 This is so because every experience is determined (1) by an external object, (2) by our soul and (3) by “the idea of a universal mind” (an “archetypal idea”). Within representations he distinguishes in the early writings between a copy (“a representation whose agreement with its object depends merely upon sameness of predicates”, CE 1.257), a sign (“a representation whose reference to its object is fixed by convention”, CE 1.257) and a symbol (“a representation whose correspondence with its object is of the same immaterial kind as a sign but is founded nevertheless in its very nature” CE 1.323). Later he changed the terminology and used instead of “copy” and “sign” the terms “Icon” and “Index”, which led to his better known distinction between Icon, Index and Symbol as different kinds of representations. Each of these different kinds is determined by a difference in its way of denoting and/or connoting its object while all of them share the characteristics of having to have (1) a relation to an object (2) under a specific form (e.g., similarity, by convention) and (3) a relation to an interpretant, i.e., to a “consciousness” (cf. CE 1.272 f.). From his analysis of the nature of a representation Peirce draws the metaphysical conclusion that “[w]hatever is is a representation” (CE 1.324) or “all is representation” (CE 1.326). He arrives at this conclusion in a somewhat obscure way that seems to be based on the conviction that everything there is represents itself or is a representation of itself under an interpretation. Peirce does not immediately recognize his position as a form of idealism. Rather, because representations are neutral with respect to their status of being material or mental he can think of material objects as representations whose interpretant is either the representation itself or some (non-human) consciousness for which the representation can function as a symbol, and he can think of mental items like general terms or concepts as universals that exist “out there” in a world that comprises next to copies and conventional signs what he calls ideas (cf. CE 1.168). However, it is obvious that this view commits Peirce to a position that implies the (metaphysical) reality of universals, a position he explicitly and happily endorses (cf. CE 1.358 ff.). And the very fact that every representation has both a denotative and a connotative function makes the basic epistemological premise for idealism, namely the necessary isomorphism between knowledge and the known, an element of his view.