Understanding World, Other, and Self beyond the Anthropological Paradigm: A Signo-Interpretational Approach 9783110592078, 9783110589917

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Martin Pasgaard-Westerman Understanding World, Other, and Self beyond the Anthropological Paradigm

Berlin Studies in Knowledge Research

Edited by Günter Abel and James Conant

Volume 13

Martin Pasgaard-Westerman

Understanding World, Other, and Self beyond the Anthropological Paradigm A Signo-Interpretational Approach

Series Editors Prof. Dr. Günter Abel Technische Universität Berlin Institut für Philosophie Straße des 17. Juni 135 10623 Berlin Germany e-mail: [email protected] Prof. Dr. James Conant The University of Chicago Dept. of Philosophy 1115 E. 58th Street Chicago IL 60637 USA e-mail: [email protected]

ISBN 978-3-11-058991-7 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-059207-8 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-059113-2 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018950153 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com.

For Aimée ‒ who always sets me free

Acknowledgements The present book is the revised version of my doctoral dissertation, which was accepted by the Faculty of Philosophy at the Technical University, Berlin in June 2017. I wish to express my sincerest thanks to my Doktorvater Dr. Günter Abel for his inspiring, encouraging, and competent support and advice, both philosophically and personally. Also, my sincere thanks to Dr. Tilman Borsche for acting as second reader, for his thorough, professional and earnest commitment to reading and challenging my theses, and for the detailed letter of certification he submitted on my behalf. Also thanks to Dr. Christoph Asmuth for acting as chairman of the dissertation committee. Thanks also to the De Gruyter publishing house and editor Christoph Schirmer for accepting the book in their program, and for their professional and competent transformation of the manuscript. I also thank editors James Conant and Günter Abel for their acceptance of the manuscript within the Berlin Studies in Knowledge Research series. Further, I thank Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst DAAD for a one-year research grant. Finally, I wish to thank all those who have supported and inspired me philosophically and personally: Christian Pasgaard, David Possen, Astrid Wagner and Christian Benne. Also, I wish to thank all the others who have encouraged and assisted me in the process: my parents, my family, Jacob Frandsen, Bjørn B. Johansen and Therese Kühn Johansen, Janet and David Westerman. Thanks to my children, Ophelia, Aglaia, and Joshua, and above all thanks to my wife Aimée, not only for proofreading the entire manuscript, but also for her patience, understanding and support throughout.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110592078-001

Contents Introduction

1

 . . .

Interpretation – Man – Skepticism The Interpretational Turn 3 The Anthropological Paradigm The Skeptical Challenge 8

3

 . .

Philosophy of Signs and Interpretations 11 Man-Signs The Skeptical Disposition 12



Self-Referentiality as Signo-Interpretational Process

5

10

16

Part I “Who Interprets?” Agent, Process and the Ending of the Semiosis 

Man as Meta-Interpreting Being – Lenk’s Methodological Interpretationism 27



Man as Individual Understanding – Simon’s Philosophy of the Sign 39



Man as Signo-Interpretational Process – Abel’s Philosophy of Sign and Interpretation 55



Signo-Interpretational Processes: Genealogy, Creativity, Critique 72 Interpretation as Reflective Genealogy 73 Interpretation as Creativity 77 Digression: A Trans-Hermeneutical Approach to Man and Finitude 83 Interpretation as Critique 89

. . . .

X

Contents

Part II Man as Signo-interpretational Being – The Skeptical Disposition towards World, Other, and Self  . . . .

The Skeptical Disposition 103 Facticity and Interpretation – Augmented Skepticism 104 Consistency of Signs and Disciplines of Interpretation – Mitigated 108 Skepticism 114 Interpretation as Correction – The Skeptical Tendency Freedom and Autonomy – The Skeptical Attitude 116

 . . .. .. ..

Interpretations of World 123 Significant Other 124 Signs of World 133 138 Signs of Reality Truth-Signs 139 Worlds and Versions 144

 Interpretations of Others 147 . Type, Character, Person 148 . Signs of Others 156 158 .. “Misinterpretations” .. Freedom of the Other 161  Interpretations of Self 165 . Actor-Signs and Author-Signs . Signs of Self 175 .. Experiences of Self 176 .. Negations of Self 186 Literature

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Subject index Index of names

196 199

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Introduction Philosophy of signs and interpretation pertains to our fundamental relation to world, other, and self. It concerns the way we act and think within a world of meaning (and sometimes no meaning); how world, other, and self is structured yet fluctuating, fixed yet dynamic; how we are carried away yet actively engaged. It understands our way of life and our way of thinking as dynamic signo-interpretational practices and man as signo-interpretational being. This ontologically and epistemologically rather radical position naturally leads to a skeptical challenge with regard to our relation to world, other, and self. Yet, this inherent skeptical challenge is neither terminal nor laming but offers a both theoretical and ethical new direction beyond the extreme dichotomy of either static structures or an everchanging flux. The essential constituent of this signo-interpretational approach is in turn a skeptical disposition towards world, other, and self, which not only mitigates the initial skeptical challenge and upholds a critical potential but furthermore founds an original signo-interpretational conception of man in its relation to world, other, and self. This conception of man establishes a definite comprehension of the perpetual processes of interpretation well aware that no “center” is to avail, yet at the same time avoids the suggestive withdrawal into the mere negative of a “post-”, “de-”, or “a-”, point of view. It is the formulation a new positive, namely a conception of man as signo-interpretational being continually interpreted in relation to world, other, and self.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110592078-002

1 Interpretation – Man – Skepticism 1.1 The Interpretational Turn Interpretation may be said to be a key notion if not the defining concept in contemporary philosophy. In addition to the well-known linguistic turn, we may describe contemporary philosophical endeavours in their cohesive awareness of the interpretational character of perception, language, cognition and actions, as an interpretational turn. Still, have we not always interpreted our being in the world, our perceptions and thoughts? Without doubt! However, the crux is that the turn towards interpretation as foundational to our being in the world is not a mere addition to our perceptive, cognitive, linguistic and acting faculties, but rather constitutive for the relation to world, other, and self. The point of departure is in other words, that perception, cognition, language and actions are always and already interpretative and world, other, and self therefore are but signs; at the same time given and in the making. The primacy of interpretation in our relation to world, other, and self is unthinkable without a conception of the sign. A connection perhaps most concretely expressed in the early work of Peirce, namely in the initial double insight, that 1) “we have no power of thinking without signs”¹; understood in the wider sense, that “whenever we think, we have present to the consciousness some feeling, image, conception, or other representation, which serves as a sign”²; and 2) that any sign is part of a triadic relation between sign, object and interpretant³, whereby thinking as such is an unlimited semiosis or an infinite process of signinterpretations.⁴ The signo-interpretational philosophy is not solely abstract theorizing about the nature of thinking in general or the conduct of scientific research in partic-

 Peirce, Some Consequences of Four Incapacities, 1960, p. 158.  Peirce, Some Consequences of Four Incapacities, 1960, p. 169.  “A sign, or representamen, is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity. It addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign. That sign which it creates I call the interpretant of the first sign. The sign stands for something, its object.” Peirce, Speculative Grammar, 1960, p. 135.  “The meaning of a representation can be nothing but a representation. In fact, it is nothing but the representation itself conceived as stripped of irrelevant clothing. But this clothing never can be completely stripped off; it is only changed for something more diaphanous. So there is an infinite regression here. Finally, the interpretant is nothing but another representation to which the torch of truth is handed along; and as representation, it has its interpretant again. Lo, another infinite series.” Peirce, The Normative Sciences, 1960, p. 339. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110592078-003

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ular, but rather concerns how world other, and self are fundamentally constituted and working. In some way or another interpretations and signs are basic components when we think, communicate, act and perceive. Interpretation is thus a general conception covering a broad variety of activities e. g. creating and phrasing an argument; deciphering a text; proposing a hypothesis; playing a game; engaging in a conversation; seeing; sensing; hearing; being attentive; acting; ordering and systematizing; recognizing, identifying, delineating, etc. Correspondingly, signs are understood in a broad sense as something being meaningful. As such everything is a sign in so far as it is understood as something – as this and this – as so and so. Even when we do not understand or when something occurs to us as being meaningless, it is still in this broad sense a sign, namely in the sense of something without meaning. A sign thus does not merely serve as a representation for something else, but broadly refers to everything which in some way or another is something specific. The interpretational turn is not only evident in explicitly semiotic approaches, but is further regarded as a natural point of departure within a variety of philosophies spanning from existentialism, phenomenology and hermeneutics to contemporary philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and pragmatism; within literary criticism, cultural studies, anthropology and even particular branches of the natural sciences. Nonetheless, the interpretational turn is of a much older province than its contemporary upsurge suggests.⁵ It belongs within a much greater philosophical tradition, which can be traced back from its contemporary representatives to the classical works of the 19th and 20th century; from early modernity, medieval and scholastic theories to the ancient sources in Greek philosophy.⁶ Of course, one could argue that the breadth of the definition and the commitment to such a wide heir evades any analytical rigor and conceptual precision. Notwithstanding, the following is an attempt to determine the notion of interpretation further and to oppose the customary (if not completely automatized) appraisal that the concept of interpretation is much too widely defined in order to have any distinguishing function. Exactly because of its breadth, the notion of interpretation proves its value as a thorough philosophical concept; one might say: exactly proven by its already widespread use. Yet, while a historical trace-

 Cf. Mersch, Zeichen über Zeichen. Texte zur Semiotik von Charles Sanders Peirce bis zu Umberto Eco und Jacques Derrida, 1998, p. 16.  Cf. Ritter/Gründer/Gabriel, “Interpretation”, Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, vol. 4, 1976, p. 514; Meier-Oeser, Die Spur des Zeichens. Das Zeichen und seine Funktion in der Philosophie des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit, 1997; Ritter/Gründer/Gabriel, “Zeichen”, Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, vol. 12, 2004, p. 1155 – 1171.

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search and the inclusion of a broad scope of scientific disciplines and philosophical traditions are of great relevance and interest, the aim of the following concentrates solely on a further analysis and discussion of the philosophical notion of interpretation with point of departure in the absolute pinnacle of its philosophical scrutiny, viz. contemporary philosophy of signs and interpretations.

1.2 The Anthropological Paradigm Alongside the interpretational turn a certain anthropological paradigm is evident within contemporary philosophy; a paradigm where the foremost philosophical interest is man. Again, it may be asked if not all philosophy, from the pre-socratic thinkers to present days, in some way or another, is about man? It is so! Yet, the anthropological paradigm manifest in major parts of contemporary philosophy sets man as the main concept to which everything else become secondary. It is possible to trace back this tendency to the early modernity,⁷ if not further, and regardless whether its contemporary rise is a direct result of a more general experience in “our time”, viz. the lack of a uniform idea of man (Scheler)⁸; or as a natural consequence of our increasingly autonomous epistemological stand⁹; it defines our present philosophical view and understanding of the world. As such I use “anthropological paradigm” as a general label in so far as the main concern is man whether positive or negative, hence comprising both the seemingly contradictory attempts to formulate a genuine philosophical anthropology¹⁰ as well as the endeavours to grasp thinking and world beyond any anchoring in anthropological categories altogether.

 Cf. Landmann, Philosophische Anthropologie. Menschliche Selbstdeutung in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 1964.  Scheler’s description of the situation in 1928 may as well encircle the situation of our time. Cf. “Thus, we have a theological, philosophical, and a scientific anthropology before us but which, as it were, have no concerns with each other: yet we do not have one uniform idea of the human being. The ever-growing number of special disciplines which deal with the human being conceal, rather than reveal, his nature, no matter how valuable these disciplines may be. Furthermore, the said three ideas are severely shaken today, especiallys Darwin’s solution of the origin of the human being. Hence, one can say that in no historical era has the human being become so much of a problem to himself as in ours.” Scheler, The Human Place in the Cosmos, 2009, p. 5.  Cf. Hackenesch, Die Weltlichkeit der Wahrheit. Anthropologie als Theorie der Erkenntnis?, 2002, p. 3.  The Philosophical anthropology is a relatively young discipline stemming from Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798). Kant’s late work is both in aim and scope constrained to ethnological-psychological descriptions, but nonetheless established anthropology

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Now, in order to undercut the inherent dichotomies and dead-ends traditionally emerging within the philosophical anthropology and within the anti-anthropological approaches (e. g. Heidegger, Derrida, Foucault), another approach is proposed, namely that of an anthropological philosophy. With the title, anthropological philosophy, the focus is on philosophy, rather than on what counts as anthropological. It is thus more a label of a way of doing philosophy, than a title of a specific field within philosophy; a way of thinking which is mainly concerned about how man is thought. The main question within such an anthropological philosophy may thus be formulated in the traditional Kantian version: what is man? ¹¹ – albeit focusing on the very character of the question, rather than its possible answers. This question is posed by man and concerns man itself, whereby an initial self-referentiality is proposed and addressed at the same time. Consequently, a hesitant stand towards the very formulation of the question is taken: should we not rather ask who or how man is? Anthropological philosophy thus exceeds the scientific enquiries of man, which in its numerous descriptions of man’s distinctive physical, biological and neurological marks or cultural achievements necessarily presumes a determination of man in order to describe it. Further, the proposed anthropological philosophy exceeds the traditional philosophical anthropology, which understands man fundamentally as a living creature and thus with a phrase from Heidegger, in a sense already knows what man is, and therefore cannot ask how or who it is.¹² Furthermore, the anthropological philosophy necessarily exceeds the futile engagement in receiving and answering the arrival of a Heideggerian being, i. e. the attempt to let thinking take place beyond any anchoring in man, whether this thinking is understood as “thinking of being”(Heidegger), deconstruction or discourse. The anthropological philosophy is in other words the overall endeavour to address the initial self-referentiality in the question about what, who or how man is, whereby the original matter is the self-interpretation(s) of man.

as part of the philosophical interest. Since Kant numerous works may be classified as anthropological, from Schulze, Fries, Fichte, Michelet, Herder, Feuerbach, Comte, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche to the rise in early 20th century, where philosophical anthropology became fashion as a direct consequence of the “philosophy of life” most prominent in the works of e. g. Dilthey, Scheler, Plessner, Gehlen and Cassirer. This tradition is still predominant in continental philosophy notably in e. g. Gadamer, Marquard, Blumenberg, Sloterdijk and Tugendhat.  I. Kant, Lectures on Logic, 1992, p. 538.  Heidegger, Die Zeit des Weltbildes, 2003 p. 111. Philosophical anthropology is in general concerned with describing man’s distinguishing features, yet normally understanding man as animal and from this point of departure disputing the possible characters of this animal. Cf. Hackenesch, Die Weltlichkeit der Wahrheit. Anthropologie als Theorie der Erkenntnis. 2002, p. 5.

