Gary R., List:
To clarify further, no one is suggesting that all three interpretants are
in a "mode" of 3ns, nor that both objects are in a "mode" of 2ns. Using
Peirce's late taxonomies for sign classification, that would amount to
claiming that all three interpretants are always necessitants and
The problem with using the triangle to represent a sign is not its
vertices, but its sides. The triangle above, which illustrates a very
simple (algebraic) category in Wikipedia, represents the triadic sign as
Peirce defined it after 1905, in which the arrows represent determinations,
A the
Mary, List,
I agree that the triangle by Ogden & Richards is horribly misleading. But a
triangle by itself can be used for many useful purposes of various kinds.
What is misleading is that O & R drew their triangle in a book that also
contained an appendix with MSS by Peirce. That
Mary- yes, I fully agree with you. Tha semiotic triangle is disastrous to the
study of genuine semiotics.
Peirce never used it; his diagram/image was of a three-tailed ‘umbrella’..[for
want of a better metaphor]. In 1.347, you can see his outline of “a graph with
three tails”.
I agree with Edwina about “the generative capabilities of the Peircean
infrastructure.” Robert Marty’s trellis of 28 classes opens a perspective that
the "semiotic triangle” never did. [By the way, Peirce never uses a triangle,
that I am aware of. Was the triangle first popularized by Ogden in
