and defines propositions as follows: Symbols which also [in addition
to determining imputed qualities, FS] independently determine their objects by means of other term or
terms, and thus, expressing their own objective validity, become capable of truth and falsehood, that is, are
propositions. (EP I, 8)
8 In the ten-sign taxonomy of the Syllabus, 1903 (EPII, 296).

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The readiest characteristic test showing whether a sign is a Dicisign or not, is

that a Dicisign is either true or false, but does not directly furnish reasons for its
being so. (Syllabus, 1903, EPII, 276)
Dicisigns are thus signs which may be assigned a truth valuewithout providing,
themselves, reasons for that value. The implicit countercategory here is the Argument,
involving more than one Dicisign and explictly giving reasons for its being true. The
distinction between signs conveying information and signs from which information
may be derived points to the possibility of deriving information from iconscrucial to
diagrammatical reasoning. When such information is actually derived, however, it will
be structured as a Dicisign. The most simple example of this is perceptual judgment. I
see a certain configuration of crafted wood and derive the information This is a chair.
linguistically expressed or not. Even if I do not convey this information to anybody
else but myself in an act of communication, Peirce insists that individual reasoning
also takes the shape of dialogic communication. When concluding This is a chair,
I communicate this to myself, that is, to a version of myself existing a moment later,
thus conveying information to myself in the shape of a Dicisign.
1.3 The double function of the Dicisign
The function of expressing truth or falsity is possible only by means of the Dicisign
having a particular double structure which Peirce describes in various ways, already
in the early nineties:
Every assertion is an assertion that two different signs have the same object.
(Short Logic, 1893, CP 2.437).
An assertion is the speech act of claiming that a proposition is true.9 As a sign,
the proposition must involve those two different signs: it must, at the same time,
fulfill two functions connecting it in two different ways to the same object, the index
and the icon mentioned above. This is the reason why many propositions possess
an internal structure composed from two separate parts, each fulfilling its specific
function. Oftentimes, Peirce generalizes the classical notions of Subject and Predicate
to account for these two aspects of Dicisigns:
It must, in order to be understood, be considered as containing two parts. Of
these, the one, which may be called the Subject, is or represents an Index of a
Second existing independently of its being represented, while the other, which
may be called the Predicate, is or represents an Icon of a Firstness. (Syllabus,
1903, EPII, 277; 2.312)
A Dicisign thus may perform its double function by means of having two parts, a
subject part referring by means of some version of an index (maybe indirectly by an
indexical symbol like a pronoun or a quantifier or an indexical legisign like a proper
9 As Short also observes, Peirce does in factdespite Austins famous (1961) claim to the contrary

distinguish between a proposition, the tokens representing it (e.g.sentences), the belief of a proposition (the
assent to it), and the public claim of a proposition (the assertion of it), cf. below.

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noun) to the object of the Dicisign, and a Predicate part, describing that object by
means of an icon of some quality or relation (maybe indirectly by an iconical symbol
like a linguistic predicate). As Hilpinen remarks, this is an Ockhamist idea, William of
Ockham defining the possible truth of a proposition by the possibility that the subject
and the predicate supposit for the same thing (Hilpinen 1992, 475), that is, refer to
the same object. So the doubleness of the Dicisign is what enables it to express truth:
it is true in case the predicate actually does apply to the subjectwhich is what the
Dicisign claims.
That is to say, in order to understand the Dicisign, it must be regarded as composed of such two parts whether it be in itself so composed or not. It is difficult
to see how this can be, unless it really have two such parts; but perhaps this may
be possible. (Syllabus, 1903, EPII, 276)
Central examplesfor instance, that of a photographdo indeed indicate that the
Dicisign may play those two independent roles without explicitly being articulated
in two separately identifiable parts of the sign, as Peirce realizes a bit later in the
Syllabus. The photographs indexical connection to its object via focused light rays
stemming from that object, influencing a photographic plate, whether chemically or
electronically, plays the Subject role of the Dicisign, granting the connection of reference between sign and object; while the shapes, colours and other qualities formed on
that plate play the Predicate roleeven if those two roles are not explicitly separated
as distinct parts of the photographic sign itself. Still, the two are clearly functionally
separate, constituting two aspects of the sign rather than two distinct physical parts of
the sign vehicle.
Peirces analysis of the Predicate part or aspect of the Dicisign is closely connected
to the Russian-doll structure of the Rheme-Dicisign-Argument triad, where Dicisigns
in a certain sense contain Rhemes and Arguments similarly contain Dicisigns. Rhemes
are what is left if one or several Subjects of a Dicisign are erased:
If parts of a proposition be erased so as to leave blanks in their places, and if
these blanks are of such a nature that if each of them be filled by a proper name
the result will be a proposition, then the blank form of proposition which was
first produced by the erasures is termed a rheme. According as the number of
blanks in a rheme is 0, 1, 2, 3, etc., it may be termed a medad (from ` ,
nothing), monad, dyad, triad, etc., rheme. (Syllabus, 1903, EPII, 299; 2.272)
Thus, rhemes correspond to what is now often called propositional functions with the
caveat that they comprehend also a vast range of non-linguistic predicates.10 Peirce,
originally a chemist, made this analysis of polyadic predicates modeled upon the notion
of chemical valency. For the same reason he saw predicates as unsaturated, calling for
saturation by indices in one or more of their blanks. For instance, in the proposition
10 Later in the Syllabus, Peirce realizes that Subject terms of propositions must also be classified as Rhemes
(in the ten-sign combinatory, e.g., proper names are classified as Rhematic Indexical Legisigns). This seems
to imply that they, too, must be considered as unsaturated. Thus, Peirces theory differs from both Freges
and Russells in not assuming Arguments/Subjects to be saturated. Saturation, like covalent chemical bonds,
are taken to require unsaturatedness in all substances involved in the compound.

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Peer gives an answer to Svend, one or several of the subjects Peer, answer, and
Svend may be erased to give rhemes like _ gives an answer to Svend, Peer gives a
_ to _, _ gives a _ to , etc. To Peirce, unlike Frege or Russell, the Predicate includes
the copulain The sky is blue, the predicate rheme will be _ is blue. This allows
for him to include a wide variety of expression types under the rheme category
linguistically, verbs as well as adjectives and common nouns, with the copula added,
constitute rhemes. Outside of linguistics, pictures, images, diagrams, gestures, etc.
may form rhemes and thus appear as the predicative, propositional-function part of
Dicisigns. Common to all predicate rhemes is that they involve an iconic, descriptive
sign. So, the important basis of this double aspect theory of the proposition is that
one and the same complex signthe Dicisignin some way indicates an object by a
direct index or by some more indirect identification procedure for retrieving the object
or set of objects referred to (maybe involving a proper name or other symbolic index,
a common noun, quantification, etc.) and, at the same time, furnishes a description of
that object given in the predicative, Rheme aspect of the Dicisign. These two aspects
form the basis of the purely functional definition of propositions:
Thus, every proposition is a compound of two signs, of which one functions
significantly, the other denotatively. The former is intended to create something
like a picture in the mind of the interpreter, the latter to point to what he is to
think of that picture as being a picture of. (Ms. 284 Basis of Pragmatism 1905
p. 43)
So, the basic function of the predicative aspect of the Dicisign is to yield an iconic
description of the signs object. This, however, is not all. By including the copula
and the number of blanks involved in the predicate given, the predicative side of the
Dicisign includes all that is not immediately indexical:
The most perfectly thorough analysis throws the whole substance of the Dicisign
into the Predicate. (Syllabus 1903, EPII, 281; 2.318)
This implies that the Predicate also includes the syntax of the Dicisign, cf. the claim that
the Predicate is also representing (or being) an Icon of the Dicisign in some respect
(Syllabus 1903, EPII 279, 2.316). The Predicate not only depicts certain characters of
the object, it also depicts the Dicisign claiming those characters to pertain to the object.
The Predicate iconically describes that very aspect of the Dicisignits syntax. So,
the Predicate operates on two levels simultaneously, on the object and metalanguage
level, as it were. We shall return to this syntax below.
The fact that Peirce chose the age-old terminology of Subject-Predicate of Aristotelian logic in his structured proposition doctrine of Dicisigns hid, to some degree,
the radicality of it and did not help the spread of it. Jean van Heijenoorts influential history of logic (1967) constructed the Fregean revolution as leading almost
directly from the Begriffsschrift to Russell and modern formal logic, thereby sidelining the strong role played, also in Peano and Russell, by algebraical logic (Boole,
de Morgan, Jevons, Peirce, Schrder etc.), cf. (Anellis 1995, 2012).11 Among Hei11 Cf. also Shin (2013).

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jenoorts major claims was that the latter aimed at a mere calculus for computing,
not a representation language for inferencing; that the algebraists did not grasp quantification (even if it was Peirce and his pupil O.H.Mitchell who introduced, in 1883,
the first version of its modern notation), and, decisively, that the algebraists stuck
to Aristotelian subject-predicate logic and failed to follow Freges groundbreaking
function-argument distinction instead. Peirces idea of throwing all of the analysis
of the Dicisign into the predicate exactly parallels Freges function-argument strategy
for carving up propositionsbut sticking to the old terminology, Peirce did not immediately signal this radicality of his doctrine. As is already evident, Peirces logic did
not address calculation only and functions as a representative language just as much as
the Frege traditionalbeit in a broader sense of language. The algebraic tradition,
moreover, was what allowed Peirces doctrine to be even more radical than Frege as
to the extension of predicates far beyond language. Despite his graphical notation,
Frege was interpreted as staying close to the idea of logic as language while Peirces
adherence to the algebraists permitted him to transgress human language as basis for
logic and, in fact, more than Frege, to integrate both computational and inferential
aspects of logic.