1.2 The Anthropological Paradigm

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Whilst abstaining from speculating about the possible causes and interdependency of the surge of the interpretational turn and the anthropological paradigm, it is sufficient to state their simultaneous occurrence and reciprocity. Hölderlin’s famous line “We are a sign, impossible to interpret”;¹³ Peirce’s concept of man as a sign¹⁴; Nietzsche’s characterization of man as sign-inventing being;¹⁵ or Cassirer’s definition of man as animal symbolicum;¹⁶ may stand out as exemplary cases, yet the interchange of the turn towards interpretation and signs on the one hand and the rise in philosophical enquiries of man on the other hand, is evidently a general tendency. However, although thinking man as an interpretative and semiotic being, a certain naturalism is nonetheless manifest within this tendency, namely a naturalistic understanding of sign and interpretation and thus of man. I set apart a conception of naturalism in a narrow and a broad sense. In a narrow sense, naturalism is equivalent to a form of materialism where man is comprehensible in all its aspects by means of explanations and descriptions carried out within the scope of the natural sciences. In a broad sense, naturalism is the understanding of man as a living creature and as such part of life or nature, within which man’s nature is seen in relation to life as a whole, whether understood teleologically, as strive for preservation, fight for survival or generally as biological, cognitive, psychological and cultural evolution. Now, the naturalistic tendency within the effort of conceiving man as an interpretational and semiotic being corresponds to this latter broad sense of naturalism. It is evident in a predominant figure of grasping man as well as the act of interpretation and the particular signs on the basis of some initial life-sustaining needs. This naturalism is not only consistent with explicit materialistic-evolutionary conceptions of man, but further constitutive in philosophies normally regarded as de-naturalized approaches, such as phenomenology and hermeneutics. Here a certain naturalization is evident exactly in the anthropological categories of finitude, deficiency, alienation, vulnerability, openness, contingency and chaos on the one hand and categories of compensation, reconciliation, mastering, individuating and ordering on the other hand. These anthropological categories all repeat a certain understanding of the man-world relation consequent of a more fundamental naturalistic explanation of man as an instinct-lacking animal or an incomplete being in need of compensations. Perhaps this naturalism lies inherent in the notions of interpretation and sign – namely as an inherent naturalistic suggestion,

   

Hölderlin, Mnemosyne [Zweite Fassung], 1953, p. 203, [my translation]. Peirce, Some Consequences of Four Incapacities, 1960, p. 185. Nietzsche, The Gay Science. #354, 2001, p. 213. Cassirer, An Essay on Man: An introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture, 1944.

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when conceiving interpretation and sign as functions. Interpretation is thus traditionally “explanation of” or “clarification of”¹⁷, i. e. an act with the goal or function of explaining or clarifying something as “something”. In a similar vein, the sign is originally seen – from Parmenides to contemporary semiotics – as having an epistemic function, whether serving as proof (Parmenides), prognosis (Hippocrates), indication (Cicero), medium of knowledge (Augustine, Leibniz), communication (Hobbes, Locke), expression of meaning (Frege, Wittgenstein), intentionality (Husserl), showing, orientation (Heidegger), linguistic value (Saussure), trace (Derrida) or social code (Eco).¹⁸ On the basis of such functionalistic understandings, both interpretation and sign adhere to a wider naturalistic perspective as functions of life without further difficulty. This kind of naturalism is predominantly apparent in the various philosophical anthropologies from Scheler, Gehlen and Plessner to contemporary enquiries as a double determination of man as both natural (“life” or “animal”) and transcending this mere natural “animal being”, regardless that the “animal being” is thought a-substantial and regardless how this “more”, this secondary quality, is understood.¹⁹ The main problem within this naturalistic scheme is that any self-determination becomes nothing but an arbitrary and intelligible addition to our animal/natural being.²⁰ Yet, that we are such animals/natural beings is taken as a matter of fact and not questioned further. The assignment is in contrast to think man’s self-determination beyond the duality of a “natural” and a “conceptual”/ “intelligible” layer and therefore not to add yet another secondary quality to our fundamental “animal” being, but rather to elaborate that what we understand as natural and how we understand ourselves as animal or life, are also merely interpretations, i. e. certain self-determinations and as such man-signs.

1.3 The Skeptical Challenge Together the interpretational turn and the anthropological paradigm echo the increasing attention to not only specific skeptical problems within an epistemological perspective, but also the renewed concentration on skepticism as a general method of philosophical enquiry and/or skepticism as way of life. When every-

 Cf. Anton, Interpretation, 1976, p. 514.  Cf. Meier-Oeser, Zeichen, 2004, p. 1155 – 1171; Frank, Zeichen, 2004, p. 1172– 1179.  Cf. Hackenesch, Die Weltlichkeit der Wahrheit. Anthropologie als Theorie der Erkenntnis. 2002, p. 5.  Cf. Gerhardt, Selbstbestimmung. Zur Bedingung einer Frage, die zugleich deren erste Antwort ist. 2008, p. 9.

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thing, which is, is by way of interpretation, then any ontological difference is abandoned in favour of a signo-interpretational difference and any idea of the “real” or “things themselves” is not only unattainable but as such futile concepts. The interpretational turn describes that when everything is understood as merely interpretations, then everything could have been different. When furthermore every interpretation is bound to man as interpreter, yet even this selfreferential proposition is nothing but interpretation, we face an augmented skepticism concerning our understanding of world, other, and self. The initial layout of the philosophy of signs and interpretations therefore holds an inner skeptical challenge, and accordingly it may be expected to answer this challenge if to be taken seriously. The following is first and foremost founded on the idea that the philosophy of signs and interpretations responds to this skeptical challenge in a double way, which equally refutes its extreme consequences and upholds its critical potential: while driving the skeptical proposition to an extreme, the devastating consequences of an excessively skeptical stand proves chimerical by referring to the very same signo-interpretational propositions, which introduced the skeptical challenge in the first place. The alleged excessive skepticism inherent in the signo-interpretational approach is thus mitigated and instead offers both a theoretical principle as way of thinking and an ethical principle as way of life understood as a signo-interpretational skeptical disposition.

2 Philosophy of Signs and Interpretations The trinity of the interpretational turn, the anthropological paradigm and the skeptical challenge, defines the scope of contemporary philosophy of signs and interpretations, embodied in the philosophical works of Hans Lenk, Josef Simon and Günter Abel. Despite substantial methodological and theoretical differences, the common point of departure is that perception, cognition, language and action fundamentally and inescapably are of interpretational character. The shared orientation towards – and continuous dialogue with – the classical works of Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Peirce, Heidegger and Wittgenstein draw up the range of philosophical enquiries undertaken. Now, the point of departure is not that everything is interpretation and sign, but that perception, cognition, language and action are of signo-interpretational nature. This is first and foremost critical towards any metaphysics of the sign and of interpretation, wherefore any endeavour of an ontological, rational, transcendental, structural, historical, existential (Heidegger) or naturalist formation or determination of these is abandoned in favour of an attempt to grasp the interplay of signs and interpretations as prior to any such determination. Accordingly, the aim is not to provide detailed classifications of different types of signs,²¹ but to understand sign and interpretation as a reciprocally complementing set of concepts characterizing our relation to world, other, and self.  Contemporary approaches in philosophical semiotics to give a scientific definition of what a sign is and thus to formulate a semiotic theory are incommensurable with the philosophy of signs and interpretations. An exemplary case in point is Umberto Eco’s semiotic theory in which the different processes of sign-usage, different classifications of signs and the inner structure of the sign itself are understood on the base of a minmal catalogue of definitions. The basic premise of Eco’s outline of a semiotic theory is that it is possible to find a common structure based on the vast variety of phenomena that are characterised as signs in our everyday life language, which can be utilized to formulate a general definition of the sign. By means of such a general definition of the sign, Eco believes to be able to eliminate the so-called philosophical problems of the sign, if not by solving them, then at least acknowledging them as insolvable, within the borders of his semiotic theory. Eco reduces the so-called philosophical problems to five main questions, namely 1) a philosophical-anthropological approach concerning man as a symbolic creature; 2) a metaphysical approach in which the world is conceived as a pan-semiotic structure; 3) a theoretical approach with respect to explaining the relation between sign, thinking and reality and thus providing the foundation for an ontology of the sign; 4) a linguistic approach regarding the difficulties of meaning and reference; 5) an epistemological approach as to explicate the unlimited semiosis and the interpretant. The difficulties inherent to this reduction are obvious. The reduction has already determined what a sign is, before the enquiry commences. A sign is defined as a stand in and thus follows the Aristotelian sign conception uncritically. Cf. Eco, Zeichen. Einführung in einem Begriff und seine Geschichte. 1977, p. 108 ff. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110592078-004

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2.1 Man-Signs The double perspective of an interpretational turn and an anthropological paradigm within the philosophy of signs and interpretations is crystallized in a concrete problem of principal importance: when thinking takes place as an unlimited semiosis in which every sign has its object and its interpretant, the question of how to understand man becomes fixed within a dichotomy of anthropocentrism or de-anthropocentrism²², as either 1) the interpretant to which a sign is a sign, or 2) as a sign itself; i. e. as either sign-user or sign. ²³ Although admitted that this dichotomy may be said to be inherent to every semiotic or interpretational approach as such, the question of man is not exhausted in this dual perspective and cannot be reduced to a choice between the two. Rather, the duality of either an anthropocentric or de-anthropocentric approach must itself be abandoned. An abandoning which Peirce already indicates, when transforming the anthropological question about the essence of man, the Kantian question “what is man”²⁴, into the more fundamental question: “what distinguishes a man from a word?”²⁵ In this perplexing question a central distinction becomes clear, namely that the dichotomy between man as sign-user and man as sign is not primordial but posterior to the process of interpretation. Because, when man is a sign, the very question, whether the sign is prior or subsequent to man, i. e. the question do signs make man or does man make signs, becomes futile.²⁶ Instead we should ask: what characterizes and distinguishes man-signs from other signs? Exactly the point Peirce had in mind, in his above mentioned question. From this point of departure, the task is thus to formulate a specific signo-interpretational philosophy beyond the anthropocentric/de-anthropocentric dichotomy.

 Cf. Schönrich, Optionen einer Zeichenphilosophie. 1991, p. 180.  Peirce has given a remarkably clear formulation of this problem in a passage from the early work Some Consequences of Four Incapacities: “It is that the word or sign which man uses is the man himself. For, as the fact that every thought is a sign, taken in conjunction with the fact that life is a train of thought, proves that man is a sign; so, that every thought is an external sign, proves that man is an external sign. That is to say, the man and the external sign are identical, in the same sense in which the words homo and man are identical. Thus my language is the sum total of myself; for the man is the thought.” Peirce, Some Consequences of Four Incapacities. 1960, p. 189.  Kant, Lectures on Logic. 1992, p. 538.  Peirce, Some Consequences of Four Incapacities. 1960, p. 188.  As such I see the actual potential of an original signo-interpretational approach to be the abandoning of this dualism, not the attempt to mediate between them, as Schönrich suggests. Cf. Schönrich, Optionen einer Zeichenphilosophie. 1991, p. 200.

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The question of how to understand man in the philosophy of signs and interpretations is mainly expressed negatively in opposition to metaphysical understandings. It is tentatively outlined as enquiries into classical themes of subjectivity and the self, concentrating on the time-relative, concrete and finite nature of these. Simultaneously, both ethical and political matters concerning the other become imperative. Yet a systematic approach towards an original signo-interpretational conception of man in relation to world, other, and self is deficient and remains to be unfolded. Further, the different conceptions of man within the philosophy of signs and interpretations all, either directly or indirectly, reflect the antinomy of anthropocentrism/de-anthropocentrism. The original potential lies not in yet another variation on this theme but in the abandoning of it. The main idea is that when everything which is, is interpreted signs, the anthropocentric/de-anthropocentric dichotomy becomes void in so far as every man-sign necessarily must be understood as a manifestation of a specific interpretational process to which every man-sign is relativized, but nonetheless a man-sign. The defining point is thus, that the focus is to analyse the constituting interpretative process prior to the various man-signs, hence saying something about the initial determination of man without recurring to an already established man-sign. The ambition is thus to undertake an enquiry of the signo-interpretational processes constituting our various man-signs, yet, by doing so, escaping the overall anthropocentric/de-anthropocentric dichotomy, i. e. the anthropological paradigm. It is the attempt to take the de-centralization of the unlimited semiosis, as detached from any man-sign, seriously.

2.2 The Skeptical Disposition While similar in the main approach, it is possible to draw a clear distinction between Lenk’s methodological interpretationism, Simon’s philosophy of the sign and Abel’s philosophy of sign and interpretation.²⁷ In fact it is rather the differ-

 Abel argues in favour of a view in which Simon’s philosophy of the sign and his own philosophy of sign and interpretation are seen as complementary to each other, and merely diverge due to a different “use” of the notions “sign” and “interpretation” (Abel, Zeichen und Interpretation. 1992, p. 169). In a similar vein, Simon argues that the difference is merely based in different accentuations (Simon, Bemerkungen zu den Beiträgen zur Philosophie des Zeichens. 1992, p. 215). Notwithstanding, it is my point that there are substantial differences centering around the conception of man as I shall argue for throughout the following.

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ences, not the similarities, that are interesting;²⁸ differences which become not only explicitly clear but furthermore imperative, when asking how to understand our man-signs. A discussion of the different conceptions of man may therefore not only spell out a conceptual base for an original comprehension of the signo-interpretational processes constituting our man-signs, but additionally serve to distinguish the inner divergences and arguments within the different branches of philosophy of signs and interpretations – a discussion thus far non-existent.²⁹ Now, the thesis is that the essential differences in the conceptions of man become evident as fundamentally diverging reactions to the inherent skeptical challenge. Where both Lenk and Simon remain within an overall naturalistic framework and thus respond to the skeptical challenge by referring to naturalistically defined needs, by which a fixed world is established and the skeptical challenge is countered, Abel defuses the skeptical challenge from within, by showing that it necessarily leads to a signo-interpretational approach.³⁰ The skeptical challenge within the philosophy of signs and interpretations is thus in Abel’s signo-interpretational approach repudiated by applying the skeptical challenge to our understanding of world, other, and self, whereby it becomes evident, that our understanding of world, other, and self is already based in a

 Borsche and Stegmaier state about the relation between Abel and Simon that: “Exactly the proximity of the philosophy of the sign and the philosophy of interpretation makes their distance interesting”, may be said to count for the interrelation of Lenk, Simon and Abel altogether. Borsche, Vorwort. Zur Philosophie des Zeichens. 1992, p. XIII, [my translation].  The reception of the philosophy of signs and interpretations has so far seen the different approaches without any substantial differences and thus taken the different approaches as more or less identical. Cf. Schönrich, Optionen einer Zeichenphilosophie. 1991; Kaleri, Verstehen als fundamentaler Begriff von Erkenntnistheorie und Ontologie. Zur gemeinsamen Grundlage geistesund naturwissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis. 1994; Kaegi, In Interpretationen verstrickt. Über Interpretationswelten und Interpretationskonstrukte. 1995; Bonk, Erfahrung und Skepsis: Anmerkungen zum “Interpretationismus”. 1996; Gunnarson, Jenseits von Gegebensein und Machen. Interpretationspluralistischer Monismus als Alternative zu Abels Weltenvielfalt. 1996; Graeser, Interpretation, Interpretativität und Interpretationismus. 1996; Löhrer, Einige Bemerkungen zur Theorieebene der Interpretationsphilosophie. 1996; Lueken, “Alles was so ist, könnte auch anders sein”. Zu Günter Abels Interpretationswelten. 1996; Koehne, Skeptizismus und Epistemologie. Entwicklung und Anwendung der skeptischen Methode in der Philosophie. 2000, p. 191– 242; Steltzer, Interpretation und Wirklichkeit. Das Realitätsproblem unter Bedingungen interpretationsphilosophischer Ansätze. 2001. So far no study has undertaken a comparative and critical analysis of Lenk, Simon and Abel neither with regard to their initial approach nor with regard to the inherent conceptions of man.  Cf. Koehne, Skeptizismus und Epistemologie. Entwicklung und Anwendung der skeptischen Methode in der Philosophie. 2000, p. 191. Cf. Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 46.

