0139 A brief recap is in order.

Icons are sign-relations where the sign-object is based on the principle of similarity.  Pantomime in hand talk fits this principle.  Pantomime represents ens reale.

Indexes are sign-relations where the sign-object is based on the principles of contact, contiguity and pointing.  Pointing and directional manual-brachial gestures fit this principle.  Pointing represents ens reale.

Symbols are sign-relations where the sign-object is based on the principles of habit, convention, tradition and law.  Symbols do not image or point to ens reale.  However icons and indexes take on the character of symbols as they become, as Tomasello puts it, “conventionalized”.

0140 Now, for the next stage of my examination of Tomasello’s argument on language, I return to the scholastic picture for the way humans think.

0141 I know that each actuality may be rendered as a sign-object for one sign and a sign-vehicle for the next sign. A specifying sign-object_2b (SO_s) induces an exemplar sign vehicle_2b (SV_e).  An exemplar sign-object_2c (SO_e) induces an interventional sign-vehicle_2c (SI_s) and so on.

0142 When I consider each actuality as a sign-object of one of the three signs, I draw the following correlation.

0143 The specifying sign comes first.  The sign-object (SO_s) is perception_2b.  Perception_2b works on icons and indexes in nature as well as in hand talk.  Icons and indexes are sensible signs in this regard.  They have referents that exist in mind-independent reality, ens reale.

0144 The exemplar sign comes next.  The sign-object (SO_e) is a judgment_2c. Typically, this judgment brings an intelligible aspect of perception_2b (what ought to be) into relation with a universal aspect of sensation_2a (what is).  This judgment_2c fits the message of the word, “rational”, because perception_2b and sensation_2a are brought into balance (that is, into a ratio). In doing so, SO_e embodies reason.

Note that I don’t use the term, “manifests”.  I use the term, “embodies”.

Reason is built into our bodies and brains.

0145 The interventional sign comes next.  The sign-object (SO_i) is a symbol, because its sign-vehicle (SV_i) is a judgment and judgments are mind-dependent beings (ens rationis).  This sign-object (SO_i) is decoded into a specifying sign-vehicle (SV_s).  The specifying sign vehicle (SV_s) will be situated as an icon or index (SO_s).

0146 Hand talk exemplifies hominin communication.

Tomasello’s argument on language may be re-articulated using Peircean triadic relations, formulated as the scholastic interscope of the way humans think and three interlocking sign-relations, consisting of the specifying, the exemplar and the interventional signs.

Here is a picture of the result.