1.4 The indexical side of Dicisigns

Peirces first formalization of logicin (1883) and the two Algebra of Logic papers
in the 1880sformed the first version of standard modern formal logic which later
adopted Peirces ideas via the intermediaries of Schrder and Peano (Putnam 1982).
Thus, the central idea is to separate completely the two aspects of the proposition,
quantification of variables on the one hand; predicates and their interrelations on the
otherthe indexical and iconical parts, as it were. In our days terminology, the prenex
normal form of the proposition, distinguishing the quantifier prefix part of it from its
quantifier-free matrix part. Thus the isolatation of the indexical part in the shape of
a pointing gesture, a proper name, a constant or a variable subject to quantification
makes possible the corresponding isolation of the predicate and syntaxthe idea of
throwing all of the substance of the Dicisign into the Predicate.
In the simplest cases, the index is simply the drawing of attention to the objet of
the Dicisignby a pointing gesture, a gaze, an adverb, pronoun or a proper name
identifying the object, or any other way of indicating the object of the proposition:
Thus the subject of a proposition if not an index is a precept prescribing the
conditions under which an index is to be had. (Lectures on Pragmatism, III,
1903, EPII 168)
An index putting the receiver in a direct, immediate, causal contact with the object
referred to thus forms the prototypical version of the subject part of a proposition (cf.
the simple examples of a weathercock causally connected to the wind)and all more
complicated propositions in principle furnish information about how to retrieve such
an index; that is the task of proper names and quantifiers. Proper names are connected
to the objects by means of an early version of rigid designation:

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A proper name, when one meets with it for the first time, is existentially connected
with some percept or other equivalent individual knowledge of the individual
it names. It is then, and then only, a genuine Index. The next time one meets
with it, one regards it as an Icon of that Index. The habitual acquaintance with it
having been acquired, it becomes a Symbol whose Interpretant represents it as
an Icon of an Index of the Individual named. (Syllabus, 1903, EPII, 286)
Quantification is now analyzed in dialogic terms. Existential quantification reserves
the right to select an appropriate object to the utterer of the Dicisign, while universal
quantification hands over the right to the selection of appropriate objects to the receiver
of the Dicisignforming the kernel of Peirces early version of gametheoretical
semantics (cf. Pietarinen 2006).
An important, pragmatic difference to the standard theories, however, is that the
indexical part of the proposition is subject to interpretation given the context of the
utterance. In many cases, there is a tacit understanding (cf. below on collateral information) which objects are indicated so that the explicit reference to them in the shape
of indices may be underdetermined:
When we express a proposition in words we leave most of its singular subjects
unexpressed; for the circumstances of the enunciation sufficiently show what
subject is intended and words, owing to their usual generality, are not welladapted to designating singulars. The pronoun, which may be defined as a part
of speech intended to fulfill the function of an index, is never intelligible taken
by itself apart from the circumstances of its utterance; and the noun, which may
be defined as a part of speech put in place of a pronoun, is always liable to be
equivocal. (Lectures on Pragmatism, VI, 1903, EPII, 209; 5.153)
Thus, Peirces insistence that Dicisigns are indeed signs gives his theory an important
flexibility where implicit information agreed upon by the interlocutors and the specific
Universe of Discourse they address may form part of the interpretation of Dicisigns.
We shall return to this in more detail below.
1.5 The iconical side of Dicisigns
As to the Predicate side of the Dicisign, it only conveys its signification by exciting
in the mind some image or, as it were, a composite photograph of images, like the
Firstness meant. (Syllabus 1903, EPII, 281; 2.317). This idea is that a central function
of the predicate is to invoke a general image of the property signified. This should
not be mistaken for psychological imagery subject to the fancy of the individual.12
Rather, the important and controversial idea here is that general, schematic images
play a central role in logic and cognition. This comes to the fore in Peirces theory
of diagrams and diagrammatical reasoningdiagrams being icon types capable of
instantiation in different tokens, just like linguistic entities. In the quote given, he
12 Peirce was just as much opposed to psychologism as was Frege, and even antedated him on this issue in
his 1860s papers (cf. Stjernfelt 2012b, 2013).

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uses the metaphor of the photographic technique of the time known as composite
photograph (cf. Hookway 2002), the practice of subjecting the same photographic
plate to subsequent exposures of related objects giving rise to a generalized picture
subsuming the individual contributions as instances and blurring individual detail.
Sometimes such procedures are still used, e.g. to give an idea of the woman of the
year, superposing images of a series of celebrity fashion models to give a general
image of the ideal woman of the moment.
This idea lies behind the enormous variety of predicate signs admitted in Peirces
Dicisign doctrine, one of the most important differences to the standard logical tradition. Photographs, paintings, diagrams, graphs, algebras, gestures, object samplesin
short, all possible description devices may enter into Dicisigns to perform the functional task of predicative iconicity in the Dicisign: All icons, from mirror-images to
algebraic formulae, are much alike, committing themselves to nothing at all, yet the
source of all our information. They play in knowledge a part iconized by that played in
evolution according to the Darwinian theory, by fortuitous variations in reproduction.
(Ms. 599, 42) Indices, by contrast, would then play the role of connecting to certain
selected icons, granting them existence and thus ensuring their survival over others.
Very often, Peirce mentions as the immediate example of a Dicisign the painting
with a legendsuch as in the short version of his 1903 list of ten signs given in a letter
to lady Welby (12. Oct 1904) where it forms the example of the seventh category of
Dicent Sinsignsone-shot quasi-propositions, as it were:
7. Dicent Sinsigns (as a portrait with a legend) (8.341)
In the Syllabus, this idea is elaborated:
A proposition is, in short, a Dicisign that is a Symbol. But an Index, likewise,
may be a Dicisign. A mans portrait with a mans name written under it is strictly
a proposition, although its syntax is not that of speech, and although the portrait
itself not only represents, but is a Hypoicon. But the proper name so nearly
approximates to the nature of an Index, that this might suffice to give an idea of an
informational Index. A better example is a photograph. The mere print does not,
in itself, convey any information. But the fact that it is virtually a section of rays
projected from an object otherwise known, renders it a Dicisign. Every Dicisign,
as the system of Existential Graphs fully recognizes, is a further determination
of an already known sign of the same object. () It will be remarked that this
connection of the print, which is the quasi-predicate of the photograph, with the
section of the rays, which is the quasi-subject, is the Syntax of the Dicisign; and
like the Syntax of the proposition, it is a fact concerning the Dicisign considered
as a First, that is, in itself, irrespective of its being a sign. Every informational
sign thus involves a fact, which is its Syntax. (Syllabus, EPII 282, 2.320)
The idea, of course, is that the portrait painting forms the predicate part of the
Dicisign, while the title of the painting provides the subject part, informing about
which person it is who is claimed to to possess (some of) the visual properties showed
by the canvas. The very physical painting is, of course, a sinsign, but it should be
mentioned thatespecially in an era of easy picture reproductionsimilar replicas of

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the painting may exist in abundance so that the portrait, taken in a generic sense, may
be used not only as a sinsign but also as a Dicent Symbol. Without a title or legend,
the isolated painting is but an unsaturated predicatea rheme:
But a pure picture without a legend only says something is like this: . (Review
of Lady Welby, 1903, 8.183)
Thus, a rhematic predicate, in itself, is already implicitly quantified. This may be made
explicit, of course, if we add to the pure unsaturated predicate the index something,
supposedly because we take the painter trying to convey some information, that is,
some Dicisign, to the observer. In general, the large variety of possible predicate types
is supported by the following argument:
A proposition never prescribes any particular mode of iconization, although the
form of expression may suggest some mode. () it is true (and a significant
truth) that every proposition is capable of expression either by means of a photograph, or composite photograph, with or without stereoscopic or cinetoscopic
elaborations, together with some sign which shall show the connection of these
images with the object of some index or sign or experience forcing the attention,
or bringing some information, or indicating some possible source of information; or else by means of some analogous icon appealing to other senses than
that of sight, together with analogous forceful indications, and a sign connecting
the icons with those indices. (Ms 599 (Reasons Rules, 1902), 5-7)
It is dubious, however, in what sense the Dicisign expressed by means of a photographic
predicate could said to be the same as a Dicisign about the same object using, e.g.,
linguistic or algebraic predicates. It is easy to see that there may be considerable overlap
between such predicates and that collateral information may add to the identification
of the relevant aspects of the predicates to be picked out, but still the painting of Louis
XIV with a legend conveys much more information of his looks than does, e.g., the
linguistically expressed Dicisign saying That day, Louis XIV wore a grey wig which
may communicate only a minor subset of the information rendered by the painting.
Here, Peirces theory of pictorial predicates certainly is in need of further development.
A vast field of predicates is furnished by diagrams. In Peirces philosophy of mathematics, the access to mathematical objectivities are granted by diagrams in general
but also in everyday reasoning diagrams, in the shape of maps, tables, matrices, graphs,
schemas, scenarios, etc., form a wide variety of simple and complex predicates for
use in propositions, sometimes, as in maps, furnishing continuous, complex Dicisigns
which may give rise to the inference of an indefinite amount of linguistic propositions
(cf. Stjernfelt 2007, 2011a, b; Moore 2010).
A very important corollary of the breadth of predicate possibilities for Dicisigns
is the much more widespread appearance of propositions and quasi-propositions in
human semiotic life than is apparent from the classic linguistics-centered view of
propositions. Newspaper articles with photographs, TV news items with film clips
and voiceover speak, cartoon frames with images and dialogue, algebraic equations,
maps with locations and events indicated, artworks with titles, internet combinations of
pictures and text of many sorts will be, on this view, Dicisigns conveying information,
true or false.

