Sextus Empiricus: Logic 351
evident and those that are by nature non-evident are grasped by means
of signs, and not by the same signs, but the former by means of reminiscent
signs and the latter by means of indicative signs.
- According to them, therefore, some signs are reminiscent and
some are indicative. They call a reminiscent sign that which, having been
observed together with [the occasionally non-evident thing] that it is a
sign of, is, because of its being evident to someone at the time it occurs,
a reminder to us of that which it was observed together with, though
the latter is now non-evident; for example, as in the case of smoke and
fire. 101. An indicative sign, they say, is that which is not evidently
observed together with that which it is a sign of, but, as a result of its
own peculiar nature and constitution, signifies that of which it is a sign,
as, for example, the motions of the body are signs of the soul. Hence,
they define this [kind of] sign thus: "an indicative sign is the antecedent
proposition in a sound conditional revelatory of the consequent." 102.
As we said, then, although there are two different signs, we are not
arguing against every sign, but only against the indicative sign, on the
grounds that it seems to have been concocted by the dogmatists. For the
reminiscent sign has been found to be trustworthy by everyday life, since
when someone sees smoke, he takes it as a sign of fire, and seeing a scar
he says that there has been a wound. Hence, not only are we not in
conflict with everyday life, but we are even allied with it, by assenting
undogmatically to that which has been made trustworthy by it, while
opposing only those which have been especially invented by the dogma-
tists.
- It was perhaps appropriate to make these prefatory remarks for
the sake of the clarifying that which is being investigated. It remains for
us to move on to the refutation, not with the desire to show that the
indicative sign does not exist altogether, but with a desire to suggest
that the arguments adduced for its existence and non-existence have
apparently equal force.
Ch. xi Does an Indicative Sign Exist?
- Now the sign, at least as far as concerns what the dogmatists say
about it, is inconceivable. At any rate, the Stoics, who seem to have
described it accurately and who wish to present the conception of the
sign, say that a sign is "the antecedent proposition in a sound conditional
revelatory of the consequent"; they say that a proposition is a complete
lekton [thing said] which makes an assertion on its own; and a sound
conditional is one that does not begin with a truth and end with a falsity.
- For either the conditional begins with a truth and ends with a truth,
as in 'if it is day, it is light' or it begins with a falsehood and ends with