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signo-interpretational practice, wherefore an excessive or augmented skepticism is not only misplaced but as such impossible to attain. This way of argument becomes clear when looking into the usual critique, that the signo-interpretational approach is self-refuting. Yet, as we shall see, the challenge of such a self-refutation does not lead to an incurable skepticism, but rather depicts how the excessive skepticism of the signo-interpretational approach necessarily implicates its own modification. The point of the self-refutation-critique is that when everything is interpretation, then this thesis is itself interpretation, hence self-refuting. Yet, this critique grasps neither the profundity nor the argumentative strength of the signo-interpretational approach. The claim that everything is interpretation is not merely a self-referential statement, but rather a rigorously conceived thought, consequent of Peirce’s insight mentioned above, that “we have no power of thinking without signs”, namely that whenever we think, we have already some signs, i. e. some interpretations available. The actual essence of the self-referentiality is therefore the insight, that when we think, we have already begun; or yet differently: we are enclosed within a process, an unlimited semiosis, of which neither an absolute beginning, nor an absolute ending can ever be conceived. Against the excessive skepticism and against the allegation of self-refutation the skeptical challenge within the signo-interpretational approach is instantly mitigated by the insight that excessive and complete doubt is impossible because of the fact that in order to be able to doubt, we must already, in some way or another, hold beliefs, or as Wittgenstein puts it, albeit within another context, that doubt appears after some belief is held.³¹ In this sense, the unacceptability of a self-refuting statement already adheres to a logical standard (whether it is necessary to adhere to such a logical standard and the status of logic is here a different question, and it is enough to say, that within the signo-interpretational perspective it is a sort of interpretation). Any excessive or terminal skepticism is ruled out before it commences: some belief is always already established, i.e. signs and interpretations are already at hand. As such the signo-interpretational approach does not adhere to the common and widely accepted view, that an excessive, theoretical skepticism threatens our very sense of world, other, and self in a fundamental way,³² simply because such complete doubt is a highly artificial standpoint impossible to hold in a complete and honest way, exactly because

 “Doubt comes after belief.” Wittgenstein, On Certainty, # 160. 1969. p. 153. Cf. “That is to say, the questions that we raise and our doubts depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those turn.” Wittgenstein, On Certainty, # 341. 1969, p 186. Cf.: Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 49.  Cf. Conant, Introduction. From Kant to Cavell. 2014, p. 1.

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of the already working interpretational practices. Were an excessive skepticism possible, it would probably be incurable,³³ yet the point is, that we are not in need of a cure. The skeptical challenge within the signo-interpretational approach is therefore mitigated and transformed into a skeptical disposition understood as both 1) the persistent inner tendency of the signo-interpretational processes and 2) a specific attitude or approach. The skeptical disposition is the constant tendency to uphold a skeptical approach within a world of fixed signs and interpretations, whereby the assignment is inverted into a perpetual skeptical disposition in order to contest our already working beliefs, i. e. the signs and interpretations we live by, rather than to provide fixed beliefs in order to live. This skeptical disposition 1) responds to the excessive, merely epistemological skepticism, by referring to our interpretations already working and 2) urges a critical thinking by upholding a skeptical approach as a general way of thinking and way of life. Yet this skeptical disposition is only attainable on the basis of an understanding of signs and interpretations beyond any foundation in a specific man-sign, and thus only on the basis of grasping the interpretational processes as an interplay of signs and interpretations beyond the dichotomy of anthropological/naturalistic needs on the one hand and the dissoluteness of a pure process on the other hand. The aim of the following is thus to formulate a signo-interpretational philosophy of our man-signs whereby a signo-interpretational skeptical disposition towards world, other, and self may be conveyed.

 Cf. “The Cartesian doubt, therefore, were it ever possible to be attained by any human creature (as it is plainly not) would be entirely incurable; and no reasoning could ever bring us to a state of assurance and conviction upon any subject.” Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. 2000, p. 112.

3 Self-Referentiality as Signo-Interpretational Process When, tentatively phrased, everything is signs and interpretations, or signs and interpretations is everything which is, the question “who interprets” inevitably arises. Almost automatically we propose that we as human beings are the interpreters, and the world or reality, to a greater or lesser degree, is interpreted. In a similar vein, we understand ourselves to be the interpreters of actions, feelings, statements of others and ourselves and habitually propose a subject to whom the world, others and we ourselves appear. The question “who interprets” thus reflects the initial self-referentiality of thinking; or the self-interpretation of interpretation. The question stands within a long philosophical tradition. Yet, the question “who interprets” is not exhausted in the traditional questions about how to understand subjectivity, neither essential nor transcendental, neither structural nor linguistic, neither existentialistic nor existential (Heidegger). The point of departure is that the “who” manifests itself within a certain interpretational practice and concretizes as a specific man-sign. Every sign, and thus every man-sign, is in other words embedded in a process of interpretational practice. Traditional questions about the “I”, self-consciousness, self, person, or identity are in turn transformed and reformulated as questions about the interrelation of signs and interpretations. Taking Kant’s understanding of the self-relation of thinking, the “I think” understood as an “act of spontaneity”³⁴, as point of departure, a specific problem of fundamental importance is disclosed. The Kantian point, that with this “I, or He, or It (the thing), which thinks, nothing further is represented than a transcendental subject of thoughts = x, which is recognized only through the thoughts that are its predicates, and about which, in abstraction, we can never have even the least concept; because of which we therefore turn in a constant circle, since we must always already avail ourselves of the representation of it at all times in order to judge anything about it”.³⁵ This inevitable circularity is not only uncomfortable or inconvenient as Kant notes, but exposes the inner dilemma of any self-relational thinking, namely the difficulty of conceiving the process of thinking, without already ascertaining something, a subject, who thinks. The reason for this is in Kant mainly that: “the consciousness in itself is not even a representation distinguishing a particular object! but rather a

 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason. B 132. 1998, p. 246.  Kant Critique of Pure Reason. A 346 / B 404. 1998, p. 414. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110592078-005

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form of representation in general, insofar as it is to be called a cognition; for of it alone can I say that through it I think anything.”³⁶ As such the problem is the very character of thinking itself, its actual form, exactly because it inevitably suggests a subject who thinks, when thinking thinking. Now, Kant explains this inner strive as inherent to the reasons creation³⁷ of ideas in the form of an unconditional, due to an intrinsic pursue of absolute totality in its own synthetic operations.³⁸ Yet, this explanation of the origin does not eliminate the fact that the alleged subject disappears continuously and thus remains impossible to conceptualize, because it, by nature, is nothing but a “designation”.³⁹ To understand the process of thinking by referring to something which thinks, i. e. to understand the “who” in “who interprets” as a designation due to a specific form of thinking, is here the main challenge hereditary of Kant’s notion of the transcendental I. When Kant denies any possible knowledge of an “I”, yet argues, that the strive to ascertain “something” or “someone” who thinks – also when only as an inconceivable X – exists as a natural disposition in man, due to the nature of reason itself,⁴⁰ a fundamental problem is addressed, which finds its perhaps ultimate and most profound scrutiny in Nietzsche’s de-masking of western metaphysics as grounded in the grammatical structure of the Indo-European stem of language. This grammatical structure, or “metaphysics of languge”, automatically proposes a subject to which thinking is a predicate.⁴¹ A “metaphysics of lang-

 Kant Critique of Pure Reason. A 346 / B 404. 1998, p. 414.  Kant differentiates between the reason’s formal use (logical) and its real use. The real use is that: “which itself generates concepts.” Kant, Critique of Pure Reason. A 299 / B 356. 1998, p. 387.  “Now a transcendental concept of reason always goes to the absolute totality in the synthesis of conditions, and never ends except with the absolutely unconditioned, i. e., what is unconditioned in every relation.” Kant, Critique of Pure Reason. A 326 / B 383. 1998, p. 401.  Cf. “For the I is not a concept at all, but only a designation of the object of inner sense insofar as we do not further cognize it through any predicate; hence although it cannot itself be the predicate of any other thing, just as little can it be a determinate concept of an absolute subject, but as in all the other cases it can only be the referring of inner appearances to their unknown subject.” Kant, Prolegomena to any future metaphysics that will be able to come forward as science. §46, 2002, p. 125.  “Human reason has the peculiar fate in one species of its cognitions that it is burdened with questions which it cannot dismiss, since they are given to it as problems by the nature of reason itself, but which it also cannot answer, since they transcend every capacity of human reason.” Kant, Critique of Pure Reason. A vii. 1998, p. 99.  “These days, on the other hand, we see ourselves mired in error, drawn necessarily into error, precisely to the extent that the prejudice of reason forces us to make use of unity, identity, permanence, substance, cause, objectification, being; we have checked this through rigorously and are sure that this is where the error lies. This is no different than the movement of the sun, where

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uge” unavoidable to the degree, that even when we criticize the proposition of an underlying substantial “I”, an agent who thinks, by substituting the “I” with an “it” or a Kantian X, as in the formulation: “it thinks”, we have already asserted too much: “In fact, there is already too much packed into the “it thinks”: even the “it” contains an interpretation of the process, and does not belong to the process itself. People are following grammatical habits here in drawing conclusions, reasoning that “thinking” is an activity, behind every activity something is active, therefore –.”⁴² In conclusion Nietzsche prohibits any understanding of the “subject” as substantial in the form of a radical imperative, to which the mere question about a “something” or “someone” who thinks awakes his suspicion: “One ought not ask “who interprets then?”, rather, the interpretation itself exists, as a form of will to power (yet not as a “being”, but as a process, a becoming) as an affect.”⁴³ Nietzsche’s idea is that every time a “thing” or a “subject” is apprehended it is subsequent to a primary “making-cognizable”, which can only be understood as “a type of becoming” which creates “the illusion of being”.⁴⁴ Yet, the intention to grasp thinking as pure process only lets the problem reappear at a deeper level because of the fundamental difficulty of conceptualizing processes without necessarily ascertaining “something” which “changes” over time.⁴⁵ Nietzsche may give priority to change over substance, though at the

our eye is a constant advocate for error, here it is language. Language began at a time when psychology was in its most rudimentary form: we enter into a crudely fetishistic mindset when we call into consciousness the basic presuppositions of the metaphysics of language – in the vernacular: the presuppositions of reason. It sees doers and deeds all over: it believes that will has causal efficacy: it believes in the “I”, I the I as being, in the I as substance, and it projects this belief in the I-substance onto all things – this is how it creates the concept of “thing” in the first place… Being is imagined into everything – pushed under everything – as cause; the concept “being” is only derived from the concept of “I”… In the beginning there was the great disaster of an error, the belief that the will is a thing with causal efficacy, – that will is a faculty… These days we know that it is just a word…” (Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 2005, p. 169). Regarding the grammatical structure as determining thinking and in particular the idea of a “subject” which thinks, see also: Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, #16, 2002, p. 16 – 17.  Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, #17, 2002, p. 17.  Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente, 1885/1886 2 [151], KSA 12, 1999, p. 140. [my translation].  Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente, 1887, 9 [89], KSA 12, 1999, p. 382 [my translation].  Cf. Aristotle: “Again, there is no such thing as motion over and above the things. It is always with respect to substance or to quantity or to quality or to place that what changes changes. But it is impossible, as we assert, to find anything common to these which is neither “this” nor quantum nor quale nor any of the other predicates. Hence neither will motion and change have reference to something over and above the things mentioned, for there is nothing over and above them.” (Aristotle, Physica. 200b, 1953). Cf. Nietzsche: “– the concept “change” already presup-

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same time he points out the intrinsic difficulty of this suggestion, when proclaiming that cognition and change are reciprocally excluding.⁴⁶ As a consequence Nietzsche reformulates both the question about the nature of the “I” or self-consciousness as either agent or process as well as the traditional problem of the relation between mind and world, when radicalizing the Kantian approach⁴⁷ into a self-including position: “The creation of the “things” is entirely the work of the one perceiving, thinking, wanting, creating. The concept “thing” exactly as all the qualities. – Even “the subject” is created, a “thing”, like all other things: a simplification, in order to designate the power, which sets, creates, thinks, in contrast to all particular setting, creating, thinking itself.”⁴⁸ In this conception of thinking as both process and agent Nietzsche’s famous abolition of both the “true” and the “false” world⁴⁹, and thus any ontology as such, become manifest in a radical signo-interpretational conception of cognition and world in which the traditional contradiction between “true” and “false” is transformed into a distinction between the creation of signs (process) and the signs themselves (agent)⁵⁰. What is, is nothing but a certain temporary fixation within the otherwise perpetual flux. The main challenge hereditary to this Nietzschean conception of the interrelation of process and agent is here to conceptualize both the creation of signs and the signs themselves as well as understanding the constant interrelation between the two. Now, this Kantian-Nietzschean perspective underlines a double argument which serves as point of departure for the following. Firstly, that any self-refer-

poses the subject, the soul as substance”. Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente, 1885/1886, 1 [43], KSA 12, 1999, p. 20, [my translation].  “The character of the becoming world as impossible to formulate, as “false”, as “self-contraditory”. Cognition and becoming excludes each other.” (Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente, 1887, 9 [89], KSA 12, 1999, p. 382 [my translation]); Cf. “the contrast to this phenomena-world is not “the true world”, but a world of sensation-chaos, without form, impossible to formulate, i. e. another type of phenomena-world, one that is “unknowable” to us.” Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente, 1887, 9 [106], KSA 12, 1999, p. 396, [my translation].  “Kant essentially wanted to prove that the subject cannot be proven on the basis of the subject – and neither can the object. The possibility that the subject (and therefore “the soul”) has a merely apparent existence might not always have been foreign to him […]”. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, #54, 2002, p. 49.  Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente, 1885/1886 2 [152], KSA 12, p. 141 [my translation].  “The true world is gone: which world is left? The illusory one, perhaps? … But no! we got rid of the illusory world along with the true one!”. Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 2005, p. 171.  “The distinction is not “false” and “true”, but “abbreviations into signs” in contrast to the signs themselves. The essential is: the creation of forms, which represents many movements, the creation of signs for entire species of signs.” Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente, 1885/1886 1 [28], KSA 12, 1999, p.17 [my translation].

