[page 288] [footnote 3: “So it was necessary that the human race, in order for its members to communicate their conceptions among themselves should have some signal based on reason and perception. Since this signal needed to receive its contents from reason and convey it back there, it had to be rational; but since nothing can be conveyed from one reasoning mind to another except by means perceptible to the senses, it had to be based on perception. For, if it were purely rational, it could not make its journey; if purely perceptible, it could neither derive anything from reason nor deliver anything to it. This signal, then is the noble foundation that I am discussing, for it is perceptible, for it is a sound, and yet also rational, in that this sound, according to convention, (“ad placitum”) is taken to mean something.” Dante, “De vulgari eloquentia”, I, iii, 2-3, trans. Steven Botteril, Cambridge, 1996, p. 7: Oportuit ergo genus humanum ad comunicandum inter se conceptiones suas aliquod rationale signum et sensuale habere; quia, cum de ratione accipire habeat et in rationem portare, rationale esse opporuit; cumque de una ratione in aliam nichil deferri possit nisi per medium sensuale, sensuale esse oportuit; quare, si tantum rationale esset, pertransire non posset; si tantum sensuale, nec a ratione accipere, nec in rationem deponere potuisset. Hoc equidem signum est ipsum subiectum nobile de quo loquimur: nam sensule quid est, in quantum sonus est; rationale vero, in quantum aliquid significare videtur ad placitum.” From THE TREE TO THE LABYRINTH by Umberto Eco
----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