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1.6 The syntax of the Dicisign

A classic query pertaining to structured propositions, given the analysis of them into
characteristic parts, is what keeps these parts together. The mere sum of the two
elements, of course, does not furnish a proposition. To Frege, it seems to have been a
composition of senses, resulting in the overall sense of the proposition, in turn picking
out its reference (to Frege, a truth value). Russells solution (1903,1905, before he
abandoned propositions and reinterpreted them as multiple relations kept together
by judgments, 1910) dispenses with sense or meaning altogether, taking parts of the
sentence expressing a proposition to be directly connected to reality counterparts: the
proposition consists of objects and relations. The sentence expressing it is composed
from terms of which there are essentially proper names and verbs. Verbs are, by
nature, unsaturated and thus the composition of the proposition is prompted by their
saturation. Russells account, of course, is restricted to languages, and he does not
solve the deeper issue of the unity of the proposition by relying upon the linguistic
example of word class categories. Wittgenstein famously took the logical form of
propositions to be ineffable.
Peirce addresses this issue in some of his most convoluted developments of the
Dicisign doctrine, especially in the Syllabus and Kaina Stoicheia.13 As is already
evident, Peirce does notagainst traditionaccord any special place to the copula
as a third constituent of the proposition. The assertion sometimes attributed to the
copula or the predicate is relegated to the speech act use of propositions, external
to their inner structure. The verbal aspect of the proposition is taken to be part of
the predicate, and so the syntax of the proposition is inherent in the structure of the
predicate. Not any old combination of an Index and an Icon necessarily constitutes
a Dicisignthe two should be represented as involving the same object by means of
some syntactic connection between the two aspects of the Dicisign:
Finally, our conclusions require that the proposition should have an actual Syntax,
which is represented to be the Index of those elements of the fact represented
that corresponds to the Subject and Predicate. (Syllabus, 1903, EPII 282)
Thus, the syntax claims that the Dicisign is really indexically connected to the real fact
to which the Subject and Predicate correspond. What is often taken to be the function
of the copula, Peirce instead analyzes as an index connecting the tokens of the Subject
and the Predicate, respectively, in the sign: It may be asked what is the nature of the
13 The long argument in the Syllabus (EPII 275-277) has the shape of a deduction taking its premiss in
the Dicisigns truth claim. This is analyzed as a claim that the sign is in actual, indexical connection to its
object, and this, in turn, is analyzed as necessitating the Dicisigns two-part structure. The turning point of
the argument is that in order to claim an indexical connection to the object, this connection must, in itself,
be depicted in part of the sign. This part of the sign is the Predicate whose first function, then, surprisingly,
is to depict the sign itself in its relation to the object. In the Predicates picture of the Dicisign itself, then,
what we normally woould call the Predicate is involved as a part. Should we paraphrase the result of the
argument, we could say that if the Dicisign, for a first glance, says: Here are some Objects O, and they are
characterized by the relational property P, what it really says on the Syllabus analysis is Here are some
Objects O, and they are really connected to this sign which is why this sign is able to describe them as
having the relational property P. The Syllabus deduction is the object of a detailed analysis in Bellucci (in
prep.).

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sign which joins Socrates to _is wise, so as to make the proposition Socrates is
wise. I reply that it is an index. But, it may be objected, an index has for its object
a thing hic et nunc, while a sign is not such a thing. This is true, if under thing we
include singular events, which are the only things that are strictly hic et nunc. But it is
not the two signs Socrates and wise that are connected, but the replicas of them
used in the sentence. [] No other kind of sign would answer this purpose; no general
verb is can express it. (Kaina Stoicheia, EPII, 310)
So the very combination, in the actual, expressed proposition token, joining the
token of the Predicate icon and the token of the Subject index, is taken to be, in
itself, indexical. This indexas always in a propositioninvolves an icon which is,
in turn, the very juxtaposition of the two sign tokens: it is the juxtaposition which
connects words. Otherwise they might be left in their places in the dictionary. (ibid.)
The very filling-in of the predicate token blanks by means of token subjects is, in
itself, the iconical device showing their indexical connection claimed by the Dicisign.
This, of course, places a special emphasis on the notion of juxtaposition of which
grammatical connection is only one possibility.
Other examples include an object used as a sample, endowed with a label naming
it (like a stuffed animal specimen with a caption indicating the species):
It is sometimes written upon the object to show the nature of that object; but in
such case, the appearance of that object is an index of that object; and the two
taken together form a proposition. (Kaina Stoicheia, EPII 310)
So, in general, co-localization seems to form a primitive, pre-linguistic syntax sufficient to connecting the subject and predicate tokens as a sign of the combination of
the subject and predicates themselves in a proposition. In human languages, such
co-localization has developed into detailed conventions of grammar, word order,
inflections and other grammatical devices to govern the composition of linguistic
propositions. Already in pre-linguistic or mixed-media Dicisigns, however, simple
co-localization may give rise to conventionalizations, such as the two different types
of co-localizations using proper names in Western painting (here, symbol is referring
to propositions):
So, if a symbol is to signify anything, and not be mere verbiage, or an empty
logical form, it must ultimately appeal to icons to monstrate the elementary
characters, both of sense and of conception. One of the simplest examples of a
symbol that can readily be found is, say, the portrait of a man having printed
under it ANDREAS ACHENBACH. This form of conjunction of an icon and
an index is a symbol telling me that the celebrated artist looked like that. It has
that signification, because of the rule that names so prominently printed under
portraits are those of the subjects of the portraits. Were the same name to be found
written small upon the portrait in one of the lower corners, something altogether
different, and not so simple, would be conveyed. (Ms. 1147, the largest of several
drafts of the article Exact Logic for the Baldwin dictionary, p. 12).
Two different locations relative to the painting indicate different grammatical roles of
the proper names given there: that of the subject of the proposition, on the frame, and

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that of the maker or utterer of the picture sign, in the corner (sometimes elsewhere on
the painting surface or on its back side).
The syntax of the proposition is also the starting-point of the investigation of its
interpretant in Syllabus. The object of the Dicisign, of course, is the entity referred
to by the subject. The interpretant is not merely the predicate, but the claim, made
possible by the syntax, that the predicate actually holds about an existing object:
the Interpretant represents a real existential relation, or genuine Secondness, as
subsisting between the Dicisign and the Dicisigns real object. (Syllabus, 1903,
EPII, 276; 2.310)
This leads Peirce to the surprising conclusion thatsince the object of the interpretant
is the same as that of the sign itselfthis existential relation between Dicisign and
object forms, in itself, part of the object of the Dicisign. Consequently, the Dicisign
has two objects, one, primary, is the object referred toanother, secondary, is the very
reference relation of the Dicisign to that object:
Hence this same existential relation [between Sign and Object] must be an Object
of the Dicisign, if the latter have any real Object. This represented existential
relation, in being an Object of the Dicisign, makes that real Object, which is
correlate of this relation, also an Object of the Dicisign. This latter Object may
be distinguished as the Primary Object, the other being termed the Secondary
Object. (Syllabus, 1903, EPII 276; 2.310)
Correspondingly, the predicative part describes some character of the Primary
Objectat the same time as it depicts the indexical relation which the Dicisign claims
to hold between itself and its object. This is, in short, the truth claimwhich can be
analyzed as The Dicisign saying there exists indeed an indexical relation between itself
and its object. This is why the Dicisign, in its interpretant, is represented as having
two parts, one referring to the object, and the otherthe predicatereferring to the
relation between the sign itself and the object. And, in turn, this is why
in order to understand the Dicisign, it must be regarded as composed of two
such parts whether it be in itself so composed or not. (ibid.)
Hence, the Dicisign must, at the same time, present, iconically, the connection between
those two parts:
the Dicisign must exhibit a connection between thse parts of itself, and must
represent this connection to correspond to a connection in the Object between
the Secundal Primary Object and Firstness indicated by the part corresponding
to the Dicisign. (ibid., 277)
This implies Peirces second conclusion. The co-localization of predicate and subject tokens not only functions as a picture of their co-presence in the objectit also
functions as a representation of the indexical relation between the sign itself and the
object:
Second: These two parts must be represented as connected; and that in such a
way that if the Dicisign has any Object, it [the Dicisign] must be an Index of a

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Secondness subsisting between the Real Object represented in one represented

part of the Dicisign to be indicated and a Firstness represented in the other
represented part of the Dicisign to be Iconized. (Syllabus 1903, EPII 277; 2.312)
So, the syntax of the Dicisign connecting its two parts mirrors (1) that of the combination of its real object and its alleged property into a fact, as well as (2) the indexical
relation which the Dicisign claims to exist between itself and the object.14 This also
explains what lay in Peirces idea of throwing all of the analysis of the Dicisign into
the predicate. It is not only an unsaturated Predicate icon describing some relational
property in the object it also involves the truth claim part of the proposition, picturing
the claimed connections between this property and some object(s) to be specified by
subject(s) in its blanks.
We may sum up this complicated analysis as follows:

Dicisign:
Index Tokens (of the Subject
Indices)

co-localized in the sign

with an

referring to:

Icon Token (of the Predicate Icon)

describing:

(1) Primary Objects

co-localized in reality with

the

Depicted Character

(2) Secondary Object: The

Indexical Connection
Dicisign-Objects

claimed by the

Depiction of The Connection

Dicisign-Objects (by
co-localization of index tokens
within the icon token)

In the simplest DicisignsPeirces recurring examples being Dicent Sinsigns like

the weathercock and the painting with a legendthese syntactic relations appear
in a causal and purposive variant, respectively. The weathercock causally forces an
icon of the direction of the wind to appearso here the primary object is the wind,
and the depicted character its direction. The secondary object is the causal relation
between the two, granted by the mechanical structure of the weathercock, giving the
iconical co-appearance of the wind and its represented direction. In the painting, the
connection between the icon and index is purposive: the primary object is Louis XIV
and the depicted characters the shapes and colors which the paining represents him to
possess. The addition of a subject index on a blank part of the predicate (the frame)
provides the iconic co-localization which is taken as a sign of a the secondary object:
the real, indexical relation between the legend and the picture.
This is how we should understand the difficult doctrine of the double object of
Peircean Dicisignswhich paves the way for the relation between Dicisigns and
facts.
14 This is how we should understand the claim that It is, thus, clear that the vital spark of every proposition,
the peculiar propositional element of the proposition, is an indexical proposition; an index involving an
icon. (Kaina Stoikheia, EPII, 310)the icon of co-localizing S and P is interpreted as the icon involved
by the index connecting S and P in reality. In that way every proposition professes to be like a weathercock.

