Representamen, from repraesentamen

Quote from the Century Dictionary via the CD Online Project, also via Internet Archive from the 1889–1891 first edition of CD, in CD Volume 5, CD Part 17 Q–Ring (1890), CD page 5088, and identically via Google Books from the last full printing, the 1914 printing of the 1911 edition, CD Volume 4, CD page 5088:

representamen (rep˝rẹ̄-zen-tā´men), n. [< NL. *repræsentamen, < L. repræsentare, represent: see represent.]   In metaph., representation; an object serving to represent something to the mind.   Sir W. Hamilton.

"Representamen" is one of the words of which Peirce had charge in the Century Dictionary (see list of "R" words at PEP-UQÀM).

The Century Dictionary puts the asterisk of conjecture before the New Latin form repraesentamen. I Googled up a number of occurrences of the word in actual (not merely glossary) New Latin use, in singular and plural and in most noun cases (nominative, genitive, etc. and, since then, in all the standard five cases).

I added a set of quotations with Google Books links in a footnote (once there, scroll toward bottom and click on 'quotations') in the Wiktionary entry for "representamen" in order to establish its actual use in New Latin, but eventually the material was moved, in somewhat truncated form, to the Wiktionary entry for "repraesentamen". Back on the Wiktionary "representamen" page, one would need to happen to click on "repraesentamen" under "Etymology" in order to have a chance of encountering the quotations. So I'm putting all of that and other material from the old page (and correcting & adding things) here where one does not need to bounce between pages or click on a tiny word in order to view the quotations. (Wiktionary Creative Commons license.)

Etymology

From New Latin repraesentamen, -aminis,[1] from Latin repraesentare, "to bring back", "to display", "to represent", "to pay immediately", "to perform immediately".

Pronunciation

The primary stress falls on the "a" in the fourth syllable.

Singular "representamen" rhymes with "laymen" and "stamen".

• IPA^(key):  /ˌrɛp.rə.zɛn.ˈteɪ.mən/
• enPR:  rĕp'-rə-zĕn-tāʹ-mən
• Rhymes:  -eɪmən

Plural "representamina" rhymes with "stamina".

• IPA^(key):  /ˌrɛp.rə.zɛn.ˈta.mɪ.nə/
• enPR:  rĕp'-rə-zĕn-tăʹ-mĭ-nə

The pronunciations of "representamen" and "representamina" follow the pattern of their etymological parallels "stamen", "stamina", "foramen", "foramina".

Noun

representamen (plural representamina or representamens)

1. A representation, a thing serving to represent something (as to an interpreting mind). It is a representation in the sense of something which represents, as opposed to its operation or relation of representing, and also as opposed to a process or activity of representing, which produces it. (The produced representamen can itself seem or be a process or activity, for example a song or a theatrical performance, or a rock's tumbling in an informative way, or a logical argument). Compare sign.
   • circa 1897: Charles Sanders Peirce, Collected Papers, volume 2, paragraph 228:

     A sign, or representamen, is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity.

Quotations

• " representamen (rep˝rẹ̄-zen-tā´men), n. [< NL. *repræsentamen, < L. repræsentare, represent: see represent.]   In metaph., representation; an object serving to represent something to the mind.   Sir W. Hamilton." — C. S. Peirce, quoting Sir W. Hamilton, for the Century Dictionary, first edition 1889–1891, page 5088 (1890) and the same page in later editions and printings through 1914.
• "The Leibnitzio-Wolfians, on the other hand, distinguished three acts in the process of representative cognition:—1º the act of representing a (mediate) object to the mind; 2º the representation, or, to speak more properly, representamen, itself as an (immediate or vicarious) object exhibited to the mind; 3º the act by which the mind is conscious, immediately of the representative object, and, through it, of the remote object represented. They called the first Perception; the last Apperception; the second Idea—sensual, to wit, for what they styled the material Idea was only an organic motion propagated to the brain, which, on the doctrine of the pre-established harmony, is in sensitive cognition the arbitrary concomitant of the former, and, of course, beyond the sphere of consciousness or apperception." — Sir William Hamilton, The Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, Bart., 2nd edition, 1863, page 413, note, via Google Books. The Century Dictionary, in its entry for "apperception" (via Google Books), quotes the passage (shortened and with some variations of spelling and punctuation) and attributes it to Hamilton in Reid, page 877, note. Reid presumably is Additional Notes to Reid's Works, from Sir W. Hamilton's Manuscripts, under the editorship of HL Mansel, D.D., 1862 (of which no copy seemed viewable online when last I looked).
• "When it is desired to distinguish between that which represents and the act or relation of representing, the former may be termed the ‘representamen,’ the latter the ‘representation.’ " — C. S. Peirce, The Baldwin Dictionary, volume 2, 1902, page 464, "Represent," reprinted in the Collected Papers volume 2, paragraph 273.
• "I confine the word representation to the operation of a sign or its relation to the object for the interpreter of the representation. The concrete subject that represents I call a sign or a representamen." — C. S. Peirce, Lowell Lectures, 1903, Collected Papers. volume 1, paragraph 540. See at Commens.
• "Possibly there may be Representamens that are not Signs." — C. S. Peirce, "A Syllabus of Certain Topics of Logic", 1903, the Essential Peirce, volume 2, pages 272–3. See at Commens.
• "It is the science of what is quasi-necessarily true of the representamina of any scientific intelligence in order that they may hold good of any object, that is, may be true." — C. S. Peirce, circa 1897, Collected Papers, volume 2, paragraph 229. See at Mail Archive.
• Four instances of "representamina" used by John Deely, Four Ages of Understanding (2001, U of Toronto Press), page 726 via Google Books limited preview.

