Iconicity in classical philosophy

Abstract This chapter traces the history of linguistic iconicity theories in Greco-Roman philosophical culture, analyzing texts by Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Nigidius Figulus, and St. Augustine. It provides detailed information about the content and context of these theories, linking them to current knowledge and distinguishing a conventionalist, a mimetic, and a mythopoetic type of iconicity. It outlines a historical-epistemological interpretation of their mutual relationships and their differences from modern theories, which are generally more oriented toward arbitrariness. The proposed hypothesis is that ancient theories of iconicity were rationalizations of the ancestral performative language skills that prehistoric oral poetry bequeathed to the emerging written culture. The views of the different authors reflect ideological and biographical differences vis-à-vis orality and literacy within the framework of the historical evolution of alphabetic technologies.