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1.7 Facts as truthmakers of Dicisigns

What we call a fact is something having the structure of a proposition, but supposed
to be an element of the very universe itself. (Kaina Stoicheia 1904, EPII 304), Peirce
claims, and this fact theory is what explains the possibility of proposition to depict
facts. Facts are the truthmakers of Dicisignsif a Dicisign is true, the corresponding
fact is the case.
Thus, the fact depicted by the Dicisign is different from the object reference of the
Dicisign. As Hilpinen noticed (1992), this distinction allows for an obvious way of
explaining the existence of false Dicisignssomething which may sometimes be a
challenge for picture-oriented theories of propositions (cf. G.E. Moore, early Russell).
The Syntax keeping together the Dicisign in itself functions as an Index of the two
aspects of the Fact corresponding to the two aspects of the Dicisign: Every informational sign thus involves a Fact, which is its Syntax. (Syllabus, 1903, CP 2.321).
Peirce thus maintains a theory of facts or states-of-things to account for what was later
called the truthmakers of Dicisigns. Thus, he distinguishes the object or referent of the
Dicisigngiven by its indexical subject part, on the one handand the truthmaker
making true the Dicisign as a truthbearergiven by the fact structured in the same way
as the syntax of the proposition. This plastic theory permits Peirces account to escape
problems encountered by proposition theories taking states-of-affairs or facts to be not
only the truthmakers of propositions but also their referents. Such simpler doctrines
immediately, of course, run into trouble because of their difficulty in accounting for
false propositions.
But even theories admitting false propositions may encounter problems. False
propositions refer to non-existing facts, but the same thing is achieved by meaningless
propositions. The difference between propositions like Barack Obama is the president
of China and The present king of France is bald tend to evaporate in such a theory.
Russell, as is well known, concluded that the latter, just like the former, must also be
counted as false. In Peirces account, we should rather take the former proposition as
a false claim about an existing person and the latter as a meaningless claim about a
non-existing person because it fails to point out an object for the proposition in the
Universe of Discourseeven if both have non-existing truthmakers.
Facts, in Peirces doctrine, are certain simple states of things:
A state of things is an abstract constituent part of reality, of such a nature that a
proposition is needed to represent it. There is but one individual, or completely
determinate, state of things, namely, the all of reality. A fact is so highly a
prescissively abstract state of things, that it can be wholly represented in a simple
proposition, and the term simple, here, has no absolute meaning, but is merely
a comparative expression.
(The Basis of Pragmaticism in the Normative Sciences, EPII, 378, CP 5.54950)
Thus, simplicity here pertains to the relevant level of observation not to any supposedly basic level of reality, such as was the case in Wittgensteins in several respects
similar picture theory of language which famously lead him to found his whole theory
upon logical atoms without being able to point out a single example of one. Even if

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Peirces theory of Dicisigns may, even in a very strong sense, be called a picture theory of propositions, it does not follow that the objects and properties singled out by a
proposition be simple in any absolute sense. This is because States-of-Things or Facts
in Peirces account are structures of reality, distinct from simple subsets of reality:
I must first point out the distinction between a Fact and what in other connexions, is often called an Event* (Foot note* Or at least the temporal element of it is
not the whole of it since [the] thing to which the event happens [is] an element of
the event.), but which, owing to that word being used in the Doctrine of Chances
in its stricter sense of the way in which a doubt about what will happen is ultimately resolved, must be here called an Occurrence. If from the Universe of the
Actual we cut out in thought all that, between two instances of time, influences
or involves in any considerable degree certain Existent Persons and Things, this
Actual fragment of what exists and actually happens, so cut out, I call an Actual
Occurrence which Thought analizes into Things and Happenings. It is necessarily Real; but it can never be known or even imagined in all its infinite detail. A
Fact, on the other hand is so much of the Real Universe as can be represented in
a Proposition, and instead of being, like an Occurrence, a slice of the Universe,
it is rather to be compared to a chemical principle extracted therefrom by the
power of Thought; and though it is, or may be, Real, yet, in its Real Existence, it
is inseparably combined with an infinite swarm of circumstances, which make
no part of the Fact itself. (Ms. 647 Definition, 5th draught 1618 Feb. 1910,
pp. 811, discussing Laplace)
Thus, states-of-things are principles, structures extracted from realityexplaining
their Janus-headed doubleness, consisting at the same time of particular objects (secondnesses, referred to by the indices of the proposition) and general properties (firstnesses, described by the icons of the proposition). Scientifically traceable causal relations hold between facts, not between occurrences.15 Thus, Peirces version of scientific realism (and scholastic realism, assuming the reality of some predicates) is
dependent upon this ability of Dicisigns to depict extracted, structured aspects of
reality. Here, the ability of Dicisigns to involve the large array of iconic predicate
possibilities of maps, diagrams, graphs, etc., becomes central to his notion of dia15 Peirce continues: It is impossible to thread our way through the Logical intricacies of Being unless we
keep these two things, the Occurrence, and the Real Fact, separte in our Thoughts. John Stuart Mill did not
do so; since he argues as if an Occurrence could have a Cause. In truth, both the Cause and its Effect are
Facts, and no man will ever understand the subject of causation rightly until he sees that they are so. It is
not, for example, the Motion of the Earth, as an Occurrence, that is caused by its momentum and by the
gravitational attractions of the Sun and of the other bodies of the Solar System considered as Occurrences;
for none of these things are Occurrences. It is the Fact of the motion of the Earths centre of gravity of which
one component is due to the Fact that it has not ceased to move with a certain velocity in a certain direction,
while other components are due to the Facts that the various other bodies, by virtue of their several masses
and the gravitating power that resides in every unit of mass, continually communicating, at the distances
which they severally are from the Earths center of gravity, several component accelerations, to its motion.
Mills not making the needful distinction between Facts and Occurrences drives him to the declaration that
the complete cause of any happening is the aggregate of all its antecedents, a principle which, though it is a
necessary result of his views, he utterly ignores from the moment of enunciating it; for the excellent reason
that its recognition would eviscerate the conception of Cause of all utility. (ibid.)

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grammatical reasoning in the sciences. The important claim above, that the simplicity
of facts is relative only, gives an easy way of understanding why simple Dicisigns may
express facts stemming from very different levels of ontology (from 2 + 2 = 4 to
There are two classes of elementary particles, This chair is white to The Movement of Enlightenment took place in the 17th and 18th centuries) where the objects
involved have highly different ontology and complexity. The simplicity pertains to the
fact structure, not to the objects and events co-constituting those facts.
1.8 The relation of Dicisigns to Rhemes and Arguments
The systematic characterization of the Dicisign as compared to Rhemes and Arguments
is a task to which Peirce returns over and over, with changing (but not necessarily
contradictory) results in his deliberations concerning his sign taxonomies in the decade
after the turn of the century. One takes the idea of the Dicisign as the sign separately
indicating its object as paradigm. Measured on this property, Rhemes are signs which
lack such separate parts, while Arguments, on the other hand, are signs which add a
further separate function, namely that of separately expressing its interpretant the
conclusion of the Argument, of course, fulfilling that function:
A representamen is either a rhema, a proposition, or an argument. An argument
is a representamen which separately shows what interpretant it is intended to
determine. A proposition is a representamen which is not an argument, but
which separately indicates what object it is intended to represent. A rhema
is a simple representation without such separate parts. (The three normative
sciences Lectures on Pragmatism, IV, 1903, EPII 204)
This idea may be expressed more simply in the beautiful (but maybe, for a first
glance, more bewildering) definition:
The second trichotomy of representamens is [divided] into: first, simple signs,
substitutive signs, or Sumisigns; second, double signs, informational signs, quasipropositions, or Dicisigns; third, triple signs, rationally persuasive signs, arguments, or Suadisigns. (Syllabus 1903, EPII, 275; 2.309)
Rhemes-Dicisigns-Arguments as simple-double-triple signs, respectively. Peirce here
introduces a different terminology, that of Sumisigns-Dicisigns-Suadisigns (on other
occasions, he experiments with Seme-Pheme-Delome). These terminological neologisms are all intended to indicate the generalization of the concepts involved from the
standard, linguistic-logic acceptance to the broader, semiotic interpretation indicating
the intended exhaustive tripartition of all signs. The triple structure of the Argument
refers to the idea that it not only is a sign for its object by means of the Rheme and the
Dicisign presented in the premiss, but also involves the same object a third time, now
appearing as that to which the conclusion pertains.16 This is obvious from yet another
description of the same triad:
16 Correlatively, Arguments add to the syntax of Dicisigns the higher-level syntax of deriving one Dicisign

from the other in a way so that deriving is represented as lawful and general.

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Or we may say that a Rheme is a sign which is understood to represent its Object
in its characters merely; that a Dicisign is a sign which is understood to represent
its Object in respect to actual existence; and that an Argument is a sign which is
understood to represent its Object in its character as sign. (Syllabus 1903, EPII,
292; 2.252)
Rhemes potentially refer to any object (or n-tuple of objects in case of polyadic
rhemes) displaying the character iconically presented in the rheme; in addition to that,
Dicisigns indexically point out their object, and, again in addition to that, Arguments
represent their object as signifying the conclusion.17 This may easily give the idea,
close to the received notion, that the relation between the three is compositional, so
that Dicisigns are constructed from Rhemes and Subject indices, while Arguments are
constructed from Dicisigns. Peirces redefinition, however, goes against such simple
compositionality:
It is only the terminology, and the extension of the division to all signs, (with
the consequent necessary modifications,) that is not to be found in every treatise
on Logic. Every such book tells about the triplet, Term, Proposition, Argument;
but not every book makes it quite clear what it is that there is a division of. If we
are to say that it is a division of all signs, we shall have to change the definitions
of the three classes, not to their very bottom, but superficially, and so much that
precision demands that new terms should be substituted for term, proposition,
and argument. () Now until I constructed the System of Existential Graphs,
and for longer after than it would be agreeable to me to confess, I never so much
as dreamed of there being any fault to be found with the doctrine of the books
which goes back to the time of Abelard, and without doubt much earlier, that a
Syllogism is composed of three Propositions, and a Proposition of two Terms.
But after this system had been constructed, and after I had found by experience
that its teachings are trustworthy, it one day attracted my notice that this system
represents the relations of Terms, Propositions, and Arguments quite differently.
The exposition of this can wait until the Reader is in possession of the system.
I will now only say that, while this system does present Semes, yet it would
not be incorrect to say that everything scribed according to this system, down
to its smallest parts, is a Pheme, and is not only a Pheme, but is a Proposition.
Delomes (deeloamz) also are brought to view. Yet no Delome (deeloam) is
ever on the diagram, A Graph in this system is a type which expresses a single
proposition. Without just now troubling you with an adequate description of the
Delome (deeloam), I may point out that it represents no statical determination
of thought but a process of change from one state of belief to another. (Ms. 295,
1906, alternate version 26ff)

17 Peirce sometimes speaks as if all Dicisigns refer to actual existence. Such simple Dicisigns form the
core of his doctrine, and from this center Dicisigns more remote from actual existence may be defined, such
as ordinary universal propositions not involving existence (All Englishmen are gentlemen), propositions
referring to fictional universes (Donald Duck wears a sailors sweater), modal propositions, imperatives,
interrogatives, requiring each their set of logical rules.

