C.S. Peirce’s Semiotic and Modistae’s Grammatica Speculativa

Abstract

The relationships between Peirce’s Semiotic and the Grammatica Speculativa of Thomas of Erfurt, who belongs to Modistae’s medieval school, have still been little explored. Peirce shows a continuous interest in this text, and his study must have gone much further than a simple reading of the work. Peirce may have felt close to Modistae's theory because of his inquiry into the reality of generals, and his related interest in dealing with the distinction between abstract and concrete terms, like whiteness and white. This feature, in a realist context, provides Peirce with the framework he is looking for in his account of the Hypostatical Abstraction. Moreover, I believe Thomas of Erfurt's work has retained Peirce’s attention for the indexical question of the pronoun, conceived by the Modistae as a part of speech independent of noun, unlike among contemporary grammarians, who consider the pronoun as a mere substitute for the noun. As well known, Modistae aimed to set up Grammar as an universal and autonomous science: Logic depends upon and presupposes Grammar, as in Peirce's theory. Peirce in fact brought the subjects of the Medieval Trivium into his own Semiotic Trivium, giving to Speculative Grammar the first and most important place of the three Semiotic sciences.