Symbolomania and Pragmatophobia

Abstract

Symbols, in the sense of conventional signs used in certain disciplines instead of words, have rendered incomparable services to those disciplines; what is more, some disciplines would have been unable to make even a single step forward had they not been using a system of symbols from the very beginning. (…) When working with (…) symbols we abstract from the concepts and objects which they symbolize (…). We combine and rearrange these symbols in various ways, performing a number of operations on them, and in this way we obtain certain results. But these results, when still in symbolic form, require interpretation; that is why, after having performed our operations (…), we have to move again from the land of symbols to the world of the concepts and objects which they symbolize (…). It is only when we do this that we reach the goal which symbols and operations performed on them make it easier or even possible to reach.