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Peirce here uses Seme-Pheme-Delome for Rheme-Dicisign-Argument. His argument is built on how Existential Graphs represent logic, but it has a broader scope. The
upshot is that everything in the formalism, from the smallest to the largest graph, is a
Dicisign, simple or complex, and in a certain sense any part of a Dicisign is already
a Dicisign. Such a claim may appear strange, as linguistically expressed Dicisigns
may not have parts in the sense mentioned; it is easier to apply to Dicisigns with
continuously articulated Predicates such as pictures or diagramsany part of such
a predicate is still a predicate (up to coarsegraining), and a Dicisign using such a
Predicate consequently admits for Dicisign parts: a part af a map is also a map. Arguments, by contrast, are movements from one Dicisign to another, cf. the central idea of
reasoning as experimenting and manipulating with diagrams. Such experimenting, of
course, may be charted in a higher-level diagram along another dimension, but not on
the same level of Dicisign representation. Thus, Dicisigns are not built from Rhemes,
and Arguments not from Dicisignseven if they contain them. Their relation should
rather be described by continutiy, cf. the metaphor from kinematics:
But in the last sense, which alone is the essential one, an Argument is no more
built up of Propositions than a motion is built up of positions. So to regard it is
to neglect the very essence of it. () Positions are either vaguely described
states of motion of small range, or else (what is the better view,) are entia rationis
(i.e. fictions recognized to be fictions, and thus no longer fictions) invented for
the purposes of clear descriptions of states of motion; so likewise, Thought (I am
not talking Psychology, but Logic, or the essence of Semiotics) cannot, from the
nature of it, be at rest, or be anything but inferential process; and propositions
are either roughly described states of thought-motion, or are artificial creations
intended to render the description of thought-motion possible; and Names are
creations of a second order in service to render the representation of propositions
possible. An Argument may be defined as a Sign which intends itself to be
understood as fulfilling its function. (Ms. 295, 102)
Thus, the reasoning process as such is taken as primitive in the sense that arguments
forms the basis and frame for the description of the machinery that makes it possible.
Dicisigns, then, are tools for the description of phases of reasoningwe may add:
tools for making explicit propositions with the aim of conducting arguments.18
1.9 Collateral Information and the interpretability of the S-P distinction
Sometimes, Peirce takes the reference frame of propositions to be simply all of
realitynot unlike the Frege-Russell traditionbut at other times he takes care to
underline that propositions may refer to selected subsets of that reality only, agreed
18 Taking the chain of reasoning as primitive may give as a new idea of biological sign evolution. Instead
of assuming simple organisms use very simple signs which then compose to more complex sign during
evoution, we can assume that simple organisms use unarticulated, implicit arguments so that semiotic
sophistication during evoution rather has the character of the ongoing articulating and making explicit the
semiotic machinery, such as the two functions of Dicisigns, (cf. Stjernfelt 2012a); Hoffmeyer and Stjernfelt
(in press).

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upon by the communication partnersor even to fictitious universes (which could

be said also to exist, in another sense, as peculiar subsets of reality). This relation of
propositions to a selected Universe of Discourse is important for several reasons. One
is the relativity of indexical reference to such universes, making much sign use dependent upon the implicit knowledge about the objects indicated by the propositionthe
issue of what Peirce calls collateral information. Another is that the exact borderline
between reference and description in a proposition is also open to interpretation and
may, with the same proposition, vary from one use to the next. Finally, a consequence
underlined by Jaakko Hintikka is that the truth of the proposition becomes relative to
the Universe of Discourse discussedwhich makes possible a plurality of representations of the same objects and, consequently, avoids the ineffability of truth which
is often the implication of accepting a one-to-one reference of logic to one universe
only.
We already touched upon the role of collateral knowledge discussing the indexical
half of the proposition. The issue is not, however, marginal in Peirces doctrine. Quite
on the contrary, no subject of a Dicisign is identifiable at all without some collateral
information about the relevant object referred to:
I think by this time you must understand what I mean when I say that no sign
can be understoodor at least that no proposition can be understoodunless
the interpreter has collateral acquaintance with every Object of it. (Draft of a
Letter to William James, February 26th, (1909), EPII 496, 8.183)
The idea is that propositions never occur as isolated entities but form part of ongoing
processes of inference, and in order to take their place in such processes, they must
refer to objects already introduced earlier in the reasoning process:
At this point it must be noticed that the simplest assertion uses two signs. This
is true even of so simple a proposition as pluit, where one of the signs is the
totality of the circumstances of the interview between the interlocutors, which
makes the auditor think that what is happening out of doors is referred to. This
is evident, since if he simply heard the word pluit pronounced, though he
might be ever so determined to believe what was meant, yet if he knew not
at all whence the sound came, whether from somebody recounting a dream or
telling a story or from a planet of a distant star, and did not know at what time
the word was uttered, he could not in the least guess what he was expected to
believe. Nor could any mere words tell him, unless they referred to something
in his immediate experience, as a sign (and if he were, for example, told that the
rain was fifty miles north of where you are standing.) It must be something
common to the experience of both interlocutors. (Ms. 284 Basis of Pragmatism
1905 pp. 4243)
The very role of the index part of the proposition is not only to point out an object
this also involves connecting it to existent objects and reference frames. This does not
mean, of course, that no new objects may ever appearonly that their appearance is
possible only with reference to the framework of already known objects. This comes
from Peirces unvarying, Kantian insistence that existence is no predicate; that is, no

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amount of descriptive machinery will ever be sufficient uniquely to indicate an existing

object or event:
every correlate of an existential relation is a single object which may be
indefinite, or may be distributed; that is, may be chosen from a class by the
interpreter of the assertion of which the relation or relationship is the predicate,
or may be designated by a proper name, but in itself, though in some guise or
under some mask, it can always be perceived, yet never can it be unmistakably
identified by any sign whatever, without collateral observation. Far less can it be
defined. It is existent, in that its being does not consist in any qualities, but in
its effectsin its actually acting and being acted on, so long as this action and
suffering endures. Those who experience its effects perceive and know it in that
action; and just that constitutes its very being. It is not in perceiving its qualities
that they know it, but in hefting its insistency then and there, which Duns called
its haecceitas or, if he didnt, it was this that he was groping after. (Some
Amazing Mazes, Fourth Curiosity (c. 1909), CP 6.318)
A recurrent example taken by Peirce is the assertion of the proposition that a house
is burning. If a person hears this claim, he will not scrutinize world history and the
geography of the globe in order to sum up all examples of burning houses to find
the right one; he will, as the first thing, look around in order to discover the burning
house in the immediate vicinity of the here-and-now of the communication partners.
Acting thus is, of course, following elementary communication maxims later charted
by Grice recommending information given to be relevant. But Peirces idea is even
more basic: if no possibility of locating the reference of the index part of the Dicisign
is at hand, it simply does not convey any information as such:
All that part of the understanding of the Sign which the Interpreting Mind has
needed collateral observation for is outside the Interpretant. I do not mean by
collateral observation acquaintance with the system of signs. What is so gathered is not COLLATERAL. It is on the contrary the prerequisite for getting
any idea signified by the sign. But by collateral observation, I mean previous
acquaintance with what the sign denotes. (Review of Lady Welby, 1903 8.179)
On the other hand, given the presence of collateral information, even subtle aspects of
the predicative part of the proposition may perform the indexical function to a sufficient
degree for information to be conveyed. This is why a simple photograph may function
as a full-fledged proposition, given the right amount of collateral information. If I see
a photo of president Obama as a young man, easily recognizable by the features of his
face, smoking a cigarette, I am in a position to retrieve the propositional information
that Obama has been smoking. I might not be able to see what he smoked (or whether he
inhaled)if I do not possess the collateral information making me able to identify the
brand of cigarettes. Thus, much visual communication is ableas against often-heard
claims that pictures are not able to make statementsto state propositions, provided
the right collateral information is accessible to the receiver. And to Peirces Dicisign
doctrine, this is no special feature for images or anything of the kind, because even the
most formalized, scientific proposition is only understandable given a relevant amount
of collateral informationwhich is part of the reason why mathematical formulae need

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accompanying information in ordinary language. This aspect of the Dicisign doctrine

is connected, of course, to Peirces ontology of epistemology: his view of the reasoning
process as a continuous whole, having begun long before man and continuing into an
indefinite future: the single proposition is only really understandable in its context
of this ongoing process (see below). Thus, it is possible to communicate surprising
Dicisigns by means of pictures alone. Take an example: you find in your mailbox an
envelope containing nothing but a photograph of yourself, easily recognizable, in an
embarassing, sexual situation. This is sufficient to convey the propositional information
that somebody has caught you in that situation, is able to prove it, and intends you to
share that knowledgemost probably wishing to blackmail you and pressure you to
subject to some demands not expressed in the sign (like all Dicisigns, this sign may
of course, be false and rely upon photo manipulation). So the proposition X took
part in such-and-such erotic scenes forms the core of the speech act of a threat (or
should we call it a picture act, no language being involved at all as yet). Maybe you
even faintly suspect who the sender may be and what the intended quid pro quo might
amount to. An empirical example of such a sign has recently appeared in the context
of the so-called Ergenekon scandal where the Turkish islamist government allegedly
tried to compromise some of its secularist opponents by the use of videotaped pictures
of them in the company of prostitutes.
You may say such collateral information belongs to the pragmatics of proposition
utterances rather than to the study of propositions themselves. In Peirces Dicisign
doctrine, however, no such distinction prevails because of the close connection between
the index part of any proposition and the relevant collateral knowledge. The index part
is simply there in order to activate that knowledge if it does not succeed, the sign
will not be able to function as a Dicisign at all.
The possibility of Dicisigns with no explicit articulation of parts responsible for each
of its two basic semiotic functionslike in the photograph case , has the corollary
that the distinction between these two functions may vary with context, even pertaining
to exactly the same Dicisign. If the same photograph as just discussed were sent to
another identifiable participant in the orgy, it would function, in the same way, as a
threatbut now based on the singling out the depiction of this other person as the
relevant index in the photography instead of yourself. And, again, if the very same
photograph was sent to a third party, e.g, an expert on pornography, he might take
as the relevant object the present ocurrence of rare erotic practices there displayed
while the identity of the participants may lose relevance. But reinterpretability not
only pertains to the primary object of the signalso to the secondary or immediate
object of the sign. Take again the Louis XIV paintingto some observers, the special
smile may be that piece of collateral knowledge enabling to abductively identify the
subject as that French king; to other observers it may be the special wig playing the
role of immediate object identifying the subject; both of them features which may, in
other cases be taken as part of the predicative, descriptive side of the Dicisign. This
relativity or indeterminacy in the precise delimitation of the Subject resp. Predicate
aspects of the Dicisign is remarked upon by Hilpinen (476), observing the crucial fact
that this idea takes Peirces analysis far away from the logical atomism of Russell or
Wittgenstein, claiming that only one correct parsing of a proposition exists. Even if the
distinction between S and P is indispensable for the Dicisign and thus must be drawn