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ential interpretational practice takes place within a circular pattern of agent and process; or in other words: that the antinomy of agent and process lie as an inherent and inevitable form of our way of thinking – as an a priori of the interpretational practice as such. Secondly, that this circular pattern of agent and process concretizes as a perpetual interplay of fixation and dissolution – of signs and interpretation. The inevitable and inherent circularity of agent and process within all interpretational practice is in this way taken as point of departure, not as a fallacy which must be disclaimed. And this circular pattern is furthermore itself the concrete manifestation of the interpretational practice as a perpetual interplay of fixation and dissolution, i. e. of signs and interpretation. From this point of departure, the following seeks to formulate a rethinking of the fundamental self-referentiality inherent to a philosophy which claims that everything is sign and interpretation, by confronting the way this self-referentiality of thinking is present, when we interpret ourselves as interpreters; when we understand man as nothing but a sign amid other signs – as a signo-interpretational being. *** The inflationary growth in semiotic approaches makes a complete overview impossible, yet concurrently the request for original and new perspectives increases proportionately. In opposition to various attempts to dispute any such original perspective within the philosophy of signs and interpretations,⁵¹ the following

 Kaegi suggests that the approaches made in the philosophy of signs and interpretations are but idle reiterations of points given by Gadamer and the hermeneutics. (Kaegi, In Interpretationen verstrickt. Über Interpretationswelten und Interpretationskonstrukte. 1995, p. 274). Similarly, Graeser sees Abel’s approach as a mixture of hermeneutics and analytical philosophy. (Graeser, Interpretation, Interpretativität und Interpretationismus. 1996, p. 260). The common objection from e. g. Kaleri, that Abel’s concept of interpretation does not make sense because it does not cohere with the common-sense use of the word interpretation, nor the hermeneutical or analytical idea of it, cannot be taken serious. If this argumentation was to be adhered to as a general rule in philosophy, i. e. that philosophical reasoning must cohere with common sense, then any philosophical thinking would immediately cease. The concrete problem is however that the objections beg the question, as in the case of Graeser’s critique. The crux is that the critiques rely on a concept of interpretation inherent to the traditional metaphysical dualism, which Abel tries to overcome by suggesting a new concept of interpretation. Another objection from Graeser is that it changes the nature of philosophy. Again, this argument cannot be taken serious, because if a philosophical approach cannot argue against what has so far counted as philosophy, then all philosophy may as well be given up. The point is exactly that Abel is trying to renew philosophy. It seems, that the critiques of Graeser, Löhrer, Kaleri etc. do not adhere to the actual and decisive object of the philosophy of signs and interpretations, namely to formulate a new conception of interpretation, which exceeds the traditional dichotomies. Cf.: Kaleri, Verstehen als fundamental-

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study suggests that the signo-interpretational approach offers an original perspective which exceeds the intellectual scarcity of merely remodelling some traditional philosophical “options”.⁵² To spell out this original potential within the philosophy of signs and interpretations is thus the foremost ambition of the following. The main idea is that the original potential within the philosophy of signs and interpretations becomes manifest in a conception of man-signs in the form of a skeptical disposition towards world, other, and self. The differences between such a philosophy of signs and interpretations and similar philosophical approaches, be it the philosophical hermeneutics (Gadamer), scientific semiotics (Eco), or the semiotic trace-searching of deconstructivism (Derrida) lie exactly in this conception of man as a signo-interpretational being and within the skeptical disposition. The crucial point is to leave behind the Aristotelian conception of the sign as a stand in, acknowledging that we cannot go beyond the sign, and that the interplay of sign and interpretation is primary to any conception of man – any man-sign. This inversion of the relation between man and sign leaves behind any foundation of the sign in man, whether man is understood as “care”, “finitude” or “culture”. Within this perspective also the conclusion drawn by Derrida, that the inflationary use of the sign remains within a metaphysic of presence, becomes void.⁵³ The intention in the following

er Begriff von Erkenntnistheorie und Ontologie. Zur gemeinsamen Grundlage geistes- und naturwissenschaftlicher Erkenntnis. 1994, p. 199.  Allthough Schönrich admits a wider range of options, three of such are pointed out, namely the options of either a negativity of the sign, an ontology of the sign or an idealism of the sign. Schönrich places these options historically and systematically in relation to 1. the tradition from Nietzsche to Derrida (or Wittgenstein to Lyotard) 2. Kant and 3. Schelling. Schönrich, Optionen einer Zeichenphilosophie. 1991, p. 179 ff.  Derrida points out that the development of a new scientific semiology in the early 20th century as a counterpart to the metaphysical dualism between intelligible and sensible, is nothing but an illusionary end to the epoch of metaphysics, which must define the totality of its problems as a problem of language, and which materializes as an approach consisting of an inflationary use of the sign, which nonetheless reiterates the Aristotelian sign-concept and thus marks a difference between signifier and signified: “To take one example from many: the metaphysics of presence is shaken with the help of the concept of sign. But, as I suggested a moment ago, as soon as one seeks to demonstrate in this way that there is no transcendental or privileged siginified and that the domain or play of signification henceforth has no limit, one must reject even the concept and word “sign” itself – which is precisely what cannot be done. For the signification “sign” has always been understood and determined, in its meaning, as sign-of, a signifier referring to a signified, a signifier different from its signified. If one erases the radical difference between signifier and signified, it is the word “signifier” itself which must be abandoned as a metaphysical concept.” (Derrida, Writing and Difference. 2001, p. 355.) To Derrida the innate metaphysical implications of the sign-concept are the reason why, at the

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is, regardless the differences pointed out, neither to formulate an explicit apology nor to excel in the dubious discipline of comparing philosophical positions. Rather, it is the aim and expectation that the differences to alleged similar approaches will show themselves in the course of spelling out the original potential within the philosophy of signs and interpretations. Accordingly, the course of the following does not provide a complete arrangement, explication or account of the many different topics and arguments present within the extensive scope of the philosophy of signs and interpretations, but concentrates on the single matter of how to understand our man-signs within the perspective of a skeptical disposition towards world, other, and self. *** The overall project is double: firstly, to examine how man is conceived within contemporary philosophy of signs and interpretations and to which extent it successfully leaves the anthropological/de-anthropological dichotomy behind; and secondly to spell out how an original signo-interpretational conception of man concretizes as a skeptical disposition towards world, other, and self. The following is accordingly divided into two overall parts; a negative and a positive part. The first part (Part I) proceeds as a critical analysis of how man is conceived in the three main positions within contemporary philosophy of signs and interpretations namely Hans Lenk’s methodological interpretationism (4), Josef Simon’s philosophy of the sign (5), and Günter Abel’s philosophy of sign and interpretation (6), whereby it is made clear that only Abel’s philosophy of sign and interpretation is successful in avoiding the anthropological/de-anthropological dichotomy altogether and thus prepares the ground for an original signo-interpretational conception of man as a skeptical disposition towards world, other, and self (7). The second part (Part II) spells out an original signo-interpretational conception of man as a skeptical disposition towards world, other, and self and thus makes out the positive part. Firstly, it is explained how to understand the signo-interpretational approach as a skeptical disposition (8); and secondly this skeptical disposition is developed as a concrete and detailed signo-interpretational conception of world (9), other (10) and self (11).

end of the epoch of metaphysics, a complete abandoning rather than the inflationary use of the sign as primary philosophical concept, should be pursued. Yet, Derrida remains within an Aristotelian conception of the sign as “stand-in”, which in the philosophy of signs and interpretation is left behind.

Part I “Who Interprets?” Agent, Process and the Ending of the Semiosis

Part I “Who Interprets?” Agent, Process and the Ending of the Semiosis

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When we ask “who interprets”, then we are already within a self-relational thinking in which we appear as a sign.⁵⁴ The aim is thus not to discuss the essence of the “I” as either process or agent, but rather to understand the “who” in “who interprets” as a specific fixation of a sign and as such as a manifestation of a specific interpretational practice. The question “who interprets” is consequently reformulated and formalized into a question about a specific ending of the otherwise unlimited semiosis, whereby the initial assignment becomes an enquiry of how and why the ending of the semiosis takes place. The main argument is here that the semiosis is not carried out unlimitedly in practice, but actually is ceasing. Or to say it yet differently: The interesting thing is not the potential limitlessness, but the actual ceasing of the semiosis. The following will analyze and discuss the different conceptions of the “who” in “who interprets” as a question about how and why the otherwise unlimited semiosis comes to an end and thus the different conceptions of the semiosis in the philosophies of Lenk, Simon and Abel. The enquiry progresses systematically and the aim is to show, that the initial critical stand towards any metaphysics of the sign and of interpretation must be achieved as a skeptical disposition if not to revert into instrumental conceptions of the sign and of interpretation. Such a skeptical disposition is in turn only possible to develop on the basis of Abel’s concept of signo-interpretational processes. The enquiry will take its point of departure in the different arguments about how the initial self-referentiality is to be conceived whereby my main argument is that both Lenk and Simon, to a greater or lesser degree, fail to formulate a satisfying position from which the “who”, and thus man, can be thought without reverting to an instrumentalist conception of the sign and interpretation. My point being, that only on the base of Abel’s signo-interpretational position, understood as a skeptical disposition, an original understanding of man as a signo-interpretational being can be founded. This will be done in four steps: a) Man as Meta-Interpreting Being – Lenk’s Methodological Interpretationism (4); b) Man as Individual Understanding – Simon’s Philosophy of the Sign (5); c) Man as Signo-Interpretational Process – Abel’s Philosophy of Sign and Interpretation (6); d) Signo-Interpretational Processes: Genealogy, Creativity, Critique (7).

 “when we think, then, we ourselves, as we are at that moment, appear as a sign”. Peirce, Some Consequences of Four Incapacities. 1960, p. 169.

4 Man as Meta-Interpreting Being – Lenk’s Methodological Interpretationism Lenk’s methodological interpretationism or interpretation-constructivism offers a wide-ranging and detailed analysis of how interpretation functions within several areas spanning from the natural sciences to everyday lived life. Lenk’s initial concern was to formulate a general theory of actions, which then led him to a meticulous theory of interpretation.⁵⁵ Lenk argues that it is necessary to overcome the traditional division between the natural sciences and the humanities and combine the insights from both schools of thought by bringing together scientific knowledge and cognition with quotidian knowledge and cognition.⁵⁶ His main endeavour is to overcome the division between an idea of a pure scientific cognition on one hand and actions on the other hand. Lenk’s point is that any cognition, scientific as well as quotidian, is a specific expression of life and as such a constructive action. Further, Lenk determines actions in general as interpretation. His argument for this is based on the general assumption that actions are intentional and as such only understandable relative to some sort of description or interpretation.⁵⁷ This, of course, accounts for both the actor within a firstperson-perspective as well as for the describing third-person-perspective of the spectator.⁵⁸ In conclusion Lenk states that: “Cognition is also an action, and to act is to interpret, therefore cognition is necessarily a process of interpretation.”⁵⁹ The concept of interpretation is in this sense closely related to the concept of action⁶⁰ and thus understood as a constructive activity. Lenk further dif-

 Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 17. It was Lenk’s concern to formulate an appropriate theory of actions, which in the first place led him to his conception of interpretation. See in particular: Lenk, Pragmatische Philosophie, 1973; Lenk, Handlungstheorien – Interdisziplinär. 1978; Lenk, Zwischen Sozialpsychologie und Sozialphilosophie, 1987.  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte – Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993.  “Actions are as actions bound to desrciption, impregnated by interpretation, per se interpretational, dependent on higher levels of clarification, descriptions and viewpoints.” Lenk, Philosophie und Interpretation. Vorlesungen zur Entwicklung konstruktionistischer Interpretationsansätze. 1993, p. 172, [my translation]. See also chapter 43, “Intentionalität als Interpretativität” in: Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte – Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 572– 584.  Lenk, Philosophie und Interpretation. Vorlesungen zur Entwicklung konstruktionistischer Interpretationsansätze. 1993, p. 173.  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte – Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 18, [my translation].  Lenk, Interpretation und Realität. 1995, p. 21. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110592078-006

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ferentiates between three main aspects within the concept of interpretation, namely 1) the act or process of interpretation, 2) the result or construct of a specific interpretation and 3) the general character of all things comprehensible as bound to interpretation, i. e. as impregnated by interpretation.⁶¹ Whereas the constructs of interpretation are understood as both quotidian and scientific, intellectual and representational structures, models or objects such as “Texts, sensedata, world-versions, (forms of- ) movements, gestures, light- or soundenergy-differences, emotions, states, objects within conscious thinking, intended or intentional “somethings” etc.”⁶², it is the very interpreting acts or processes of interpretation which are Lenk’s paramount concern. The interpretational processes refer in general to a manifold of ways to form, produce and represent,⁶³ and are as such seen as cognitive activities.⁶⁴ Lenk distinguishes between six levels of interpretation, yet underlines that this distinction between different levels of interpretations is merely a methodic tool, acknowledging the fact that interpretation happens or takes place in most dissimilar ways.⁶⁵ The first level, or IL1 (Interpretation-level 1), is the most foundational, productive interpretation understood as a primary constitution or schematization and unchangeable in practice. At this primary level, we find biologically or genetically established sensory functions and schematically preformed perceptions of and reactions to stimuli. The second level, IL2, involves habitual categorization of form and schema and pre-linguistic creation of concepts understood as pattern-interpretation. This level is pre-linguistic in the sense that patterns are established before a strict linguistic conceptualization takes place.⁶⁶ The strict linguistic conceptualization understood as socially established and passed on by means of convention defines the third level or IL3. Upon these three basic levels of interpretation

 “Interpretationssimprägniertheit”. Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte – Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 22. Cf. Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte als Interpretationskonstrukte. 1994, p. 40.  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte als Interpretationskonstrukte. 1994, p. 37, [my translation].  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte als Interpretationskonstrukte. 1994, p. 37.  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte als Interpretationskonstrukte. 1994, p. 37.  In my presentation I follow Lenk’s differentiation and arguments in chapter 6 “Entwurf einer Philosophie der Interpretationskonstrukte” in: Lenk, Philosophie und Interpretation. Vorlesungen zur Entwicklung konstruktionistischer Interpretationsansätze. 1993, p. 213 – 273. See also Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 31– 76; Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte als Interpretationskonstrukte. 1994 p. 36 – 56.  Here Lenk refers to studies in developmental psychology, e. g. in the tradition of Piaget, in which a certain pre-linguistic pattern-building or conceptualization-ability by children who does not yet master complex, concept-based language, can be demonstrated. Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 260.

