Peirce on Signs: Writings on Semiotic by Charles Sanders PeirceCharles Sanders Peirce (1839 1914) is rapidly becoming recognized as the greatest American philosopher. At the center of his philosophy was a revolutionary model of the way human beings think. Peirce, a logician, challenged traditional models by describing thoughts not as "ideas" but as "signs," external to the self and without meaning unless interpreted by a subsequent thought. His general theory of signs or semiotic is especially pertinent to