English / Latin · relatio
relation
A carrying-back. What stands between two things, including the one who looks.
Etymology
Latin relatio: a bringing back, a report. English relation kept both the kinship and the more general standing-between. Peirce’s signs are relations, not objects with meanings glued on.1
Semantic range
Observer and image. Two events placed beside one another. Charge between persons. Documented connection versus editorial juxtaposition.2
What the gloss loses
Relation sounds like a fact in the world. Some relations are only in the looking. Some are sourced. The difference matters.
Misuse
Treating juxtaposition as evidence. Treating projection as the whole of a relationship.
What relationship did your mind make, and was it documented?
Notes
- Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879), s.v. relatio.
- Charles S. Peirce, “What Is a Sign?,” in The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings, ed. the Peirce Edition Project, vol. 2, 4–10 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998).