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the fourth level, IL4, becomes possible, namely the conscious ordering through classification, subsuming, description, and sorting. At a fifth leve, IL5, interpretation as explaining, understanding, claiming and reasoning takes place as theoretical interpretation. Finally, on the last level, IL6, we find the reflective, epistemological or methodological interpretation in the sense of meta-interpretation, i. e. interpretation of interpretations. This model, according to Lenk, enables the possibility of a “differentiated representation of the processes of schematization and interpretation”.⁶⁷ Exactly this schematization or process of interpretation is the core activity of any cognition and the foundation of all knowledge. Where science, understood as theoretical knowledge-production, is established and carried out on level four and five, the philosophical meta-interpretation of the different types of interpretation is a level six process. The different levels of interpretation are ways of differentiating between the numerous ways and forms of interpretation, whereby, in addition, a detailed determination of the various constructs of interpretation becomes possible. Lenk underscores repeatedly that his interpretationism, including his model of the different levels of interpretation, is itself merely an interpretation. As such the interpretationism is clearly “self-referential”,⁶⁸ though the point being that exactly the differentiation between levels of interpretation not only makes such a self-referentiality within the interpretationism possible and acceptable,⁶⁹ but furthermore constitutes its philosophical relevance: “The interpretationism is a methodology, comprises a methodological conception, which is suitable for understanding the interpretational constructs themselves as interpretational constructs – from the perspective of a higher level respectively. One realises, that this model itself represents a model of interpretation, which is to be understood as a suggestion of how to grasp our schematizing and interpreting activities, the constituations and reconstituations (re-activizations, descriptions, conceptual comprehensions), by which we are capable of understanding our world by describing and forming – be it descriptive or normative.”⁷⁰  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 261, [my translation].  Lenk, Interretationskonstrukte als Interpretationskonstrukte. 1994, p. 55.  “The interpretationism in general is naturally itself an intepretative point of departure. It can and must naturally also be seen as interpretative and critically-interpretationally questioned. One advantage of such a conception is in fact, that this interpretational viewpoint may be used on itself.” (Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte als Interpretationskonstrukte. 1994, p. 53, [my translation]). Also: “The interpretationism has the advantage, that it, exacly because it in principle is a positive formulation, does not lead directly to a paradox of self-application.” Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte als Interpretationskonstrukte. 1994, p. 54, [my translation].  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte als Interpretationskonstrukte. 1994, p. 52, [my translation].

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This methodology of differentiating between levels of interpretation, within which it becomes possible to understand constructs of interpretation as constructs of interpretation, not only constitutes the methodological interpretationism as neutral with regard to ontological propositions⁷¹, but furthermore plays a central role with regard to our initial and fundamental question about “who interprets”, as a question about the self-referentiality of thinking, here: the interpretation of interpretation. Lenk conceives man as the meta-interpreting being, i. e. the being which not only interprets but furthermore interprets its interpretations.⁷² This self-referentiality of the interpretative activity is by Lenk formulated traditionally as a question about the relation between object (object of interpretation) and subject (subject of intepretation).⁷³ The assumption is threefold, namely 1) that interpretation is dependent on something, an object, which is interpreted, and 2) that someone, a subject, is interpreting,⁷⁴ and 3) that this division into object and subject itself is merely a construct of interpretation.⁷⁵ Now, this self-inclusive triadic response to the question about “who interprets” clearly results in a potentially indefinite interpretational process, or unlimited semiosis: “Where is the subject? […] The internal interpretationistic answer can only be: the subject is also a construct, possibly also: self-construct. Yet, who is it, – is it a who? –, who construes the (his) subject? Must it be someone?”⁷⁶ In a first step to break this circular pattern Lenk rejects the possibility of understanding interpretation as a pure process, as a merely “there is”, akin to Lichtenberg’s and Nietzsche’s anti-cogito⁷⁷. Lenk’s argument is that understanding interpretation as pure process is based on what he calls a semantic fallacy, namely an identification of the condition that everything comprehensible is impregnated by interpretation, with the construct of interpretation itself;⁷⁸ or otherwise formulated: to mistake the very act of interpreting, with the construct or re-

 Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte als Interpretationskonstrukte. 1994, p. 51.  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 55; Lenk 1998, p. 38 ff.  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 308 ff.  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 19.  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 28; Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 311.  Lenk, Interpretation und Interpret. 1992, p. 49, [my translation].  Lenk, Interpretation und Interpret. 1992, p. 49.  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 25. Also Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 63 ff. Lenk mainly addresses Abel’s position in which interpretation is understood merely as an interpretational process without an underlying “subject”. I shall return to Abel’s position later.

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sult of interpretation.⁷⁹ Further, Lenk argues that: “interpretation is itself to be seen as without an absolute beginning, without an absolute foundation”.⁸⁰ As a merely epistemological/methodological approach, Lenk renounces any rationalistic model pursuing a last or absolute foundation, i. e. a philosophy which seeks to establish an archimedian point.⁸¹ On this basis Lenk argues that the indefinite regress of an unlimited semiosis can be avoided by means of a “petitio tollendi”, by which the merely logical inconsistency can be abolished by referring to a pragmatic assurance.⁸² This pragmatic assurance does not provide an absolute foundation, but rather makes it possible to rise to ever higher reflective levels in an “interpretational ascent”⁸³, which, so Lenk, makes the presupposition of an agent undeniable: “At least indirectly, through a petitio tollendi, one can – although bound to interpretations – realize the non-repudiabillity of presupposing an actor: to give up the interpretativeness and each (interpretation)-perspective, if it were even possible, would be a cognitive decision impregnated by interpretation, an act – i. e. already interpretative: interpretativeness is only possible to give up by way of interpretation.”⁸⁴ The pragmatic assurance is not to be misunderstood as an epistemological argumentation, but merely provides an insight into what Lenk calls: “certain indispensabillities” and “unavoidable”⁸⁵ rules of action and argumentations, of a merely pragmatic character. As such a pragmatically unavoidable fact, Lenk argues, that the “I” necessarily is presumed in all action, and thus in all interpretational activity: “Interpretations as processes and actions presuppose a subject who interprets. There must be an author, an initiator and accomplisher of the unified interpretation. This subject of interpretation is in the interpretation itself not merely ficticious or interpretative hypostazised, but presupposed as that which is active itself.”⁸⁶ Lenk argues, that “the existence of this subject” is presupposed at each particular level of interpretation and as such a prussupposition it is non-interpretative and is logically “before” any concrete interpretation.

 The division between interpreted object and interpreting subject is further, for Lenk, the only way to avoid an unacceptable interpretation-idealism akin to Fichte’s concept of a “Tathandlung”. Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 308.  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 314.  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 314.  Lenk, Interpretation und Interpret. 1992, p. 51.  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte als Interpretationskonstrukte. 1994a, p. 50.  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 315, [my translation].  Lenk, Interpretation und Interpret. 1992, p. 51.  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 311, [my translation].

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This interpreting subject is merely presupposed as a “center” from which interpretation as action is carried out. Obviously, this “center” must and can again be the “object” of further interpretation, a meta-interpretation, yet this does not change the fact, that such a “center”, such an “author and initiator”, is necessary and in each interpretation already presupposed.⁸⁷ Here, Lenk’s argumentation echoes the above-mentioned Kantian-Nietzschean problem about the inevitable circularity of agent and process. Any proposition of a subject or an object is itself but an interpretation and the interpretational process is only possible to conceive as bound to an agent. Yet, the question of how Lenk in detail understands the pragmatic assurance, as an ending to the otherwise unlimited semiosis, and how this further constitutes the notion of the “who” remains vague, hence it is of pivotal importance for our further enquiry concerning the conception of man. Lenk argues that the unlimited semiosis can be, and is, brought to an end by means of a pragmatic assurance of the subject- and object-dependency. The methodological differentiation between levels of interpretation, the petitio tollendi, is in fact able to avoid the paradox of self-referentiality,⁸⁸ but only with regard to the internal relation between different levels and forms of interpretation. Concerning the overall conception of interpretation as action Lenk remains fixed in a petitio principia relating to the original notion of interpretation as action, which, regardless of the petitio tollendi, suggests a certain understanding of the “who”. This may be recapitulated as follows: all interpretation is action – action is bound to an agent – hence all interpretation is bound to an agent; or otherwise formulated: interpretation is a subject interpreting an object, therefore interpretation is a subject interpreting an object. The interesting point is here not the fact that Lenk’s argument is begging the question, but rather that the conception of interpretation as action establishes a certain conception of man; a conception of man, which, in the end, constitutes the ending of the semiosis as a pragmatic assurance. Or to put it yet differently: that Lenk is able to understand the ending of the semiosis as a pragmatic assurance reveals a certain conception of man, i. e. a certain designation of the “who”. As mentioned above, Lenk understands the pragmatic assurance as only possible within a philosophy, which is carried out as merely a “relative and prag-

 Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 311.  “The division into levels makes it possible to avoid certain paradoxes in the application and self-application. The philosophy of interpretation does therefore not fall to the usual objection of creating a paradox of “self-referentiality””. Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte als Interpretationskonstrukte. 1994, p. 55, [my translation].

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matic reasoning”, beyond any archemedian point.⁸⁹ In addition, the inevitable interpretation-impregnation of everything comprehensible means that reality and world is grounded in what Lenk calls the merely human and finite⁹⁰ comprehension of these.⁹¹ Yet, the question remains, what does “human” more exactly mean here? And how does this conception establish the relation to reality and world? Starting with the latter, it must be reiterated that Lenk repeatedly underscores that his position is merely epistemological. Yet, in his understanding of this, it is still compliable with a critical realism, analog to Kant’s transcendental idealism.⁹² The challenge of the interpretationism is that the infinity of the interpretational process makes it impossible to ascertain an un-interpreted object, and thus leading to the classical problem of how to assure reality.⁹³ Yet, Lenk sees in the pragmatic assurance a socalled “life-practical basis for a fundamental realism”.⁹⁴ Reality is for Lenk merely “interpretational-internal”, which again makes it possible to distinguish between levels of “reality-interpretations”.⁹⁵ The decisive point however, is that Lenk understands the different levels of “realityinterpretation” as “related” or “connected” by way of “necessary, life-practical and pragmatic presuppositions of a unified world, in which we live and act, with which parts we interact, in which, so-to-speak, the different interpretation-perspectives “run together””.⁹⁶ Such a pragmatically unified world is presupposed, yet without being “depicted” in an “all-inclusive” and detailed (theoretical) representation or conception. This pragmatic assertion of a uniform world is transcendental,⁹⁷ yet in a non-fundamental way, which merely says that all philosophizing is a sort of tran-

 Lenk, Interpretationen und Imprägnationen. 1997, p. 39.  Cf. Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 321. See also: Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 468.  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 66.  Lenk, Philosophie und Interpretation. Vorlesungen zur Entwicklung konstruktionistischer Interpretationsansätze. 1993, 228.  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 308.  Lenk, Interpretation und Interpret. 1992, p. 53.  Lenk, Interpretation und Realität. 1995, p. 251.  Lenk, Interpretation und Realität. 1995, p. 253, [my translation].  Lenks methodological interpretationism is in his own words a type of Kantian transcendentalism in which “World, reality and meaning […] is merely comprehensible as constructs of interpretation.” Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte als Interpretationskonstrukte. 1994, p. 228, [my translation]. See also: Lenk, Philosophie und Interpretation. 1993, p. 25.

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scending activity,⁹⁸ similar to the previously mentioned interpretational ascent. When Lenk understands his methodological interpretationism as a type of transcendental philosophy it must thus be underscored, that the transcendental conditions under which we interpret are merely heuristically pointed out, temporal conditions. Yet again, these merely relative, transcendental conditions reveal a certain understanding of man. Exactly this is our concern when Lenk proposes a number of “transcendental necessities”,⁹⁹ which must be presupposed with regard to interpretational processes as such, and of which the so called “unity of the interpretation-world”¹⁰⁰ is principal. Recurrently Lenk argues that also the necessity of a unified world follows the proposition that interpretation is action. In order to be able to act in – and interact between – both one’s own versions of worlds and between different representations of diverse world-interpretations it is required that something connects those different worlds. This connection is, according to Lenk, pragmatically necessary, regardless that every world-interpretation can always be relativized from an even higher level of meta-interpretation. Now, this argument can be disputed in a number of ways, for example: a) that it is possible skeptically to renounce a pragmatically unified world as a mere interpreted construct; b) that any establishment of a unified world is only possible in retrospect, i. e. in a third person perspective and that in the actual, present time action, such a unified world is merely within a first person perspective i. e. as a radically individualized, “own” world; c) that the absence of a unified world does not automatically exclude action, i. e. actions are constantly carried out also in chaotic situations; d) that an “overlapping” of different world-versions is not the same as these versions being unified, and that a theory of “overlapping” worlds would be sufficient to make actions possible; e) that action in fact is possible even in the case of reciprocally excluding world-versions; f) that the presumption of a unified world suggests that we understand one another and not misunderstand one another – which is not at all evident; g) that it is the particular actions that establish particular worlds and not a particular unified world that makes actions possible, i. e. actions constitute worlds, not worlds constitute actions.¹⁰¹ The main argument, however, and our main interest, is that

 Cf. Lenk, Von Deutungen zu Wertungen. Eine Einführung in aktuelles Philosophieren. 1994, p. 277.  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 319 ff.  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 320, [my translation].  E. g. Abel objects to Lenk’s argument of a unified world by arguing that a plurality of worlds is the presupposition for a uniform world and not the other way around. Abel, Interpretationsphilosophie. Eine Antwort auf Hans Lenk. 1988, p. 84.

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Lenk’s conception of interpretation as action is founded one-sidedly on a conception of action as a re-action. This is evident in Lenk’s above mentioned triadic conception of interpretation as 1) bound to an object, 2) carried out by a subject and 3) as interpretation-impregnated self-inclusive and self-referential. That interpretation is only possible to conceive as bound to an object is relativized by the differentiation of levels of interpretation. This enables Lenk to distinguish between e. g. biological, historical, cultural and individual interpretations. A level six (IL6) interpretation is as such dependent or bound to more foundational levels of interpretation (IL1 – IL3): “Interpretations and clarifications are dependent on certain standpoints or perspectives of the one clarifying, on ways of seeing, which have developed under cultural and historical circumstances.”¹⁰² Yet, the point is that interpretation is understood persistently as interpretation of something given, i. e. as re-action regardless of the specific level of interpretation. Lenk argues that we must leave behind the scheme idealism/realism and that these are not absolute opposites,¹⁰³ when the different levels of interpretation are considered. However, if interpretation in the end is bound to a given,¹⁰⁴ then it is either impossible to uphold a radical interpretationism (one must admit to something given at some point), or interpretation is not at every level a creative-constructional activity, but a merely additional interpretation of a given. Lenk would reject the former, whereas the latter would be a conception akin to the hermeneutic conception in which interpretation is a process of understanding by means of clarification, elucidation and explanation of something already given (e. g. a text). This reading of Lenk is further justified when looking at his ambivalent stand to the hermeneutic position: on one hand, Lenk repeatedly underscores that interpretation may not be reduced to a merely receptive understanding as in the philosophical hermeneutics, because it misses the active and constructive element of interpretation, partly caused by a too eagerly use of the “reading-paradigm”.¹⁰⁵ On the other hand, Lenk is well aware that “reading” within hermeneutics is conceived as a constructing activity¹⁰⁶. This ambivalent understanding of hermeneutics accentuates that the desired dissimilarity of hermeneutics and Lenk′s own interpretationism is impossible to maintain and that

 Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 19, [my translation].  Lenk, Interpretation und Realität. 1995a, p. 258.  Lenk underscores repeatedly that interpretation as action is always bound to (an) already “given” world(s). Cf. Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 19.  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 106 ff.  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 585 ff.

