Editing Charles Sanders Peirce (section)

=== Semiotic elements ===
Peirce held there are exactly three basic elements in semiosis (sign action):

# A ''sign'' (or ''representamen''){{efn|''Representamen'' ({{IPAc-en|ˌ|r|ɛ|p|r|ɪ|z|ɛ|n|ˈ|t|eɪ|m|ə|n}} {{respell|REP|ri|zen|TAY|mən}}) was adopted ([[wikt:representamen|not coined]]) by Peirce as his technical term for the ''sign'' as covered in his theory, in case a divergence should come to light between his theoretical version and the popular senses of the word "sign". He eventually stopped using "representamen". See ''The Essential Peirce'', 2:272–273 and ''[[#SS|Semiotic and Significs]]'' p. 193, quotes in "[http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/terms/representamen.html Representamen]" at ''Commens Digital Companion to C.S. Peirce''.}} represents, in the broadest possible sense of "represents". It is something interpretable as saying something about something. It is not necessarily symbolic, linguistic, or artificial—a cloud might be a sign of rain for instance, or ruins the sign of ancient civilization.<ref>{{cite book |author-last=Eco |author-first=Umberto |title=Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language |date=1984 |publisher=Indiana University Press |location=Bloomington & Indianapolis |isbn=978-0-25320398-4 |page=[https://archive.org/details/semioticsphiloso00ecou/page/15 15] |url=https://archive.org/details/semioticsphiloso00ecou/page/15}}</ref> As Peirce sometimes put it (he defined ''sign'' at least 76 times<ref name="Marty"/>), the sign stands ''for'' the object ''to'' the interpretant. A sign represents its object in some respect, which respect is the sign's ''ground''.<ref name="ground"/>
# An ''object'' (or ''semiotic object'') is a subject matter of a sign and an interpretant. It can be anything thinkable, a quality, an occurrence, a rule, etc., even fictional, such as [[Prince Hamlet]].<ref name="fictive">Peirce (1909), A Letter to William James, ''The Essential Peirce'', 2:492–502. Fictional object, 498. Object as universe of discourse, 492. See "[http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/terms/dynamicalobject.html Dynamical Object]" at ''Commens Digital Companion to C.S. Peirce''.</ref> All of those are special or partial objects. The object most accurately is the [[universe of discourse]] to which the partial or special object belongs.<ref name="fictive"/> For instance, a perturbation of Pluto's orbit is a sign about Pluto but ultimately not only about Pluto. An object either (i) is ''immediate'' to a sign and is the object as represented in the sign or (ii) is a ''dynamic'' object, the object as it really is, on which the immediate object is founded "as on bedrock".<ref>See "Immediate Object", etc., at [http://www.helsinki.fi/science/commens/dictionary.html ''Commens Digital Companion to C.S. Peirce''].</ref>
# An ''[[interpretant]]'' (or ''interpretant sign'') is a sign's meaning or ramification as formed into a kind of idea or effect, an interpretation, human or otherwise. An interpretant is a sign (a) of the object and (b) of the interpretant's "predecessor" (the interpreted sign) as a sign of the same object. An interpretant either (i) is ''immediate'' to a sign and is a kind of quality or possibility such as a word's usual meaning, or (ii) is a ''dynamic'' interpretant, such as a state of agitation, or (iii) is a ''final'' or ''normal'' interpretant, a sum of the lessons which a sufficiently considered sign ''would'' have as effects on practice, and with which an actual interpretant may at most coincide.
Some of the understanding needed by the mind depends on familiarity with the object. To know what a given sign denotes, the mind needs some experience of that sign's object, experience outside of, and collateral to, that sign or sign system. In that context Peirce speaks of collateral experience, collateral observation, collateral acquaintance, all in much the same terms.<ref name="collateral"/>