Icon, Index, Symbol

Index, Icon and Symbol, the classic categories of signs according to C.S. Peirce, also significantly exist in Online Social Networks and play the important roles in the new media space. In particular, Index helps the Internet users establish the identities in the virtual community, meanwhile formulating the integration rules in this new world. And interpersonal communications is represented in the online social networks as a result of the existence of Index, which also enhances the effectiveness of the emotional expression online. Lastly, the Symbol in the virtual networks largely ensures the accuracy of the meanings the members of sub-culture group want to convey. It should be also pointed out that ii is the joint force of these three types of signs that guarantees the benign operations of the Online Social Networks.

This paper offers an expressivist account of logical form, arguing that in order to fully understand it one must examine what valid arguments make us do (or: what Achilles does and the Tortoise doesn’t, in Carroll’s famed fable). It introduces Charles Peirce’s distinction between symbols, indices and icons as three different kinds of signification whereby the sign picks out its object by learned convention, by unmediated indication, and by resemblance respectively. It is then argued that logical form is represented by the third, iconic, kind of sign. It is noted that icons uniquely enjoy partial identity between sign and object, and argued that this holds the key to Carroll’s puzzle. Finally, from this examination of sign-types metaphysical morals are drawn: that the traditional foes metaphysical realism and conventionalism constitute a false dichotomy, and that reality contains intriguingly inference-binding structures.

This presentation has been given in a number of conferences, and other fora, including the Joint Sessions (Stirling 2012) and UNILOG (Rio de Janiero 2013).