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Lenk’s conception of interpretation as an activity in fact echoes the traditional hermeneutical discussion of interpretation as either creation of – or finding meaning.¹⁰⁷ Furthermore, the “reactive” conception of interpretation leads to the traditional question about reality. Lenk denies that it is impossible to “break” through our interpretations and gain access to a non-interpretive reality; reality is always an “interpretation-internal” reality akin to “internal realism”.¹⁰⁸ Yet, Lenk argues for a realism which is pragmatically necessary, meaning that we humans must presume a “reality” in order to both live and survive. ¹⁰⁹ Or, in Lenks own words: “So there are good and indispensible life-practical as well as pragmatical reasons for a, in this way, fundamentally presuposed, yet weakened metaphysical remnant of realism, which in an epistemological sense must be a pragmatic, interpretation-constructive realism. We are all confounded to realism out of practical and pragmatical reasons – at least in everyday life.”¹¹⁰ That Lenk in this quote restrains his view to count merely for our quotidian perspective is of great importance, because the question must be, how Lenk can differentiate between what is a necessary life-sustaining, practical indispensable interpretation, and what is merely a philosophical, epistemological level six (IS6) interpretation?: “We may be forced to – and we are forced due to life-practical reasons –, to pressuppose a reality, which is independent of our signprocesses and interpretations, even when this, in an epistemological model, naturally also merely can happen as impregnated by interpretation.”¹¹¹ Here, the petitio tollendi is of no use, because it is only stating the mere fact, that we interpret at different levels and that an interpretation can be interpreted, which again can be interpreted, etc. What, in other words, makes the thesis justifiable that certain interpretations are pragmatically indispensable? What is the criterion for discriminating? Lenk does not point at any such criterion. This brings us to the first of our two previously mentioned questions, namely what it means to be “human”. Lenk seeks to resolve the initial circular pattern, the above-mentioned Kantian-Nietzschean antinomy of agent and process, by understanding the ending of the otherwise unlimited semiosis as necessarily

 Cf. Gadamer, Text und Interpretation. 1986, p. 339. A detailed discussion of the hermeneutics in relation to the different approaches in Lenk, Simon and Abel will be undertaken in section 7.3.  Lenk, Interpretation und Interpret. 1992, p. 53.  Lenk, Interpretation und Interpret. 1992, p. 53.  Lenk, Interpretation und Realität. 1995, p. 253, [my translation].  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 467, [my translation].

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brought to an end in order for man to survive. The ending of the semiosis is thus explained by means of a certain interpretation of man as bound to particular indispensable life-sustaining interpretations, namely that of a (hypothetical-pragmatic) presupposition of a reality and a unified world. What is in our interest is the conception of man which is hereby established. To Lenk man is the interpreting and meta-interpreting being. This specific conception of man follows from the interpretational-internal perspective but is nonetheless derivative of a specific naturalistic, evolutionary view in which we interpret so and so in order to survive, i. e. on the basis of certain needs: “We have no access to the world independent of interpretation, neither in our cognition, nor in our actions or elsewhere. World is constituted and structured through our human needs, powers and possibilities – and this counts for both the organic possibilities of cognition as well as the conceptual representations through language.”¹¹² The naturalistic/evolutionary conception of man is established when pointing out specific needs guiding our interpretational activity: “Man relies on projecting thinking and action, also on the employment of projeted schemes, cognitive models and constructs of interpretation. Without this abillity Man would not be able to survive – neither as individuum nor as species or gene pool.”¹¹³ Furthermore, this naturalism is expressed in the description of man’s overall relation to the pragmatically hypostatized world: “We live in a specific world, which pose danger to the individuum and its biological group”.¹¹⁴ Here a certain gnostic perspective becomes manifest, namely that man is alien to the world and must, in order to survive, interpret the world and create, similar to Cassirer’s point in his philosophy of symbols, a symbolic world in its place. As interpreting being, man must rely on constituting its world as a symbolic universe, and so create an artificial world of symbols, which stands “between” a “real” world and the particular reactions to -, and actions in this world.¹¹⁵ So, who interprets? According to Lenk, man’s constitution as finite and man’s basic needs is this “who”. The antinomy of agent and process is in the end resolved by referring to specific human needs whereby Lenk repeats and continues a very well known anthropological naturalism, evident in the tradition

 Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 21, [my translation].  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 323, [my translation].  Lenk, Von Deutungen zu Wertungen. Eine Einführung in aktuelles Philosophieren. 1994, p. 58, [my translation].  Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte als Interpretationskonstrukte. 1994, p. 39.

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from Herder, Gehlen, Plessner and Cassirer to Blumenberg and Marquard.¹¹⁶ Moreover, Lenk sees his own interpretationism as an auxiliary contribution to exactly this anthropological tradition.¹¹⁷ Lenk drives his methodological interpretationism to a radical stand, yet his final conception of man is situated within a specific naturalism, which primarily understands man as a being, interpreting and meta-interpreting, who is constituted through specific life-necessary needs. In Lenk’s case there is a need in man, although merely pragmatically, to presuppose a unified world and reality. Here Lenk’s methodological interpretationism reaches the solid Wittgensteinian “bedrock”¹¹⁸ on which his spade turns, and a “who” is definitively fixed.

 Lenk, Konkrete Humanität. Vorlesungen über Verantwortung und Menschlichkeit. 1998, p. 38 – 47.  Lenk, Konkrete Humanität. Vorlesungen über Verantwortung und Menschlichkeit. 1998, p. 46. Cf. Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte als Interpretationskonstrukte. 1994, p. 55.  Cf. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations. #217. 1974, p. 85.

5 Man as Individual Understanding – Simon’s Philosophy of the Sign The original idea in Simon’s philosophy of the sign¹¹⁹ is that the sign is not primarily a representation and ultimately a representation of something which is not a sign, but that a sign is simply “that which we understand”.¹²⁰ This conception of the sign stands in critical opposition to the Aristotelian definition of the sign as a bipolar relation between signified and signifier, i. e. the sign as a standin (aliquid pro aliquo).¹²¹ In the Aristotelian conception, signs stand for something “real” and not merely for “another sign”, whereby the concept of the “real” constitutes the sign as subordinate to being.¹²² Signs are, within this tradition, the arbitrary representations of a non-arbitrary reality and as such they constitute a specific ontology. Any attempt to definitively determine something and thus form a concept is to Simon “metaphysical” understanding¹²³ and to Simon any metaphysical attempt to determine what a sign is, misses the point that “The sign is not a thing on the metaphysical understanding of “thing”. It is prior to things, in that it stands for a determination of things that essentially does not come to an end”.¹²⁴ The paramount point is thus an exchange and substitution of what is first. Simon puts signs before being.¹²⁵ Yet, this substitution of being with signs is not, as Borsche rightly remarks, simply a change of name of what is primary¹²⁶, but rather a profound change of the way of questioning¹²⁷,

 The following is mainly based on Simon’s seminal work Philosophy of the Sign, 1995 (Philosophie des Zeichens, 1989), and on a selection of his central articles on the subject. For a list of Simon’s works see: Simon, Philosophie als Verdeutlichung. Abhandlungen zu Erkennen, Sprache und Handeln. 2010 p. 363 ff.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 61.  Aristotle’s conception of the language in the beginning of his Peri hermeneias is commonly acknowledged as the origin of philosophical theories on the sign. Meier-Oeser, Zeichen. 2004, p. 1156.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 36 ff.  “Metaphysics is the attempt to understand everything under concepts, and, in doing so, to approximate to a definitive understanding”. Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 64.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 64. Naturally, this involves a critical stand towards the endeavour in contemporary semiotics to determine a concept of the sign from which a general semiotic theory can be formulated as for example in Eco. See: Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 43 – 44.  Borsche, Freiheit als Zeichen. Zur Zeichenphilosophischen Frage nach der Bedeutung von Freiheit. 1994, p. 103.  Borsche, Freiheit als Zeichen. Zur Zeichenphilosophischen Frage nach der Bedeutung von Freiheit. 1994, p. 103. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110592078-007

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which results in a profound change in any ontological thinking – traditional and Heideggerian¹²⁸ – to a thinking in which the main question is not ontological but rather about the nature of understanding signs.¹²⁹ To Simon any understanding of a sign is a matter of differentiating between understanding and not-understanding: “Everything that we understand is a sign because we can speak of “something” (being) only in so far or we can refer to “something” at all only in so far as we understand or also – only in this context – do not understand “something”.”¹³⁰ Within this conception of the sign, any ontological difference is conceived as a difference in understanding and the actual matter for a philosophy of the sign is thus to describe what Simon calls the “”being moved” by something in the understanding of the signs”, which is exactly primary to any regional scientific or theoretical description.¹³¹ This phenomenon of being moved or being carried away (“being moved”) in the understanding of signs comprises a double perspective and point of departure. Firstly, that we are always already within a certain understanding of the world, others and ourselves. In this sense Simon underlines that we are still “metaphysical”,¹³² both in our way of thinking and in our way of life: “We presuppose a world of things as a well-ordered cosmos. Even in this, we are thinking metaphysically, and, when we say that with our representations, as we express them in language and write them down in signs, we were, “in the long run” coming closer to knowledge of “objective” relationships, we are living in the metaphysical belief in definitive “meanings” of signs “for” which the signs would stand, if only they were used “correctly”.¹³³ Secondly, despite the fact that our way of thinking and way of living is guided by such a “metaphysical belief” in a definitive meaning of the sign, we never in fact arrive at such a definitive meaning, but are rather embedded in

 Borsche, Freiheit als Zeichen. Zur Zeichenphilosophischen Frage nach der Bedeutung von Freiheit. 1994, p. 103.  Simon’s position is close to that of Heidegger’s, yet radically different, when exactly the conception of understanding is not restricted to an understanding of “being”, but rather the foundation of any coneption of “being” in the act of “understanding”. Or as Simon puts it: “The objection that signs, too, be, and, to this extent, “being” be the basic concept, overlooks that “being” is, first and foremost, a sign.” Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 137.  “That everything “be” a sign, is a formulation, in ontologically molded language, as a critique of ontology. What it expresses is that “being” comes into question only as a predicate of that about which there is something, so that one either understands or attempts to understand it.” Simon 1995, p. 158.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 76.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 44.  “The time of metaphysics is still our time.” Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 33.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 33.

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an unlimited semiosis in which the meaning of a specific sign is necessarily nothing but yet another sign. As such Simon’s philosophy of the sign reflects the principle of an unlimited semiosis in a radical and fundamental way. This double perspective outlines Simon’s basic aim of being both a continuous discussion with the philosophical tradition understood as an involvement in the “language” of metaphysics, as well as elucidating the initial and perpetual being moved or being carried away (“being moved”) in the understanding of signs, as an interplay of understanding and not-understanding. What Simon hereby emphasizes is partly the time-relative or changing character of all understanding, partly the individuality of all understanding. On the basis of this duality of time/change and individuality Simon conceives the difference of understanding and not-understanding as a dynamic relation, i. e. as a perpetual sign-process: “Change, not being, is the primary thing for a philosophy af the sign. Signs happen, that is, they get understood, or they remain not understood, so long, until they can be transformed into signs that are understandable.”¹³⁴ The question is, however, what it means that a sign is understood or not-understood. Simon’s initial point is that a sign’s meaning is nothing but yet another sign. A sign’s meaning is the interpretation which we understand.¹³⁵ A preliminary and brief outline of what this conception of the sign implies can be put as the following: when a sign is understood, we do not ask, what it means. We understand immediately and without any doubt, disturbance, irritation or interruption. When a sign is not understood, we ask what it means, and try to clarify it. The not-understood sign, or the not sufficiently understood sign needs or requires interpretation (clarification).¹³⁶ Hence, we understand signs either in an i) immediate and perfect way or in ii) a deferred and imperfect way.¹³⁷

 Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 153.  “The meaning of a sign is the sign that we understand as an answer to the question about the meaning. It is the interpretation of the sign.” Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 61.  “A sign that we understand as a sign, but not wholly in its meaning, is in need of interpretation.” Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 61.  Here, and in general throughout his works, Simon is much inspired by the late Wittgenstein. So is Wittgensteins differentiation in his Philosophische Grammatik obviously present: “Of course sometimes I do interpret signs, give signs an interpretation; but that does not happen every time I understand a sign.” (Wittgenstein, Philosophical Grammar, 2005, p. 47.) The meaning is somewhat disturbed in the English version, when comparing with the German original; in the latter it is more obvious, that there is a difference between understanding and not-understanding, in the way Simon conceives it: “Es geschieht natürlich, daß ich Zeichen deute, Zeichen eine Deutung gebe; aber doch nicht immer, wenn ich ein Zeichen verstehe!” Wittgenstein, Philosophische Grammatik, 1984, p. 47.

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i) The immediate understanding of a sign is an understanding in which no further clarification is needed. The immediate understanding is perfect or without interpretation: “In perfect understanding, there arises no reflection on understanding, no question about how something were to be understood. No sign and no question about “its” meaning enters into consciousness. The sign and the interpretation of it are then one: We read a text without interpretation.”¹³⁸ Now, this perfect understanding is not to be conceived as if a sign reveals its final and absolute meaning, but as the fact that the sign, when understood, is not questioned and without preceding consideration. The immediate and perfect understanding means that the sign takes place in the sense that no questions arise about how the sign is to be explained. The sign is simply understood without any further need for clarification. The sign is, in Wittgenstein’s terms, understood “unthinkingly”¹³⁹, meaning that no “inner process of laborious interpretation”¹⁴⁰ precedes. Furthermore, the immediate understanding shows itself as instant reaction.¹⁴¹ Immediate understanding as instant reaction means that no delay or duration exists between the sign’s appearance, the understanding of it, and the action carried out. In the immediate and perfect understanding, we are simply carried away. This is evident in the various practices in which we encounter the phenomenon of immediate understanding. Everyday language, social codes, basic rules or guiding principles in our everyday life examplifies immediate understanding. In this sense, the phenomenon of immediate understanding is the very base of our actions. More concrete examples are found in phenomenons like the successful metaphor, an ironic remark, a joke,

 Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 61.  “I hear a word and someone asks me “did you understand it?” and I reply truly “yes”. What happened when I understood? How was the understanding different from what happens when I don’t understand a word? – Suppose the word was “tree”. If I am to say truly that I understood it, must the image of a tree have come before my mind? No; nor must any other image. All I can say is that when I was asked “do you understand the word tree?” I’d have answered “yes” unthinkingly and without lying. – If the other person had asked me further “and what is a tree?” I would have described one for him, or shown him one, or drawn one; or perhaps I would have answered “I know, but I don’t want to explain.” And it may be that when I gave my reply the image of a tree came before my mind, or perhaps I looked for something which had some similarity with a tree, or perhaps other words came into my head, etc. etc.” Wittgenstein, Philosophical Grammar. 2005, p. 73.  Wittgenstein, Philosophical Grammar. 2005, p. 47.  “If someone asks me “What time is it?” there is no inner process of laborious interpretation; I simply react to what I see and hear.” Wittgenstein, Philosophical Grammar. 2005, p. 47.

