On the Interpretants of the Dicent Signs

Abstract

Dicent signs are necessarily composed signs, since it is the syntax of two rhematic ones that determines the final interpretant of existence. For Peirce, as for a certain group of thinkers like Hume and Kant, existence is not a predicate attributable to some classes of subjects but a mode of synthesis. However, in contrast to Kant, Peirce does not consider existence as a plus of perfection to a potential being, but as a restrictive state of being immerse in the theater of reactions. So, there would not be any sense to discuss the existence of the Supreme Being or to suppose thingsin–themselves as the realm of beings outside the representative domain of human Reason.