It seems to be a standard assumption that Charles Morris originated the concept of “iconicity” on the basis of Peirce’s icon-index-symbol discussion. This paper locates the origin in Peirce himself, in the context of judging the merits of different mathematical and logic representations – the more iconic such representations generally being preferable to less iconic ones, for scientific purposes. In Peirce’s Collected Papers, “iconicity” occurs in the discussion of different conventions in the logic representation system called “Existential Graphs”. This paper provides the context of logic representations in order to show how Peirce’s articulation of the concept of “iconicity” comes out of the attempt to find as iconic a way as possible to depict logical relations. Moreover, this indicates a use of “iconicity”, from the very beginning, which addresses not only similarities between different visual representations – but also visual representations of abstract contents.
Anellis, I.H. 1995. Peirce rustled, Russell pierced: How Charles Peirce and Betrand Russell viewed each other’s work in logic, and an assessment of Russell’s accuracy and role in the historiography of logic. Modern Logic 5: 270–328.
Anellis, I.H. 2012. How Peircean was the ‘Fregean’ revolution in logic? Working Paper. <[URL]> (10 July 2013).
Bellucci, F. 2013. Diagrammatic reasoning: Some notes on Charles S. Peirce and Friedrich A. Lange. History and Philosophy of Logic 34(4): 293–305.
Dau, F. 2011a. Ligatures in Peirce’s existential graphs. Semiotica 186 (1–4): 89–109.
Dau, F. 2011b. Die Ikonizität der Peirceschen Existentiellen Graphen aus der Sicht der Formalen Logik. Zeitschrift für Semiotik 31(3–4), 2009–2011.
Morris, C. 1946. Signs, Language, and Behavior. New York NY: Prentice-Hall.
Nöth, W. 1990. Handbook of Semiotics. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.
Peirce, C.S. 1976. New Elements of Mathematics [referred to as NEM], C. Eisele (ed) I–IV. The Hague: Mouton.
Peirce, C.S. 1998 [1931–58]. Collected Papers [CP, references given by volume and paragraph numbers], I–VIII, C. Hartshorne & P. Weiss (eds); W. Burks (ed). London: Thoemmes Press.
Peirce, C.S. Undated. Manuscripts at the Houghton Library referred to by Ms. numbers in the Microfilm edition 1966 The Charles S. Peirce Papers, Microfilm Edition, Thirty Reels with Two Supplementary Reels Later Added. Cambridge: Harvard University Library Photographic Service, numbers simultaneously referring to the Robin catalogue of the Mss. (Robin 1967, 1971). As to manuscript page numbers, reference is to Peirce’s pagination (which is not unanimous since several parallel drafts may belong to the same Ms.)
Pietarinen, A.-V. 2006. Signs of Logic. Peircean Themes on the Philosophy of Language, Games, and Communication. Dordrecht: Springer.
Pietarinen, A.-V. 2011. Existential graphs: What a diagrammatic logic of cognition might look like. History and Philosophy of Logic 32: 265–281.
Pietarinen, A.-V. 2012. Some myths about EGs. <[URL]>
Pietarinen, A.-V. In prep. The genesis of Peirce’s beta part of existential graphs. <[URL]>
Putnam, H. 1982. Realism with a Human Face. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
Queiroz, J. & Stjernfelt, F. (eds). 2011. Special Issue of Semiotica on Diagrammatical Reasoning and Peircean Logic Representations 186(1–4).
Roberts, D.D. 1973. The Existential Graphs of C. S. Peirce. The Hague: Mouton.
Robin, R. 1967. Annotated Catalogue of the Papers of Charles S. Peirce. Amherst MA: University of Massachusetts Press.
Robin, R. 1971. The Peirce papers: A supplementary catalogue. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 7(1): 37–57.
Sebeok, T.A. 1979. The Sign and Its Masters. Austin and London: University of Texas Press.
Shin, S.-J. 1994. The Logical Status of Diagrams. Cambridge: CUP.
Shin, S.-J. 2000. The Iconic Logic of Peirce’s Graphs. Cambridge MA: The MIT Press.
Shin, S.-J. 2013. Visualization of quantificational logic. Paper presented at the Extended Problem Solving Conference, Aarhus University, January 2013.
Stjernfelt, F. 2007. Diagrammatology. An Investigation on the Borderlines of Phenomenology, Ontology, and Semiotics. Dordrecht: Springer.
Stjernfelt, F. 2014. Natural Propositions: The Actuality of Peirce’s Doctrine of Dicisigns. Boston MA: Docent Press.
Zeman, J. 1964. The Graphical Logic of C. S. Peirce. <[URL]> (8 December 2013).
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2018. Signs Conveying Information. In Empirical Research on Semiotics and Visual Rhetoric [Advances in Multimedia and Interactive Technologies, ], ► pp. 177 ff.
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2019. Dimensions of Peircean diagrammaticality. Semiotica 2019:228 ► pp. 301 ff.
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