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ostensive gestures or gestures like threaths and greetings.¹⁴² But also more complex experiences or events, as e. g. tacit codes found in plays, films or pieces of music, expresses the phenomenon of immediate understanding. Immediate understanding expresses the very way we grasp a narrative and the way we are moved emotionally. Further, also abstract concepts and in a wider sense “things” are understood immediately, and are, as such, perfectly understood signs. ii) In a deferred and imperfect understanding a certain need for clarification shows itself, namely a need or want for an immediate and perfect understanding: “In not understanding a sign is expressed the need to understand everything, that is, everything as a sign without (a question about its) meaning.”¹⁴³ The actual state of not-understanding is in contrast to that of immediate understanding a state of doubt and hesitation. One doubts, searches and is absorbed in trying to clarify and explain a certain sign. In this state one is indecisive and hesitates. The appearance of a not-understood sign hence delays or deters action in the sense that when one is busy clarifying a sign, one does not genuinely act. Of course, one may be forced to act before a satisfying interpretation is reached due to a pressing situation, but in that case one would then either rely on previously established sufficient interpretations, which in turn may prove adequate or inadequate in the present situation, or alternatively choose an interpretation in the sense of deliberately eliminating the doubt by means of suppression. When Simon distinguishes between understanding and not-understanding it is important to stress that this is a reductive conceptualization of a dynamic and changing process in which perfect understanding and imperfect understanding are border-phenomena. It must be emphasized that the distinction between understanding and not-understanding is not a distinction of two contradictory phenomena, but a distinction of gradation within the same phenomenon, that of understanding. Not-understanding is not an absolute privation of understanding in the sense of pure nothingness, but rather a deficient mode of understanding.¹⁴⁴ As such, it is not possible to delimit distinctively between understanding and not-understanding. The difference between understanding and not-understanding also fluctuates; meaning that the act of understanding takes place in numerous ways and appears in various gradations within specific settings. E. g. I can understand the particular words in a certain language, but not understand the sentence in which they appear. I can understand a picture as being a picture,  “If someone whips out a knife at me, I do not say “I interpret that as a threat”.” Wittgenstein, Philosophical Grammar. 2005, p. 47.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 61.  “Not understanding is not the opposite, but rather the deficient mode, of understanding.” Simon 1995, p. 62.

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but without being able to understand what the picture depicts. Or I understand that the thing in front of me is a traffic sign, but I do not understand what it means, and therefore cannot act according to its instructions, which I know are given by it. Or I understand foreign people’s gestures as being gestures without understanding what these gestures mean.¹⁴⁵ Yet, our interest concerns not the innumerable ways of understanding within different situations, but how Simon explains the change and alteration from understanding to not-understanding, i. e. how the process of interpretation constitutes a (temporary) ending of the semiosis (a perfect understanding). A clarification or interpretation of a sign is successful when an immediate or perfect understanding is obtained, i. e. when the doubt ceases and no further questions arise. This will show itself in the particular process of clarification: “Whether an explanation is successful, must show itself each time. It is successful if the variation of signs leads thereto that one now understands without a problem, that is, that one now understands everything that was in question.”¹⁴⁶ The demarcation line between understanding and not-undertanding is thus whether I doubt or not. Here, the question arises how to comprehend a deliberate suppression of doubt (as mentioned above) or the opposite phenomenon, namely an intentional continuation of enquiry, i. e. a willed disbelief. Yet, Simon’s sole concern is that regardless of whether one deliberately suppresses or encourages doubt or not, the end result would be, at least as a prerequisite for the momentary action, that something is understood, i. e. not doubted. This constitutes the ending of the unlimited sign-process, willed or not, as merely a temporary, and furthermore, explicitly individual ending:“Every judgment is now understood as the “interpretation” of an already existing “pre-judice” and will again and again “in principle” find its own intepretation in another. The “interpreting” saying “what” something “truly” be, cannot find a definitive end in the “being” of the thing anymore. Judgments are now to be understood as temporary, individual endings of interpretationprocesses.”¹⁴⁷ Still then, the questions remain; how precisely does the ending of the semiosis take place and what does individuality mean? The ending of the sign-process is, according to Simon, conceived as a substitution of a sign with another sign, which is “better”. This “better” understand-

 “The only thing about which one can ever seriously ask is the meaning of the sign that one does not understand right now, in the context that is there – indeed, in another context, one could perhaps understand it after all –, and the answer can only be another sign.” Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 68.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 62.  Simon, Vorwort. 1994, p. 10, [my translation].

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ing is willed: “When one does not understand immediately, but wants to understand, then one endeavours an “interpretation”.”¹⁴⁸ The principle of the particular temporary ending of the semiosis is as such a will to a better understanding. This “better”, is “better” from the perspective that it “fits” better with our already established immediate understandings, our so-called “metaphysical beliefs” as mentioned above.¹⁴⁹ Furthermore, this principle of melioration underlines why Simon comprehends not-understanding as a deficient mode of understanding. The difference between a sign and a “better” sign is thus the defining point in determining the inner principle of the sign-process. Yet, it cannot stand alone, because how do we determine what is the “better” understanding? What is here the criterion that allows us to discriminate? Here, the concept of individuality is central. Any not-sufficiently understood sign is sought interpreted in order to establish a sufficient understanding, a sufficient understanding which is explicitly individual: “Because, “one” clarifies a concept in his own way, “another” in another way. To “one” a specific clarification is sufficient, which, to “another” is not, because, for him, when he acted according to his idea, something else was “at stake”, as for someone else.”¹⁵⁰ This strict individualism counts for every understanding, i. e. for every understanding of world, other and oneself and it makes out the criterion of a “better” understanding. With Simon’s conception of the sign-process as a dynamic process of individual understanding and interpretation, our initial question about “who interprets” and thus our question about how to understand man, is given a specific and original answer. The question “who interprets” is in Simon equivalent to the traditional question about how the subject (re)cognizes itself, i. e. as an understanding of the “I”. Simon also phrases this as a question about a beginning and an end to the otherwise unlimited semiosis or sign-process.¹⁵¹ Consequently,

 Simon, Zeichenphilosophie und Transzendentalphilosophie. 1994, p. 79. [my translation]. Cf. “Only if understanding is not successful does it come back, as reflection, to “something” that would “give” itself to be understood, but not sufficiently. One then looks for the meaning, that is, for a different, better sign for “the same thing”.” Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 79.  “Just as one sign is at all to be understood better than another, and thus as the “meaning” of the first one, if, and only if, it better fits into the totality of which is understood “without further ado”, that is, without addition of further signs, thus, if it itself is understood in this context “without further ado”, so, too, is it only then that pointing is better than the verbal sign.” Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 66.  Simon, Zeichenphilosophie und Transzendentalphilosophie. 1994, p. 79. [my translation].  “It pertains to the signitive happening that “something” starts and stops being, for us, a sign to be interpreted. Thus the Indo-Germanic languages have always had the sign “I” as one of their personal pronouns.” Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 185.

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the “I” is neither the foundation of reflection, nor the act of reflection itself, but rather that, which is reflected.¹⁵² As such the “I” merely designates the (grammatical) function of pointing back at that particular standpoint from which something is understood: “It is the “referring word”, which as such refers neither to an abject, nor to the subject as object, but back at the subject, which constitutes objects, as it designates these from its standpoint.”¹⁵³ This function is more precisely a connection between signs, commonly known as the Peirceian concept of an interpretant: “The sign that connects other signs to a new sign is, generally speaking, the interpretant between the first sign and a further one. This function alone, and not that as which it itself may be interpreted, for example, as a metaphor, as a middle concept (“term”), as a commentary, as an interpretation of a poem, et cetera, constitutes the interpretant. That it is called an “interpretant,” indicates that it fulfills this function only imperfectly, thus is not exhausted by it, such as, for example, an interpretation perceived as “subjective” or a conspicuous metaphor perceived as such. Subjectivity experiences itself as what is hard in understanding.”¹⁵⁴ Now, as such a connecting function the “who” in “who interprets” is itself a sign which understands signs and which is itself, as a sign, understood. It is itself merely a temporary ending to the otherwise unlimited, dynamic sign-process of understanding and not-understanding. The “who” in “who interprets” is thus the variety of momentary individual understandings and as such unsubstantial, because what one is as “substance” is something designated, i. e. understood.¹⁵⁵ This, in turn, means that what I am, as the agent behind my various (self)designations, is not what I am, but rather a temporary sign within the process of understanding and not-understanding.¹⁵⁶ Again, how is individuality to be conceived here? The sign is a temporary and immediate understanding. It is ones understanding. Individuality thus means a particular understanding. A particular understanding which in the met-

 “”I” is not reflection. It runs into reflection, in that it is no longer “immediately” understood from the context of a language among whose signs it belongs, and, as a result of this, one asks about its meaning.” Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 185.  Simon, Zeichenphilosophie und Transzendentalphilosophie. 1994, p. 86, [my translation].  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 255.  “In connection with this it becomes relevant, that the cognizing subject does not understand itself as “substance”, but, the other way around, understands “substance” as something designated as such by him.” Simon, Zeichenphilosophie und Transzendentalphilosophie. 1994, p. 84, [my translation].  “That “I” am not “substance” means therefore, that I am not “that”, as “what” I at that particular time, wihtin a particular context of action, am designated as, or understood as, within a particular interpretation of the signs, also when this interpretion is mine.” Simon, Zeichenphilosophie und Transzendentalphilosophie. 1994, p. 85, [my translation].

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aphysical tradition is conceived as a person’s understanding; a person who understands a sign in a particular way. And this particular way of seeing or understanding is what we call a particular horizon or belief.¹⁵⁷ Individuality consists of such a particular horizon or set of specific beliefs, which, grammatically speaking, is the subject of the predicate,¹⁵⁸ and which constitute a particular identity. Identity is thus to have certain indubitable propositions, which makes some particular connection of different signs necessary: “The “cogito sum” of Descartes reflects on itself as something that is in its particularity. The peculiarity consists in not being able to doubt certain propositions. What “we” cannot doubt, the “conjunctiones necessariae,” another understanding could possibly doubt. That we cannot do it, would then lie with “us,” that is, “we” would be “something,” something different from another understanding. “Cogito sum”: I am the identity of a particular understanding, to which what is determinate cannot become questionable, and to which, in this respect, nothing happens.”¹⁵⁹ The necessary connections make out the identity of a person and any identity is a consistency over time. Yet, the concept of identity is further to be seen as individuation of something as something. Any identity is established within the sign-process as something understood and therefore itself changing over time. Identity is thus both consistency and alteration and as such the inner principle of the sign-process itself, i. e. the process in which something not-understood is transformed into something understood¹⁶⁰. Now, in this conception of identity as both consistency and alteration the interesting point is how the transformation from something not-understood into something understood takes place. Here Simon writes that the subject is that which is consistent and unchanged within the attempt of understanding something different and new and that this different and new is sought understood exactly by re-establishing identity: “The subject is moved by the sign above and beyond the subject’s identity into another identity. In terms of the new identity, the subject then once again attempts to understand itself on the whole identically.”¹⁶¹ This attempt to establish an identity is exactly that which constitutes consistency, namely as the attempt to understand the unknown by referring to something already known. And this already known is nothing but the individuality as horizon which makes the connections of signs necessary: “The horizon corresponds to a subjective conviction on the basis of which one attempts to understand everything further by means thereof that     

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p. 255. p. 65. p. 157. p. 153. p. 153.

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one attempts to trace it back to what is familiar, to what is already held to be true.”¹⁶² What something is, is thus relativized to an individual horizon. This horizon is in turn nothing but a particular individual understanding at a particular time, where the otherwise unlimited semiosis has, for a moment, ceased: “It is not so that signs stand “for” something that is definitively not a sign; rather is it so that what is considered as being is considered to be this “for” a definite time, in which interpreting pauses […]”.¹⁶³ Again, how is the ending of the semiosis explained? According to Simon, the time the sign-process ceases is the “moment of decision.”¹⁶⁴ This is either a decision to negate further interpretation (i. e. to refrain from interpreting) or a decision to negate action (i. e. to refrain from acting).¹⁶⁵ Yet, regardless that Simon explains the ending as a decision and thus emphasizing a will, the necessity of acting is given priority; one must act because one is under recurring pressure from surrounding circumstances. And here is the decisive point: in order to act, the pressing circumstances force one to refrain from regarding something as merely possible and thus to regard it as real; a real which requires a corresponding belief, whereby the otherwise unlimited semiosis comes to a temporary end.¹⁶⁶ It is thus possible to remain in a state of doubt and indecision, but only as long as certainty is not required, i. e. as long as I am not compelled to act. In the moment of acting however, certainty is required: “One may be uncertain in the interpretation of “what” something be and of whether it be “some thing” at all, so long as one does not need certainty. One does need it if, at the moment of acting, one must rely on a holding-to-be-true.”¹⁶⁷ Simon thus emphasizes that certainty is needed as a prerequisite for actions, and that the semiosis consequently ceases for a moment. Every clarification of something therefore comes to an end only “in a pragmatic respect” as a prerequisite for action.¹⁶⁸ This pragmatic point underscores that Simon gives priority to

 Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 255.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 259.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 259.  “At the moment of acting, that is, of the negation of refraining from acting, or of refraining from acting, that is, of the negation of acting, thus at the moment of decision, the interpretation of “what” something be and whether it be “something” at all necessarily comes to a conclusion. Now this is irrefutably established: The interpretation of something as something becomes, “for the moment,” so to say, ontologically hard.” (Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 259). To refrain from action is here the equivalent to the above mentioned willed disbelief.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 259.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 259.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 255. Cf. “Thus is what is that “which” it is only in a looking at-as-determinate, conditioned by action, at a definite time. Being and time are related

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the surrounding circumstances over ones own will to interpret. This is so because every understanding of something as something real changes according to the changes in the circumstantial pressure, meaning that only when the circumstantial pressure changes or weakens, it becomes possible to ask and thus engage in the process of interpretation and clarification: “What seemed to be firm as being can now once again become sign. “What” it mean, that is, “what” it then “really” be, can once again be asked freely.”¹⁶⁹ The need for certainty as requirement for actions is the main guiding principle within the sign process and the actual cause for its temporary and pragmatic ending. The sign process is in theory unlimited, but due to constant circumstantial pressure and limited time, necessarily ending with a pragmatically sufficient understanding. Correspondingly, the “who” in “who Interprets”, when conceived as the interpretant connecting a sign with another, is again interpreted and understood differently at different times: “Who or what the interpretant, the Peircean “thirdness,” is, becomes clear only in a further interpretation, which then, however, no longer happens by means of this interpretant. In it, the interpretant emerges as something, for example, as this human being, but also as this mood or “mentality,” or even as a definite “attitude,” in which something had become clear as something and which now no longer persists.”¹⁷⁰ The actual point is once again not that the interpretant in theory can be interpreted ad infinitum, but that Simon comprehends every specific interpretation of the interpretant as sufficient according to a certain aim, and that the interpretant therefore rather is the specific compelling reality, than a self-identical subject.¹⁷¹ That reality thus is the interpretant means more specifically that the sign process is an outcome of a specific reality which sets a limit to the otherwise unlimited semiosis. The seeming self-contradictory argument, that “reality” at the same time determines the sign process, as well as being determined as something understood within a sign process, is solved, when reflecting 1) that the sign process is a continual process bound to former interpretations and not some activity ex to one another by means thereof that being is disclosed at a definite time of caring about and dealing with the world in a “given” determination.” Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 258.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 258.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 256.  “Every interpretation of the interpretant as something (as being under a determinacy) can itself find only a pragmatic end, at a time at which a given understanding can be sufficiently understood by means of it only because under a “dominant thought” (Nietzsche) no time remains for further interpretation. “Sufficiently” then means: sufficiently for a definite purpose, which is so weighty that it demands the end of interpretation, and the true interpretant is thereby not a subject identical in itself, but rather the reality in which or for which this is thus for a “definite time.” Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 256.