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somewhere in each single usage, the context may decide where the exact dividing
line goes in each single case (the example being the proposition Burnt child shuns
fire)19 :
The interpretant of a proposition is its predicate; its object is the things denoted
by its subject or subjects (including its grammatical objects, direct and indirect,
etc.). Its predicate might be regarded as all that is expressed, or as has either not
been burned or shuns fire, or has not been burned, or shuns fire, or shuns,
or is true; nor is this enumeration exhaustive. But where shall the line be most
truly drawn? I reply that the purpose of this sentence being understood to be
to communicate information, anything belongs to the interpretant that describes
the quality or character of the fact, anything to the object that, without doing
that, distinguishes the fact from others like it; (MS 318, Pragmatism, 5.473)
Both these issuesthe need for collateral information and the reinterpretability of the
S-P distinctionare connected to the central issue in Peircean logic that the reference
of a Dicisign is taken to be relative to a selected universe of discoursea model -,
consisting of a delimited set of objects and a delimited set of predicates, agreed upon
by the reasoners or communicating parties, often only implicitly so.20

19 This plasticity is what allows Peirce to experiment with the opposite of his privileging of the Predicate
throwing as much as possible of the Dicisign into the Subject. This can be done by means of converting
predicate content into hypostatic abstractionssaying, instead of Cain killed Abel, Cain stood in the
relation of killing to Abel, substituting a 3-place for a 2-place Predicate. Doing so, killing may now be
taken as an unanalyzed Subject, part of the whole Subject System of the Dicisign such constructed, along
with Cain and Abel. (Ms. 611, 1908; Murphey pp. 317318; Letter to Lady Welby Dec. 14 1908; Peirce
1966, pp. 396397). All such Predicate content abstracted away, what is left is the pure, relational structure
of the Predicate, the continuous predicate, which Peirce takes to be the realist relational core of Dicisign
predication.
20 Reinterpretability and plasticity of the Universe of Discourse is central in Hintikkas generalization of the
distinction between the algebraists logic as a reinterpretable calculus and the Fregeans logic as a universal
medium. This distinction, Hintikka sees as constitutitve to 20 C philosophy as such. In logic, it may be
found the algebraic tradition from Boole through Peirce to Schrder to Lwenheim, to Carnap and model
theory (and to himself) versus the more well-known Frege-Peano-Russell-Wittgenstein tradition. More
generally, in philosophy, the calculus tradition will be found in figures like Husserl or Cassirer focusing
upon the plurality of phenomenological and semiotic means to express the same propositions while the
universal medium tradition will unite Russell, early Wittgenstein and Quine with continental philosophers
like Heidegger and Derrida, all agreeing upon the ineffability of truth and impossibility of translation. In
Peirces doctrine of Dicisigns, the plurality of representations is evident in the fact that the same objects
may be addressed using different semiotic tools, highlighting different aspects of them. To Hintikka, these
virtues of the calculus tradition also implies that the ineffability of truth of the universal-medium tradition
evaporates. If you accept only one language, the question of the relation of this language to its object cannot
be posed outside of this langaugeand truth becomes ineffable. If several different, parallel approaches to
the same object are possible, you can discuss the properties of one language in another, and you may use the
results of one semiotic tool to criticize or complement those of another. Even taking logic itself as the object,
Peirce famously did this, developing several different logic formalisms (most notably the Algebra of Logic
and the Existential Graphs), unproblematically discussing the pro and cons of these different representation
systems. Such pluralism is compatible with a Peircean extreme realism.

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1.10 Types of Dicisigns

Not only is the span of predicate types extremely wide in Peircean Dicisigns, they also
come in widely differing degrees of generality. In Peirces 1903 ten-sign classification
(combining his first three trichotomies), no less than three types are Dicisigns,21 Let
us quote his three descriptions of those signs.
Fourth: A Dicent Sinsign [e.g., a weathercock] is any object of direct experience,
in so far as it is a sign, and, as such, affords information concerning its Object.
This it can only do by being really affected by its Object; so that it is necessarily
an Index. The only information it can afford is of actual fact. Such a Sign must
involve an Iconic Sinsign to embody the information and a Rhematic Indexical
Sinsign to indicate the Object to which the information refers. But the mode of
combination, or Syntax, of these two must also be significant. (Syllabus, EP II,
294; 2.257)
21 Peirce gave two different versions of this list. The standard list, resulting from the argumentation for
how to combine the three basic trichotomies, occurs in the Syllabus 1903 (EPII, 294-295):

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Qualisign
Iconic Sinsign
Rhematic Indexical Sinsign
Dicent Sinsign
Iconic Legisign
Rhematic Indexical Legisign
Dicent Indexical Legisign
Rhematic SymbolSymbolic Rheme
Dicent SymbolProposition
Argument

Another version appears in the letter to Lady Welby Oct 12 1904 (8.341):
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

Qualisigns
Iconic Sinsigns
Iconic Legisigns
Vestiges, or Rhematic Indexical Sinsigns
Proper Names, or Rhematic Indexical Legisigns
Rhematic Symbols
Dicent Sinsigns (as a portrait with a legend)
Dicent Indexical Legisigns
Propositions, or Dicent Symbols
Arguments.14

The sequence 3 to 8 has been changed. In 1903, the list takes the quali-sin-legisign sequence as fundamental,
so that the priority of the three trichotomies is 1-2-3; in 1904 the overall structure follows the rheme-dicisignargument sequence, so the priority is rather 3-2-1. No argument is given for the change, but the implicit
reason must be taken to be that the function of signs in reasoning (given by rheme-dicisign-argument) is
decisive. This naturally groups dicisigns together (7-10) while the no less than six rhemesfragmentary,
unsaturated signsmake up the first six types of the list. The 1904 list also has the merit that legisigns
are preceded by their sinsign replicas pairwise (2-3, 4-5, 7-8). It is remarkable that none of the two lists
choses the most well-known, second trichotomy of icon-index-symbol as its organizing principle. The 1908
version of the triangle depicting the ten combined signs (from the Dec 24 letter to Lady Welby, EPII, 491)
is a mirror version of that of the Syllabus, now with arguments in the upper left corner, maybe indicating
that the corresponding list should now begin with the most complicated (or complete) sign type, that of the
argument, effectively inverting one of the lists given.

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Seventh: A Dicent Indexical Legisign [e.g., a street cry] is any general type or
law, however established, which requires each instance of it to be really affected
by its Object in such a manner as to furnish definite information concerning
that Object. It must involve an Iconic Legisign to signify the information and
a Rhematic Indexical Legisign to denote the subject of that information. Each
Replica of it will be a Dicent Sinsign of a peculiar kind. (Syllabus, EP II, 294,
CP 2.260)
Ninth: A Dicent Symbol, or ordinary Proposition, is a sign connected with its
object by an association of general ideas, and acting like a Rhematic Symbol,
except that its intended interpretant represents the Dicent Symbol as being, in
respect to what it signifies, really affected by its Object, so that the existence
or law which it calls to mind must be actually connected with the indicated
Object. Thus, the intended Interpretant looks upon the Dicent Symbol as a Dicent
Indexical Legisign; and if it be true, it does partake of this nature, although this
does not represent its whole nature. Like the Rhematic Symbol, it is necessarily
a Legisign. Like the Dicent Sinsign it is composite inasmuch as it necessarily
involves a Rhematic Symbol (and thus is for its Interpretant an Iconic Legisign)
to express its information and a Rhematic Indexical Legisign to indicate the
subject of that information. But its Syntax of these is significant. The Replica of
the Dicent Symbol is a Dicent Sinsign of a peculiar kind. This is easily seen to
be true when the information the Dicent Symbol conveys is of actual fact. When
that information is of a real law, it is not true in the same fullness. For a Dicent
Sinsign cannot convey information of law. It is, therefore, true of the Replica
of such a Dicent Symbol only in so far as the law has its being in instances.
(Syllabus, EP II, 295, CP.2.262)
The Dicent symbol, of course, is Peirces version of ordinary propositions involving predicates expressing general ideas, such as linguistic adjectives, verbs, common
nouns, etc. But language is not the only source of such predicates. A wider array of
icons may have general qualities, most conspicuously in their function as diagrams.
Thus, a diagram with a labelsay, a geometrical figure with legendmay express a
Dicent symbola full-fledged proposition, and the manipulation of that diagram, in
turn, may express an Argument. The same goes for many types of maps, scientific diagrams and illustrations, tables, graphs. The obvious contrast category here, of course,
is that of Dicent Sinsigns, not involving any general idea but rather actual fact only. It
is interesting here to compare Peirces examples of such signs. It involves the recurring
weathercock, the painting with a legend, but also perfectly naturally occurring shapes
such as footprints.22 So the simplest Dicent Sinsign is a natural process functioning
22 Dicisigns are either symbols, when they become genuine propositions, or they are informational indices.

