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.
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1976New Elements of Mathematics [referred to as NEM], C. Eisele (ed) I–IV. The Hague: Mouton.
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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.
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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
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2007Diagrammatology. An Investigation on the Borderlines of Phenomenology, Ontology, and Semiotics. Dordrecht: Springer.
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Stjernfelt, Frederik
2018. Signs Conveying Information. In Empirical Research on Semiotics and Visual Rhetoric [Advances in Multimedia and Interactive Technologies, ], ► pp. 177 ff.
Stjernfelt, Frederik
2019. Dimensions of Peircean diagrammaticality. Semiotica 2019:228 ► pp. 301 ff.
Stjernfelt, Frederik
2021. Conscious self-control as criterion for reasoning. Cognitive Semiotics 14:1 ► pp. 71 ff.
Stjernfelt, Frederik
2024. Peirce’s Theories of Generalized Propositions. In The Oxford Handbook of Charles S. Peirce, ► pp. 226 ff.
Stjernfelt, Frederik & Markus Pantsar
2023. Peirce’s philosophy of notations and the trade-offs in comparing numeral symbol systems. Cognitive Semiotics 16:2 ► pp. 121 ff.
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