 In the traditional semiotic triangle inherited from Plato and Aristotle, the sign is a symbol and symptom of the passiones animae (concepts/species) in the soul and the latter in turn have a relation of similitude to extra-mental things. And so the relation of sign to thing is indirect. Bacon gets rid of the mediation of concepts/species and has the sign refer directly to the object. In this way, Bacon substitutes an extensional relation for an intensional relation. Words can directly refer to individual things, be they single objects in the world, mental objects, or philosophical concepts. Primarily, then, words refer strictly to the present object. Reference to past or future objects will require the extension of univocal terms by means of analogy or metaphor. Simply because a sign exists, it will not follow from that alone that the object of the sign exists. As we saw above, without the interpreter of the sign, a sign is a sign in name only or potentially. Bacon does not deny the existence of the concept/species, but notes that a second imposition of meaning is required to name it. As Umberto Eco puts it, “Bacon definitely destroys the semiotic triangle that was formulated since Plato, by which the relationship between words and referents is mediated by the idea, or by the concept, or by the definition” (Eco 1989, 61). The relation of sign to concept is reduced to that of a symptom, which is no longer a symbol. Here one can see the preparation of the ground for the semiotics of William of Ockham and late medieval nominalism.