Almost all indices are either informational or are elements of informational indices. Thus, when Robinson Crusoe found the footprint generally spoken of as Fridays, we may suppose that his attention
was first attracted to an indentation of the sand. So far it was a mere substitutive index, a mere something apparently a sign of something else. But on examination he found that there was the print of
toes, heel, and every part of a foot, in short, an icon converted into an index; and the connection of
this with its presence on the shore, could only be interpreted as an index of a corresponding presence
of a man. We thus see clearly that a dicisign, or information-bearing sign, is a sign that indicates a

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as a sign for some interpreter by indexically producing an icon of the object. The
object must be a singular, individual object. That does not imply the sign immediately
facilitates the recognition of that object. Peirces own example of Robinson seeing for
the first time Fridays footprint is an example. He realizes this stems from an existing
personbut he has as yet no idea which person. So this sign is indefinite, implicitly
having an existential quantifier Some person made this footprint. The weathercock is
a simple example of a measurement device, constructed so as to select, isolate, magnify,
render clear some iconic information through an indexical process. Individual measurements made with such tools then qualify as Dicent Sinsigns.23 The painting with a
legend, however, is more complicated. Not only does it have an explicit syntax which
we discussed aboveit is also not as evident that the predicate is without general qualities. Very often, painters idealize the person portrayed, not only in the sense that they
beautify him but also in the sense that they seek to capture typical expressions, looks,
postures, etc. In that sense, paintings may contain different degrees of generalities,
in some sense on a continuous gradient from pure images to diagrams. Photographs
may also display such generality, not by means of the photographic process alone, and
not only by means of techniques like the composite photographs discussed, but also
aided by the very selection process of the best photo among many available. This
may be seen, e.g., in more or less scientific illustrations, such as those in an atlas of
mushrooms. The watercolor painting of a mushroom in such a book should depict all
of the typical visual properties of the species in order to aid identificationresulting
in a painting which may be more typical than any particular, existing specimen of
the species in reality. Also photographs used in such books must be selected so as to
display all typical appearances of the mushroom species in question, thus embodying
general qualities, even if actually depicting individual organisms. Retouching, photoshop and related processing of photographs, of course, may aid in the production of
photographs serving as more general predicates. Thus, there seems to be a continuous gradient from completely singular Dicent Sinsigns in the one end to fully Dicent
Symbols with general predicates, be they linguistic or diagrammatic or otherwise, in
the other end.
This leaves us with the seemingly intermediary category of Dicent Indexical
Legisigns. At a first glance, it may appear as an artifice of Peirces system of combinFootnote 22 continued
Secondness in its object by a corresponding secondness in its own composition. (Ms. 478, pp 4647, alt.
version of Syllabus, 1903)
23 The most thorough analysis of the weathercock is found in Ms. 7 (On the Foundations of Mathematics,
ca. 1903): The reference of a sign to its object is brought into special prominence in a kind of sign whose
fitness to be a sign is due to its being in a real reactive relation,generally, a physical and dynamical
relation,with the object. Such a sign I term an index. As an example, take a weather-cock. This is a sign
of the wind because the wind actively moves it. It faces in the very direction from which the wind blows. In
so far as it does that, it involves an icon. The wind forces it to be an icon. A photograph which is compelled
by optical laws to be an icon of its object which is before the camera is another example. It is in this way
that these indices convey information. They are propositions. That is they separately indicate their objects;
the weather-cock because it turns with the wind and is known by its interpretant to do so; the photograph
for a like reason. If the weathercock sticks and fails to turn, or if the camera lens is bad, the one or the other
will be false. But if this is known to be the case, they sink at once to mere icons, at best. It is not essential
to an index that it should thus inolve an icon. Only, if it does not, it will convey no information.

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ing the three trichotomies. His examples of this category, in any case, seem strangely
wanting and peripheral. One is a the type of a street cry, supposedly a ritualized
shout, as that of a street vendour, facilitating the recognition of the indiviual uttering
it; the other is the answer to the question Whose statue is this?It is Farragut.
The reason it is not, like the full proposition, a symbol is that it has, like the sinsign,
no general predicate while, on the other side, the sign itself, qua legisign, is taken to be
general. The predicate should be typical as a sign, but not general as to its contents
this is why individuals, proper names (or, supposedly, pronouns) are involved in the
examples given.
There is some strange discrepancies here, though. It must involve an Iconic
Legisign to signify the information and a Rhematic Indexical Legisign to denote the
subject of that information, Peirce said in the definition of this category of Dicisigns,
and the latter requirement is identified simply with proper nouns while the former
can be examplified in diagram types, apart form their individual appearance in tokens
(sinsigns). But in the examples given, the proper name does not appear as the subject
but as the predicate slot of the proposition. What would a sign look like actually fitting
the description quoted? It would have a proper noun (or pronoun) as a subject, and
a diagram type as the predicate. It might be a map with a legendsuch as a map
of Rome (the diagram Predicate part) with the name Rome and other geographical
names indicated in the map (the proper name Subject part). But why would this not
simply be a Dicent Symbol?every map is, to some degree, general and provides
information not only about the geographical layout of an area at a particular point of
time like a photo snapshot would do.
The examples which Peirce himself gives are thus quite different form this analysis. They pertain to information about object names identification statements (the
street cry identifying the person yelling it; It is Farragut, identifying the individual
depicted). They give the idea that the category of Dicent Indexical Legisigns should
rather be categorized as Dicisigns in which names or indices occupy the predicate
slot, supposedly including also naming speech acts (This is called a Z I refer to
this as an X, I baptize thou Y, Let me present you to Mr. W, This is called a
tree). If we take that to be the case, the otherwise hazy category of Dicent Indexical
Legisigns would occupy an important role. On a gradient between this category and
full-fledged propositions would then appear signs which not only name or identify
individual objects, but classes or continua of such objects (I define a line as that
which has length and no breadth, Element nr. 92 is Uranium), that is definitions,
claims about class-names, etc.
1.11 Meanings and objetcs of Dicisigns
Dicisigns being the central type of efficient signs, the establishing of their meaning
must be very important to a pragmatist semiotics like Peirces. The relation between
sign and meaning in Peirce generally being one of inference, the meaning of a Dicisign
is described in terms of which inferences it is possible to draw from it. Thus, in the
Lectures on Pragmatism, Peirce simply says:

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. . . what we call the meaning of a proposition embraces every obvious necessary

deduction from it.
(The nature of meaning, Lectures on Pragmatism 1903, EPII, 214, 5.165)
So, assessing the meaning of a sign is, effectively, conducting an inference. The important constraint here is to obvious deductions from the Dicisign, ruling out less obvious,
maybe yet never performed deductions, e.g. theorematic deductions from the Dicisign
meaning. In the same lecture, we find a bit different definition of Dicisign meaning:
On the whole, then, if by the meaning, of a term, proposition, or argument, we
understand the entire general intended interpretant, then the meaning of an argument
is explicit. It is its conclusion, while the meaning of a proposition is all that that
proposition or term could contribute to the conclusion of a demonstrative argument.
(The nature of meaning, 1903, EPII, 220)
Here, the obvious criterion has vanished, and the meaning instead is defined as
the sum of possible contributions of that Dicisign to the conclusion of an argument
not ruling out, e.g. non-obvious, theorematic deductions from it, requiring construction, experiment and proof. This vacillation or ambiguity probably lies behind the
development, in the mature Peirce, of the doctrine of two objects and three meanings
(or interpretants) of signs. We already saw how an early version (primary/secondary
object) was developed in the Syllabus Dicisign doctrine. It evolves into Peirces general
distinction between immediate and dynamical objects of a sign:
As to the Object, that may mean the Object as cognized in the Sign and therefore
an Idea, or it may be the Object as it is regardless of any particular aspect of it,
the Object in such relations as unlimited and final study would show it to be. The
former I call the Immediate Object, the latter the Dynamical Object. For the
latter is the Object that Dynamical Science (or what at this day would be called
Objective science,) can investigate. (Review of Lady Welby, 1903, 8.183)
The Dynamical Object, hence, is the object including all of its aspects, such as potentially revealed by scientific investigation in the limit. This, of course, cf. Peirces realism, is, at the same time, the object in itself, as it exists independently of perception or
participation in any semiotic investigation processes. The Immediate Object has posed
more problems to many interpreters. In what follows after the quote, he explains what
is the Immediate Object as cognized in the Sign in terms of the occasion of sundry
sensations. At other occasions, Peirce has described the Immediate Object as the
object as the sign itself represents it.24 This has lead some interpreters to surmise
24 The full quote is interesting in itself: But it remains to point out that there are usually two Objects, and
more than two Interpretants. Namely, we have to distinguish the Immediate Object, which is the Object
as the Sign itself represents it, and whose Being is thus dependent upon the Representation of it in the
Sign, from the Dynamical Object, which is the Reality which by some means contrives to determine the
Sign to its Representation. In regard to the Interpretant we have equally to distinguish, in the first place,
the Immediate Interpretant, which is the interpretant as it is revealed in the right understanding of the Sign
itself, and is ordinarily called the meaning of the sign; while in the second place, we have to take note of
the Dynamical Interpretant which isthe actual effect which the Sign, as a Sign, really determines. Finally
there is what I provisionally term the Final Interpretant, which refers to the manner in which the Sign tends
to represent itself to be related to its Object. I confess that my own conception of this third interpretant is
not yet quite free from mist. (Prol. to an Apology for Pragmaticism, 1906, CP 4.533)

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the Immediate Object should be the object as it is depicted, described, imagined, or

signified in the sign. But in that case, it would no longer be an object category, but a
meaning category. And as there is already three interpretant categories, cf. below, it
would seem to be to overpopulate the field of interpretants if the Immediate Object
should also count as part of the signs meaning.
But the fact that the Dicisigns subject is claimed to be indexically connected to its
referent object provides the relevant interpretation of what is the Immediate Object.
Thus, the Immediate Object has nothing to do with describing the characters of the
object, rather, the Immediate Object is the indexical connection of the sign with its
object. This becomes obvious from the following reflection where Peirce imagines his
wife asking him about the weather: I reply, let us suppose: It is a stormy day. Here
is another sign. Its Immediate Object is the notion of the present weather so far as
this is common to her mind and minenot the character of it, but the identity of it.
The Dynamical Object is the identity of the actual or Real meteorological conditions
at the moment. (Letter to James, March 14, 1909, 8.314). Neither the IO nor the DO
is concerned with descriptive charactersthis is left to the meaning categories. Both
deal with the identity of the reference. So the IO is rather those parts of aspects of
the Dynamical Object with which the sign claims to stand in indexical connection.
Thus, the light rays informing the eye about the visual structure of an object is the
Immediate Object of that visual signor, to be more precise, an aspects of those light
rays which are indexically influenced by the object. In our interaction with objects, we
rarely if ever interact distinctively with the whole of an object, with all of its parts and
aspects, simultaneously. Rather, we stand in different causal relations with the object,
and it is the specific selection of those aspects and parts which forms the Immediate
Object of the Dicisign. In that sense, the Immediate Object is a part of the Dynamical
Objectthe part standing in indexical relation to the sign. And for both of them
acquaintance cannot be given by a Picture or a Description (ibid), but only by
indexical connection to the object. Unlike Russells distinction between knowledge by
Acquaintance and by Description, Peirces version claims both must be present in any
true Dicisign, because indexical Acquaintance is stripped of all descriptive capacity
which is reserved for the Predicate aspect of the Dicisign:
It is usual and proper to distinguish two Objects of a Sign, the Mediate without,
and the Immediate within the Sign. Its Interpretant is all that the Sign conveys:
acquaintance with its Object must be gained by collateral experience. The Mediate Object is the Object outside of the Sign; I call it the Dynamoid Object. The
Sign must indicate it by a hint; and this hint, or its substance, is the Immediate
Object. Each of these two Objects may be said to be capable of either of the

Footnote 24 continued
Here, the Immediate Object is not only defined in terms of Representation but also as something whose
being is dependent upon the sign. These ways of arguing may easily be mistaken for saying the sign creates
a description of the object which is the IO. But representation in Peirce generally means denotation rather
than signification, and the dependence of the IO on the sign does not exclude its dependence upon the
DObut must be taken to mean that the cutting out or selection of IO from the DO is due to the activity of
the signrather than taking the IO as being a meaning created by the sign.

