Jon and Auke, General principle: Never assume that Peirce was unaware of or hadn't considered some issue. Peirce had studied Aristotle in depth, and he would certainly be familiar with the first paragraph of _On Interpretation_: Aristotle> First we must determine what are noun (onoma) and verb (rhêma); and after that, what are negation (apophasis), assertion (kataphasis), proposition (apophansis), and sentence (logos). Those in speech (phonê) are symbols (symbola) of affections (pathêmata) in the psyche, and those written (graphomena) are symbols of those in speech. As letters (grammata), so are speech sounds not the same for everyone. But they are signs (sêmeia) primarily of the affections in the psyche, which are the same for everyone, and so are the objects (pragmata) of which they are likenesses (homoiômata). On these matters we speak in the treatise on the psyche, for it is a different subject. (16a1) JAS> One difference that I have with Peirce is that I consider the written and spoken versions of the same language to be two distinct systems of signs. AvB> This is an interesting point. I entertained the same idea as you did until I recognized that we may distinguish legisigns in two classes. 1. legisigns by comparison: the sinsign icons belong to a family either of visual or auditive signs 2. legisigns by convention. legisigns of two families (visual and auditive) are conjoined and recognaized as the same type. The bridge is furnished by the very same symbol called forth by either of the signs, i.e. the spoken and written forms of horse. This distintion is similar to the point that Aristotle was making. John
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