Abstract

Charles Sanders Peirce famously distinguishes between three types of sign, depending on how the sign refers to its object. An "icon" refers by resemblance. An "index" refers by a physical connection. And a "symbol" refers by habit or convention. Peirce allows for signs to refer in more ways than one—onomatopoeias refer both by resemblance and by convention, for instance 1—but he insists that there are no further ways in which signs can refer to their objects.In this paper I shall argue that emotional expressions—e.g. cries of sadness, laughs of amusement, and scowls of anger—refer to emotions neither by...