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three Modalities, though in the case of the Immediate Object, this is not quite
literally true. (A Letter to Lady Welby, SS 83, 1908)
This implies, of course, that the Immediate Object must leave certain aspects of the
Dynamical Object unspecified. In his trichotomy of signs according to their immediate
object, Peirce distinguishes between indefinite, singular, and distributive (elsewhere,
vague, singular, and general) signs; the former and the latter both characterized by
leaving parts of the Dynamic Object not directly referred to. In indefinite signs, the
immediate object is only a possible presentment of a dynamic object, a fragment of
it, the rest being held in reserve, so that there is nothing in the immediate object to
prevent contradictory attributes being separately possible of it. Thus A certain man
may turn out to be rich. He may turn out to be poor. (Ms. 339, Logic Notebook,
p. 256r 1905 Oct 10). Conversely, in distributive or general signs, the Immediate Object
may be substituted for any Dynamic Object fitting the Immediate Objectas in Any
man. The Immediate Object, in both cases, is a fragment of the Dynamical Object and
is hence necessarily incomplete and contains some degree of vagueness or generality.
Even in the case of singular signs, where the sign precisely denotes its object (a limit
case only, according to Peirce), the Immediate Object is but the end of a singular
indexical connection terminating in the Dynamic Object. For this reason, Hilpinen
has rightly compared the Immediate Object to Meinongs incomplete objects whose
function is as auxiliary objects (Hilfsobjekte) in connecting to the full, complex objects
which are impossible to intend every aspect of (Hilpinen, this volume).
This division of the Dicisigns object throws light upon the triadic differentiation of
its meanings. The obvious deductions from a Dicisign now correspond, as meaning
category, to the Immediate Object in the sense that they also remain incomplete,
as a subset of all possible deductions from the Dicisign. That ideal set of all such
deductions, then, corresponds to what Peirce calls the final interpretantall meaning
of the Dicisign which investigation would reach in the limit only. The Dynamic
interpretant, then, is the meaning such as it is actualized in any particular, concrete
use of the Dicisign, always only a subset of the Final Interpretant (plus erroneous,
actual inferences as well). So, the Dynamic Object and the Dynamic Interpretant do
not correspond to each other, confusingly, and the terminological confusion stemming
from their terminological similarity has the reason that dynamic used about objects
is taken to mean at the end of dynamic scientific investigation while dynamic used
about interpretants is taken to mean in actual, existent dynamic sign exchange.
In the continuation of the quote where Peirce informs his wife about the stormy
weather, the three interpretants of that Dicisign are presented as follows: The Immediate Interpretant is the schema in her imagination, i.e. the vague Image or what
there is in common to the different Images of a stormy day. The Dynamical Interpretant is the disappointment or whatever actual effect it at once has upon her. The
Final Interpretant is the sum of the Lessons of the reply, Moral, Scientific, etc. (CP
8.314) The three meaning categories are thus 1) the immediate schema presenting the
general picture of a stormy day,adding, in the blank of that predicate, the reference
to the particular occasion of utterance, it should be noted (the meaning of a Dicisign is
not only its iconic-predicative part but what can be inferred from the application of that
part to a given subject)the obvious inferences from it; 2) the actual interpretation

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made by a sign interpreter in the situation of communicationin this case, the wifes
change in emotion and action upon learning the fact reported by the Dicisign, deciding
to stay inside and light the fireplaces etc.; 3) the Finalin other cases, the Normal
Interpretant of the Dicisign is all which may be inferred, by all means of investigation
in the limit, from it.The three meaning categories thus may be compared as follows:
1) lies close to dictionary meaning in a broad sense (but comprising also other signs,
of course, than linguistic signs), close to the normal use of the word meaning; 2)
equals pragmatic meaning relative to a situation of communication, determined by the
dialogic string preceding it and the collateral knowledge about the situation; 3) corresponds to the ideal limit of all possible knowledge to which the Dicisign in question
may, in the future, contribute.
2 Conclusion
Peirces doctrine of Dicisigns, when pieced together from his different writings around
1900, constitutes an early and fairly elaborated doctrine of propositions. My claim,
however, is that it is not only of historical interest. Recent philosophical discussion
has focused upon issues such as: are propositions structuredor are they some sort
of primitives? Do they exist in any sense at all - already Russell famously found it
burdensome to accept the commitment to any kind of existence of all false propositions,
this prompting him to give up the idea of propositions. Does their existence depend
upon the existence of human language and its syntactial and semantic devices?
Peirces doctrine articulates a strong claim for what nowadays are called structured propositions. His analysis of what keeps propositional structure together forms
a sophisticated doctrine not far from some present positions (such as King 2007, see
also Hanks 2009; McGrath 2012; King 2012): the syntactical connection between
predicate and subjects in a proposition functions as an icon of the actual, indexical
connection between their correlates in terms of objects and relations. It is a picture
theory of Dicisignsbut it lacks the insistence of Wittgensteinian picture theories
on a foundational level of logical atomism, taking instead the facts referred to by
true propositions to be structural aspects of reality on any given level of description.
The functional definition of Dicisignssigns performing two simultaneous, different
functions relating to the same objects, those of reference and description, transgresses
the idea that propositions should depend upon the syntax of human language exclusively, opening the investigation of other syntactical combination strategies fulfilling
the function to be charted in non-linguistic signs in human and non-human semiotics.
As to the mode of existence of propositions, Peirces doctrine is not completely clear
I think, however, its lack of clarity may be easily sanitized. As Short (2007, 231ff,
242ff) points out, two different ideas seem to compete in Peirces doctrine. One claims
propositions are signswhich may enter into more compound signs when those signs
are asserted, assented to, or subjected to other speech acts.25 Another claims propositions are ideal entities existing outside of space-time as mere possibilities. How could
25 Space does not allow us to discuss here Peirces embryonic speech act theory according to which
propositions are signs fit to be assertedor to be the objects of assent, interrogatives, imperatives, etc. see
(Brock 1981)

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these two doctrines be reconciled? Short thinks the problem is easily rectified by
preferring the ideal interpretation so that propositions are what may be abstracted from
various types of Dicent Symbolsbut not themselves being signs (245).26 But do we
have to make this choice? The idea of Dicisigns as signs is the source of much of the
strength of Peirces doctrine, so we would hesitate to give up that idea. In the ten-sign
typology of the Syllabus combining the three basic trichotomies, the six most complicated signs are all Legisigns, that is, types, none of them are actually existing signs but
general sign types which appear in actuality only as instantiated in tokens, of which
three types of Sinsigns exist. The four sign types involving DicisignsArguments,
Dicent Symbols, Dicent Indexical Legisigns, and Dicent Sinsignsthus only have
certain subtypes of Dicent Sinsigns as their instantiating outlet to actual discourse,
so to speak. Any actual usesuch as an assertionof a Dicisign requires its tokening
in a Sinsign. But that implies that Dicisigns, apart from the special case of Dicent
Sinsigns, do possess the ideality of types, of Legisigns. So the idea that Dicisigns are
indeed signs, need not be as remote from their ideality as Short presupposes. Short
seems here to identify signs with tokens only. Here Peirces argument for their ideality: A sentence, in the sense here used, is a single object. Every time it is copied or
pronounced, a new sentence is made. But a proposition is not a single thing and cannot
properly be said to have any existence. Its mode of being consists in its possibility. A
proposition which might be expressed has all the being that belongs to propositions
although nobody ever expresses it or thinks it. It is the same proposition every time it
is thought, spoken or written, whether in English, German, Spanish, Taglog, or how.
A proposition consists in a meaning, whether adopted or not, and however expressed.
That meaning is the meaning of any sign which should signify that a certain iconic
representation, or image (or any equivalent of it) is a sign of something indicated by
a certain indexical sign, or any equivalent thereof. (Ms. 599 RR 1902 pp 57)
The token sinsignssentences or other instantiations by means of gesture, picture,
diagram tokensare actual, existent entities, but the Dicisigns they instantiate are not.
They are mere possibilities. But still they are structured possibilitiespossessing the
structured syntax of Peirces doctrine: the syntactical coupling of the two functional
constituent signs. That propositions, in that sense, are ideal signs, is captured by the
Legisign-Sinsign (Type-Token) distinction. Should it confuse us and give us Ockhamist headaches that this commits us to accept an infinity of possible propositions,
combining merely possible subjects with merely possible predicates, including lots of
meaningless and false such combinations? Not more, I think, than we should take it as
a heavy ontological burden to accept the infinitely recursive composition possibilities
of human language or the indefinite amount of not yet realized compound possibilities
of organich chemistry.
All in all, much can be learnt from Peirces Dicisign doctrine, not only pertaining
to the history of logic. The liberation of propositions from the iron cage of human
language in the Frege-Russell tradition allows us to begin to grasp the logic and
cognitive abilities of other animals as well as those of human beings freely mixing
language with images, pictures, gesture, diagrams in order to express Dicisigns.
26 It even leads Short into attempting a distinction between the Rheme/Dicisign/Argument trichotomy and
the Seme/Pheme/Delome trichotomy (which are synonymous in Peirce).

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Acknowledgments

Thanks for comments to Barry Smith as well as to the anonymous peer reviews.

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