representamen
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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[edit] English
[edit] Etymology
From New Latin repraesentamen, -aminis,[1] from Latin repraesentare, "to bring back", "to display", "to represent", "to pay immediately", "to perform immediately".
[edit] Pronunciation
The primary stress falls on the "a".
Singular "representamen" rhymes with "laymen" and "stamen".
Plural "representamina" rhymes with "stamina".
The pronunciations of "representamen" and "representamina" follow the pattern of their etymological parallels "stamen", "stamina", "foramen", "foramina".
[edit] Noun
representamen (plural representamina or representamens)
- A representation, a thing serving to represent something (as to an interpreting mind). It is a representation in the sense of something which represents, as opposed to its operation or relation of representing, and also as opposed to a process or activity of representing, which produces it. (The produced representamen can itself seem or be a process or activity, for example a song or a theatrical performance, or a rock's tumbling in an informative way, or a logical argument). Compare sign.
- circa 1897: Charles Sanders Peirce [aut.] and Justus Buchler [ed.], Philosophical Writings of Peirce, chapter 7: “Logic as Semiotic: The Theory of Signs”, § 1: “What is a Sign? Three Divisions of Logic”, page 99 (from a circa 1897 manuscript (CP 2.227–9), first published in the 1940 selection The Philosophy of Peirce: Selected Writings, and later reprinted sic in 1955 by Dover Publications, Inc., New York; ISBN 0486202178, 9780486202174)
- A sign, or representamen, is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity.
- circa 1897: Charles Sanders Peirce [aut.] and Justus Buchler [ed.], Philosophical Writings of Peirce, chapter 7: “Logic as Semiotic: The Theory of Signs”, § 1: “What is a Sign? Three Divisions of Logic”, page 99 (from a circa 1897 manuscript (CP 2.227–9), first published in the 1940 selection The Philosophy of Peirce: Selected Writings, and later reprinted sic in 1955 by Dover Publications, Inc., New York; ISBN 0486202178, 9780486202174)
[edit] Related terms
[edit] Quotations
- "representamen (rep″rẹ̄ -zen-tā′ men), n. [< NL. *repræsentamen, < L. repræsentare, represent: see represent.] In metaph., representation; an object serving to represent something to the mind. Sir W. Hamilton." — the Century Dictionary, 1911.
- "I confine the word representation to the operation of a sign or its relation to the object for the interpreter of the representation. The concrete subject that represents I call a sign or a representamen." — C. S. Peirce, Lowell Lectures 1903, Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, v. 1, paragraph 540. Eprint.
- "Possibly there may be Representamens that are not Signs." — C. S. Peirce, "A Syllabus of Certain Topics of Logic", 1903, the Essential Peirce v. 2, pp. 272-3. Eprint.
- "It is the science of what is quasi-necessarily true of the representamina of any scientific intelligence in order that they may hold good of any object, that is, may be true." — C. S. Peirce, Collected Papers v. 2, paragraph 229. Eprint.
- Four instances of "representamina" used by John Deely, Four Ages of Understanding (2001, U of Toronto Press), p. 726, Google Books limited preview Eprint
[edit] References
- representamen in The Century Dictionary, The Century Co., New York, 1911
- ^ The Century Dictionary puts the asterisk of conjecture before the New Latin form repraesentamen, but the word occurs:
—in the nominative singular, repraesentamen,- in Johannes Flender, 1731 fourth edition of Phosphorus philosophicus novissimus, seu logica contracta Claubergiana, p. 12 (via Google Books), column 1: "...sive, cogitatio, quæ est imago et repræsentamen ejus rei, quam concipimus, quô modô forma seu essentia ideae consistit in representatione rei; sive in eo, quòd sit rei repræsentamen, ..." (italic emphases in original), which is quoted with some rephrasing in Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, Bart., by Sir William Hamilton, arranged and edited by Orlando Williams Wight, 1850, p. 264 (via Google Books), as follows: " '...prout est cogitatio intellectus hanc vel illam rem representans,—quo modo forma seu essentia ideae consistit in representatione rei, sive in eo quod sit representamen vel imago ejus rei quam concipimus.' (Phosph. Philos. § 5.)" (italic emphases in original).
- in a 1699 Latin letter from Johann Bernoulli to Gottfried Leibniz, published in Leibniz's Mathematische Schriften, v. 3, letter XCV, p. 580 (via Google Books Halle edition of 1850): "Si per similitudinem intelligas ideam ipsam seu repraesentamen, quo objectum menti sistitur tanquam in pictura, eam sane non exsibilant Cartesiani."
—in the nominative plural, repraesentamina,
- in Benedict de (or Baruch) Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, 1670, p. 48 (via Google Books), and as reprinted in Opera quae supersunt onmia, v. 3, 1846, p. 66 (via Google Books): "...quod alicuius boni sint repraesentamina...".
- in Hermannus Venema, Institutiones historiae ecclesiae..., Tomus IV, 1780, p. 436 (via Google Books): "...sed sacrificii cruci repraesentamen et commemorationem...".
- in Gottfried Leibniz (1664-1716), in a collection of his works Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Volume 2 (1879), see p. 215 (via Google Books): "...a quo nihil repraesentaminis possim tollere...", and further examples on p. 220, 222, 225, 226, 227, and 228.
- in Jacob Nieuwenhuis, Initia Philosophiae Logicae, 1831, multiple instances, such as p. 120 (via Google Books): "Veritas logica est convenientia repraesentaminum nostrorum inter se et cum legibus cogitandi."
- in Gisbertus Voetius (Gijsbert Voet) (1589-1676), in a selection Tractatus selecti de politica ecclesiastica (1885), p. 84 at foot of page (via Google Books): "De repraesentamine Ecclesiae...".
- in Amadeo De La Rive, in Logica ad usum studiosæ juventutis (1756), p. 179 (via Google Books): "...pro rectis rerum repræsentaminibus habeant."
