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==Charles Peirce====Sign==In the typology of [[sign]]s devised by Charles S. [[Peirce]], the North American semiotician, the [[index]] is a [[sign]] which has an "existential [[relationship]]" to the [[object]] it represents (The i.e. the [[index]] is always spatially or temporally contiguous with the [[[object]]).

==Symbol==Peirce contrasts the [[index]] swith with the [[symbol]], which, like [[Saussure]]'s [[concept ]] of the [[sign]], is characterized by the [[absence]] of all necessary connections between the [[sign]] and its [[object]].

[[Lacan]] thus conceives the [[index]] as a "[[nature|natural]]" [[sign]], one in which there is a fixed, bi-univocal correspondence between [[sign]] and [[object]] (unlike the [[signifier]], which has no fixed link with any one [[signified]]).

This opposition between [[index]] and [[signifier]] underpins the following distinctions in [[Lacan]]'s [[work]].

===The psychoanalytic Psychoanalytic and medical concepts Medical Concepts of the symptomSymptom===Whereas in [[medicine]], the [[symptom]] is regarded as an [[index]] of the disease, in [[psychoanalysis]] the [[symptom]] is not an [[index]] but a [[signifier]].<ref>{{E}} p.129</ref>

Hence in [[psychoanalysis ]] there is no one-to-one fixed link between pathological phenomena and the underlying [[structure]].

===Codes (animalAnimal) and language Language (humanHuman)===

This explains why [[code]]s [[lack ]] the most important feature of [[language]]: its potential for ambiguity and equivocation.

The opposition between [[signifier]] and [[index]] is complicated by the [[existence ]] of certain [[signifier]]s whch which also function as [[index|indices]]; these are called [[shifter]]s.

{{See}}* [[codeCode]]* [[Language]]||* [[Linguistics]]* [[Shifter]]||* [[Sign]]* [[Signified]]||* [[Signifier]]* [[Structure]]||* [[Symbol]]* [[Symptom]]{{Also}}

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