Notes

[1] The Century Dictionary puts the asterisk of conjecture before the New Latin form repraesentamen, but the word occurs in both singular and plural in the standard five noun cases:

• in the nominative singular, repraesentamen,
  • in Johannes Flender, 1731 fourth edition of Phosphorus philosophicus novissimus, seu logica contracta Claubergiana, page 12 (via Google Books), column 1:

    […] sive, cogitatio, quæ est imago et repræsentamen ejus rei, quam concipimus, quô modô forma seu essentia ideæ consistit in repræsentatione rei; sive in eo, quòd sit rei repræsentamen, […]. [italic emphases in original]

    which is quoted with some rephrasing in Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton, Bart., by Sir William Hamilton, arranged and edited by Orlando Williams Wight, 1850, page 264 (via Google Books), as follows:

     ‘ […] prout est cogitatio intellectus hanc vel illam rem representans,—quo modo forma seu essentia ideae consistit in representatione rei, sive in eo quod sit representamen vel imago ejus rei quam concipimus.’ (Phosph. Philos. § 5.) [italic emphases in original]

  • in a 1699 Latin letter from Johann Bernoulli to Gottfried Leibniz, published in Leibniz's Mathematische Schriften, volume 3, letter XCV, page 580 (via Google Books Halle edition of 1850):

    Si per similitudinem intelligas ideam ipsam seu repraesentamen, quo objectum menti sistitur tanquam in pictura, eam sane non exsibilant Cartesiani.

• in the nominative plural, repraesentamina,
  • in Benedict de (or Baruch) Spinoza, Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, 1670, page 48 (via Google Books), and reprinted (sans ligature) in Opera quae supersunt onmia, volume 3, 1846, page 66 (via Google Books):

    […] quod alicujus boni sint repræsentamina […].

• in the genitive singular, repraesentaminis,
  • in Gottfried Leibniz (1664–1716), in a collection of his works Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, volume 2 (1879), see page 215 (via Google Books):

    […] a quo nihil repraesentaminis possim tollere […].

    and further examples on pages 220, 222, 225, 226, 227, and 228 (via Google Books).
• in the genitive plural, repraesentaminum,
  • in Jacob Nieuwenhuis, Initia Philosophiae Logicae, 1831, multiple instances, such as page 120 (via Google Books):

    Veritas logica est convenientia repraesentaminum nostrorum inter se et cum legibus cogitandi.

• in the dative singular, repraesentamini,
  • in Antonius Driessen, Diatribe de Principiis et Legibus Theologiae Emblematicae, Allegoricae, Typicae & Propheticae, 1717, page 6 (via Google Books):

    §. V. Aliquando Oratio sacra χίματι Emblematico, vel Metaphorico plane inhaeret, animumque velut iidem repraesentamini alligat; […]

• in the dative plural, repraesentaminibus,
  • in Christian Wolff (1679-1754), Gesammelte Werke, 1996, Google link no longer works, page 695? (it was text quoted in a search result):

    […] externis rerum repraesentaminibus non absimiles.

    A Google search on some other text from that search result led to a result for Israel Gottlieb Canz, but the title page image was of the 1996 edition of Gesammelte Werke by Christian Wolff. The search still leads there but without mention of Canz, but still with a 5-line snippet identical in word and appearance to something in a book ascribed to Canz. Canz was an early editor of Wolff's collected works. A book by Canz, titled Meditationes philosophicae, contains all the text discussed above, on the same Page 695. So maybe some text in Wolff's book is really by Canz? Or vice versa? Here is the text in question, complete with the "long s" ("ſ") characters:

    §. 817.   Imago, prout ſignificat opus externum […]. §. 818.   Qui ſubſtantias ſimplices, & ſpeciatim, ſpiritus, dari negant; illi in cerebro hominis non admittunt, niſi imagines rerum materiales, externis rerum repræſentaminibus abſimiles.

• in the accusative singular, repraesentamen,
  • in Hermannus Venema, Institutiones historiae ecclesiae […], Tomus IV, 1780, page 436 (via Google Books):

    § LIII. […] sed sacrificii cruci repraesentamen et commemorationem […].

• in the accusative plural, repraesentamina,
  • in Salomanis van Til, Opus Analyticum, comprehendens Introductionem in Sacram Scripturam, Editio Secunda correctior, Tomus II, 1724, page 289 (via Google Books):

    ii. Divisio jubet nos attendere ad tria distincta repræsentamina.

• in the ablative singular, repraesentamine,
  • in Gisbertus Voetius (Gijsbert Voet) (1589-1676), in a selection Tractatus selecti de politica ecclesiastica (1885), page 84 at foot of page (via Google Books):

    De repraesentamine Ecclesiae […].

• in the ablative plural, repraesentaminibus,
  • in Amadeo De La Rive, in Logica ad usum studiosæ juventutis (1756), page 179 (via Google Books):

    […] pro rectis rerum repræsentaminibus habeant.