Frances to William and Saul and listers... It may be of interest to those students and scholars of semiotic signs to consider the basic position of pragmatists in regard to iconic signs and indexic signs and symbolic signs. This position is seemingly posited to mainly and eventually serve scientists in the theoretical pursuit of logics and its truths, but it is also seemingly posited to serve artists in matters of aesthetical concern, and to further serve ordinary persons in common matters of practical concern.
It is my understanding of the pragmatist position that all signs exist as and are determined by ordinary objects to merely be signs, such as by seen sights and heard sounds. The signers of signs can also be nonhuman mechanisms and organisms or humans. All signs are thus immediate representations, but they are also represented referents of other objects. The intermediate referred objects in turn determine the main kind an immediately represented sign will be in any sign situation. In acts of semiosis or progressive sign situations, all icons are preparatory to indexes, and all indexes are contributory to symbols, and all symbols are consummatory of them both, so that signs for all signers are combinatory of icons and indexes and symbols to some degree. The main kind a sign will be in any situation of semiosis may nonetheless be determined by its ground as an icon or index or symbol. The index in being a central sign is also pivotal to semiosis and semiotics. Fundamental core icons or subicons are subordinate but preparatory to all main signs, and this entails that they are sensed immediately as: (1) broad qualities like tones as tints or marks; and (2) singular facts like tokens as prints, and replicas as reproductions or copies or casts; and (3) syntaxic laws like types and codes and semes. The token in being a central subsign is also pivotal to semiosis and semiotics, in that all things and objects and signs can only be felt sensed as tokens. The monadic icon is in a related ground of formal similarity with its referred object, which ground may be symmetrically static. The icon is related to its object by simulation. Icons are typically scanned. They may be images like pictures, or diagrams like photos and graphs, or analogies like metaphors and metonyms and models. Their stated figurations are proposed depictions that yield argued visions. The dyadic index is in a related ground of causal contiguity with its referred object, which ground will be reversibly dynamic or energetic. The index is related to its object by connection or stimulation. Indexes are typically probed. They can be designated signals, or indicated arrows and artifacts, or expressed signatures and utterances and symptoms. The usual kinds of indexes found in organic nature will include reagents, vanes, imprints, tracks, traces, scats, browses, trails, and blazes. The usual kinds of indexes found in human culture will include pointers, braces, leaders, labels, and subscripts. Their probed designations are proposed indications that yield argued expressions. All indexes are demonstratively affected by their objects in ways that are more real than with other signs, and indexes require more collateral experience on the part of signers than other signs do in order to properly interpret them. The triadic symbol is in a related ground of conventional arbitrarity with its referred object, which ground must be habitual and collective and agreed. The symbol is related to its object by association or deliberation or stipulation. Symbols are typically read. They must be degenerative abstractors as artiforms, or regenerative singulars as emblems and heralds, or genuine moderators as formators and namors and mediators. The conventional ground of symbols must be a conviction or a covenant or a contention. The signer can then use the conventional symbol to engage in acts of accommodation or assimilation or appropriation. The learned application of signs and especially of indexes can be diverse and varied, and for me even confusing. Photographs for example are mainly diagrammatic icons like pictograms, and not mainly expressive indexes, because the referred object does not directly or brutally cause the emulsified pictorial depictions; although the iconic quality of photographs is preparatory to the indexic factuality of photographs. Languages for example in their verbal linguistic state are mainly conventional symbols, but when considered in their natural human state they are mainly causal indexes, because expressed babbling and scribbling indicates only human signers alone to the exclusion of all other signers. Any sign and fact however can be traced through history mainly by indexic means. Much of philology and archeology for example entails interpreting artifacts mainly as indexes. The brute empirical acts of observation and investigation and operation are inductive and thus indexical. These findings can shed knowledge on indexes specifically and on signs generally in ways perhaps that other signs cannot.
