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II

Semiotics (sometimes called semiology) originated at about the same time as the New Bibliography, in the early years of the present century. Its places of origination were Switzerland and the United States. The reason for this dual citizenship of semiotics is that the field was created at about the same time by two scholars working independently in different disciplines: the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), the founder of structural linguistics, and the American philosopher C. S. Peirce (1839-1914), usually credited with the foundation of American pragmatism.[22] Since most of the work of both men was published posthumously, it is not possible to say precisely when semiotics came into being. Neither Peirce nor Saussure had apparently any knowledge of the work of the other. Their separate systems, therefore—Saussure's linguistically based semiotics and Peirce's logically based semiotics—seldom overlap, so that combining the two into one great system would be a very complex task. Most work in semiotics is consequently accomplished through the application of either one system or the other.

It is to Peirce's logical semiotics that we should now direct our attention, or rather to one small aspect of it, namely the Second Trichotomy of Signs. While the Second Trichotomy may have attained some notoriety among philosophers because it is "Peirce's most important division of signs,"[23] the popularity it has achieved outside of philosophy is probably more a result of the fact that it is, at least on the surface, one of the easiest of Peirce's many sets of definitions to understand. Even so, it should be well noted that what follows in no way presumes to be anything like a complete exposition of Peirce's Second Trichotomy, for Peirce's philosophy was systematic,[24] and to discuss any single part without reference to the whole is open to justifiable charges of misrepresentation. Our subject is bibliography, however, not philosophy, and if we

end up ignoring the full philosophical implications of Peirce's categories—which we will—it is because the full implications are not essential to our subject. We are concerned here not with what Peirce ultimately meant, but rather with the application to our own subject of an isolated segment of what he said.

Peirce was of the opinion that logic is basically semiotics, the "quasi-necessary, formal, doctrine of signs" (II,134). A sign is simply "something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity" (II,135). Words, for instance, are signs, most of which stand for specific objects or actions. All such semiotic relationships consequently consist of three parts: there is the sign (Peirce's word is "representamen"), there is the entity for which the sign stands (its "Object"), and there is one's mental image (the "interpretant") of the object triggered by one's encounter with the sign.

Semiotics—or logic—consists, according to Peirce, of three parts: speculative grammar, critical logic, and speculative rhetoric. Speculative grammar, "the first and most fundamental of Peirce's three main divisions" is primarily concerned with "the meaning of signs and symbols" (Feibleman, p. 89). A central aspect of speculative grammar is the idea that all signs are divisible into three trichotomies.[25] The second and most famous of these divides signs into three categories from the standpoint of their relationships to their Objects. Peirce named these three categories of signs "icons," "indexes," and "symbols."

An icon is a "sign which refers to the Object that it denotes merely by virtue of characteristics of its own . . ." (II,143). It is linked to its object by virtue of similarity. A portrait of someone, for example, is an icon.

An index is a "sign which refers to the Object that it denotes by virtue of being really affected by that Object" (II,143). It is linked to its object by virtue of causality. The symptoms of a disease are indexes to that disease.

A symbol is a "sign which refers to the Object that it denotes by virtue of a law . . ." (II,143). Peirce's concept of the symbol is often accepted as being very similar to Saussure's definition of the linguistic sign. Most linguistic signs are arbitrary, or rather the connection between the sign and its Object (the "signifier" and the "signified" to use the English equivalents of Saussure's own terms) is an arbitrary one. There is no reason, for example, why the sounds which make up the word "tree" should refer to a large plant with branches. They do so only

on the basis of convention, or as Peirce would have it, by virtue of a "law." A word, then, in Peirce's terms, is a symbol.

Before proceeding to apply these categories to the field of bibliography, we must first make one terminological adjustment. While Peirce uses the word "Object" to denote that entity for which the sign stands, we shall instead use the word referent. Thus the word "tree" is a sign and its referent is a large plant with branches. We will continue to use the word "Object" in a non-semiotic sense specifically to denote the object of study of a particular discipline. Thus the Object of all bibliography, as we have already noted, is a document or any material medium (i.e. sign system) designed and used for the transmission of information.