On Sep 21, 2014, at 8:59 PM, Clark Goble <cl...@libertypages.com> wrote:


> On Sep 21, 2014, at 11:57 AM, Frederik Stjernfelt <stj...@hum.ku.dk 
> <mailto:stj...@hum.ku.dk>> wrote:
> 
> To Peirce, the relation of similarity connecting a diagram to its real-world 
> object is not necessarily easy to grasp - on the contrary, in many cases it 
> requires protracted work of both empirical and theoretical stripe. In 
> Peirce's doctrine of how reasoning with diagrams is undertaken, however, the 
> central idea is that the manipulation possibiliites of the diagram correspond 
> (to some degree) to the real transformation possibilities of the object 
> depicted by the diagram. 

Peirce’s notion of icons seems necessarily tied to his scholastic realism. That 
realism is what makes the semiotics possible. Without it iconicity ends up 
being little more than a judgement things are similar and loses its power.

Given that so many in the modern world are nominalists (even when they don’t 
know what the word means) I suspect that’s why the notion of icons are so 
frequently misunderstood and confused with symbols.

I know you make rather clearly that same point in your book. (I just finished 
chapter 3) But I think it’s important to bring up given some scholars who see a 
tension between Peirce’s pragmatic maxim and his scholastic realism. I think 
iconicity, properly understood, resolves most tensions.

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