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nihilo and 2) that “reality” must, as mentioned above, be seen as a disposition to certain necessary connections within a specific individual understanding, i. e. as a specific horizon. The point, however, with regard to our main question, is that the “who” in “who interprets” is understood as an interpretant to which the general orientation within the circumstantial surroundings become imperative: “That one must always be content, and that one also can be content, with a finite concatenation of interpretation, if the sign appears to be “sufficiently” understandable in the orientation for action, is the true reference to reality. The reference is, in this sense, pragmatic.”¹⁷² One must, and can, rely on a specific interpretation when it establishes a sign which gives orientation for one’s actions. Simon describes this as “the seriousness of having to act or of having to refrain from acting that is required at all times”¹⁷³ According to the idea of certainty and orientation as prerequisites for actions we find a specific conception of man as an individual who strives for orientation as such. The conception of orientation as the inner motivation of the sign process elucidates the above explained principle of meliorism as a general characterization of the sign-process: “The free transition to other signs “for” the ones at hand is without a general reference point, and thus individual. It is the expression of an individual understanding of what is individual.”¹⁷⁴ Although Simon underpins that signs are an “expression“ and thus always in relation to others,¹⁷⁵ this relation to others is merely secondary as it needs translation: “All transformation of signs into other signs happens not only for limited, individual purposes, but also on the presupposition that the result of the transformation be generally better than the sign of the starting point. What is referred to here is a common sense, “community,” in the sense of a “translation” of signs for others. Clarification is understood as a social action.”¹⁷⁶ The community or social reality or social feeling brought into the process of interpretation is thus only carried out as a subordinate approach to my individual understanding. The overall sign process thus ends with a radical individualism with regard to one’s needs

 Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 75.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 76.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 238.  “For oneself merely privately to hold one sign to be clearer vis-a-vis another sign would be an obscure idea, indeed, a paradoxical one. Signs as such are expression, relation to one’s own, and thus to other, understanding.” Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 217.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 216. It is further merely within this perspective a common strive for a “better” understanding that we may speak of “truth”.

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for clarification, ¹⁷⁷ yet with a general conception of how every particular clarification is carried out, namely as a strive for a “better” understanding which provides “better” orientation.¹⁷⁸ Orientation is in Simon’s words “to aim for” something in order to find a way: “Orientations follow an aim […] in order to find a way from that point.”¹⁷⁹ When orientating oneself one uses a mean according to the particular aim – a mean which remains secondary to the aim. Every individual has, as a particular horizon of understanding, its own individual needs for orientation and therefore its own individual means. Yet, orientation as such remains a general need regardless of the individually designed means to obtain it. The “who” in “who interprets?” is as it is nothing but a sign in theory impossible to interpret “exhaustively”.¹⁸⁰ The “who” is therefore not “something” but rather that which interprets and as such undeterminable: ““the human being” is, according to his substance, a subject that does not get absorbed in any objective determination, but rather itself remains a subject of determination. Here this remaining constitutes substantiality. To this extent, subjectivity (beingforitself), understood as the (negative) determination of the human being, is the fundamental characteristic of the sign that does not get absorbed in other signs in any translation.”¹⁸¹ In this way the “who” in “who interprets” is: “The sign that connects other signs to a new sign […]”.¹⁸² The “who” in “who interprets” is thus the process of determining the meaning of signs, i. e. the process of elucidation and hence the establishing of an immediate understanding. Now, the process of elucidation also aims at the process of elucidation itself, hence the “who” is self-referential or as Simon puts it: ““Subjectivity” means, put paradoxically, being very good at engaging in infinite discourses of clarification as well as being very good at understanding them, including the discursive clarification of “what” subjectivity “be”.”¹⁸³ In this sense, we are back at

 “One will always have to make do with certain answers or explanations, which »in principle« always again could be questioned, albeit not »in practice«. When and with which explanations one make do, must be different from subject to subject, because their “standpoints” and interests are different, by which their needs for explanations are given.” Simon, Zeichenphilosophie und Transzendentalphilosophie. 1994, p. 73, [my translation].  “»cognition« […] as in its essence of »human« cognition aiming at orientation in the world under the certain conditions of time.” Simon, Verstehen ohne Interpretation? Zeichen und Verstehen bei Hegel und Nietzsche. 1995, p. 9, [my translation].  Simon, Orientierung in Zeichen. 1997, p. 7, [my translation].  “Understood as a sign, the human being is an arche-type, for, understood thus, he, like every sign, cannot be interpreted exhaustively.” Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 256.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 255.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 255.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 147.

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the defining point, namely how the process of understanding is conceived as an intention of a better understanding ultimately founded in a need for orientation. Subjectivity is the process of orientation and Simon can, to this end, refer to Kant, when defining orientation as defining ourselves: “We define in so far in all orientation actually ourselves, as it is said by Kant. Who orientates himself, defines »himself«, over and about his current being orientated, which did not suffice to him anymore, without thereby to be able to arrive at a definitive being orientated or, reasonably, even to want to.”¹⁸⁴ Simon’s philosophy of the sign might imply a new conception of subjectivity and identity in relation to metaphysical conceptions¹⁸⁵, yet every understanding is in Simon a function of the principle of meliorism and a general need for orientation. Simon thus ends with a conception of man, which echoes his characterization of the present situation of philosophy as an endeavor to think thinking¹⁸⁶, and as such also echoes our initial and original question: “who interprets”. In this vein Simon regards philosophy as “thinking world-orientation”¹⁸⁷, man as individual understanding and the process of understanding itself as striving for a better understanding qua orientation. Werner Stegmaier has in a direct trail of Simon’s philosophy of the sign conveyed a philosophy of orientation. In Stegmaier’s version the understood sign is orientation: “A sign which one cannot avoid as sign, is an orientation.”¹⁸⁸ Accordingly all activity and thinking are forms of orientation and Stegmaier’s philosophy of orientation is, with his own words, in this way a “prima philosophia”¹⁸⁹ which contemplates orientation as the original constituent of all actions and thinking: “In so far as orientation precedes all definitive fixation, it is original, an origin or beginning, in greek αρχή, in latin principium, and exactly that which philosophy, since its origins or beginnings, have pursued. It is however a principle, which, because it precedes all definitive fixation, itself cannot be fixed definitively. In any case, it cannot be understood by means of anything else. So, everything must be understood from it, and as such it is an incomprehensible origin or beginning of all understanding. In this way, it is an origin, which does not only stay questionable, but also lets the question arise, if, at all,

 Simon, Orientierung in Zeichen. 1997, p. 8, [my translation]. Cf. Kant, What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking? 1996.  Cf. Simon, Vorwort. 1994, p. 12.  “[…] this thinking about thinking is characteristic for the situation of contemporary philosophy.” Simon, Vorwort. 1994, p. 10.  Simon, Vorwort. 1994, p. 10, [my translation].  Stegmaier, Weltabkürzungskunst. Orientierung durch Zeichen. 1994, p. 126, [my translation].  Cf. Stegmaier, Orientierung. Philosophische Perspektiven. 2005, p. 14– 50.

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it is still meaningful to ask about an origin or principle. Because also the question about an origin of the orientations is already within an orientation, and so is, when one insists on the question, orientation also principle for itself, and only to be understood from itself. So, if a principle, it is a self-referential principle, and its principle is therefore its own self-referentiality.”¹⁹⁰ In this vein Stegmaier understands man as an orientational being, who in the end orientates itself in and by its orientations, whereby he establishes thinking as orientation and the self as “self-referentiality of orientation.”¹⁹¹ In turn the “who” in “who interprets” is nothing as orientation in and of orientations. Stegmaier here builds upon Simon’s insights that any understanding is driven by the intention of a better understanding, understood as a general need for orientation and can thus formulate an all-including philosophy of orientation in which the need for orientation is the foundation and original principle: “Orientation is not only necessary for humans, but also for animals and even for some plants. They are, as nutrition and breathing an essential, undeniable and insuspensible necessity for life.”¹⁹² Ultimately, Stegmaier stretches his definition of orientation to the degree that it finally loses its ability to make applicable distinctions. Everything is in the end orientation in one form or another. Even the breaking out of an already established, certain and safe orientation, i. e. the tendency towards destroying one’s own orientations, is yet again understood as orientation, now as a need to disorientate oneself in order to orientate oneself anew, a process which Stegmaier sees par excellence in art: “Art works towards extending and dissolving the use of signs over and above the daily routines. It produces creative disorientation and enriches the orientation through fictional orientation-worlds.”¹⁹³ Here the reduction of all to orientation finally runs out in a reductio ad absurdum: disorientation is orientation! Stegmaier is caught within his own web, namely the necessary dead-end of all prima philosophia by which everything can be explained by just one notion – here: orientation. Yet, the actual problem is that Stegmaier’s prima philosophia cannot critically question the general naturalist presumption it is founded upon, viz. the conception of man as need for orientation within a chaotic world. The concept of orientation presupposes that we must orientate ourselves, whereas the concept of interpretation avoids such premises. The conception of orientation implies a dualism of man and world, in which world is a chaos we need to orientate ourselves in. If orientation is the sole func Stegmaier, Philosophie der Orientierung. 2008, p. 5, [my translation].  Stegmaier, Philosophie der Orientierung. 2008, p. 291 ff., [my translation].  Stegmaier, Philosophie der Orientierung. 2008, p. 2, [my translation].  Stegmaier, Philosophie der Orientierung. 2008, p. 507, [my translation]; cf. Stegmaier, Philosophie der Orientierung. 2008, p. 523 ff.

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tion of signs and interpretation it is setting the premise that man needs orientation in a chaotic world. Even though the main focus and tenet is that man is never without orientation, the notion still suggests that there is a severe deficit to begin with, hence the need for orientation: “The conditions are first and foremost contingent, without a given connection. […] One then try to orientate oneself in the sense of “making an effort”. But also then, one does not already seek something definite, but rather make an effort to create durable connections in what one finds in front of one.”¹⁹⁴ Stegmaier’s critique of Lenk, Abel and Simon that interpretation and sign-understanding involves an ontological doubling when operating with a “someone” who interprets/understands and a “world” of interpretations/signs, which is interpreted/understood, is also basically mistaken and actually rather adheres to Stegmaier’s own dualism of a chaotic world on one hand and an ordering orientation on the other.¹⁹⁵ The key difference and the key objection to Stegmaier’s philosophy of orientation is in turn that all orientation necessarily is interpretation, but not all interpretation necessarily orientation.

 Stegmaier, Philosophie der Orientierung. 2008, p. 1, [my translation].  Cf. Stegmaier, Weltabkürzungskunst. Orientierung durch Zeichen. 1994, p. 122.

6 Man as Signo-Interpretational Process – Abel’s Philosophy of Sign and Interpretation Abel’s philosophy of sign and interpretation¹⁹⁶ is developed in close relation to Nietzsche’s philosophy¹⁹⁷ of the will to power as a multitude of interrelated and dynamic interpretational processes and has later ripened into a unique and comprehensive philosophy, with the main aim and scope to analyze the complex forms of the signo-interpretational character of perception, language, thinking and actions. Abel engages in a detailed as well as extensive discussion with the tradition from Kant, Hegel, Peirce and Wittgenstein and of more recent debates within the analytical tradition and contemporary philosophy of mind, epistemology and philosophy of language. The main objective in Abel’s philosophy is a radical critique of metaphysics and more precisely the traditional dichotomies of realism-idealism and essentialism-relativism and thus to formulate a philosophy beyond such positions.¹⁹⁸ The following presentation and analysis, however, solely aims to ask the question “who interprets” and thus to spell out the inherent conception of man within Abel’s philosophy. The enquiry is thus limited to conceptions and discussions directly related to this – a limitation the more necessary as Abel’s philosophy is wide-ranging. Abel’s point of departure is that we always and already are within a complex of signo-interpretational relations to world, other and ourselves. Any sensation, perception, communication, cognition and action are occurrences in and of signs and interpretations¹⁹⁹ or takes place as a variety of signo-interpretational processes. Interpretation is for Abel, as for Lenk,²⁰⁰ not to be understood as a merely

 Abel uses throughout his works several titles for his philosophy, e. g. interpretationism, philosophy of interpretation, philosophy of sign and interpretation. Despite these differences the content undergoes only minor changes from his early book on Nietzsche (Abel, Nietzsche. Die Dynamik der Willen zur Macht und die ewige Wiederkehr. 1984) to the later more developed position (Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004). In the following I will refer to Abel’s philosophy as a whole using the title philosophy of sign and interpretation.  Cf. Abel, Nietzsche. Die Dynamik der Willen zur Macht und die ewige Wiederkehr. 1984.  Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 13. Notice also the title of the earlier book: Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993.  Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 20.  The similarity between Lenk’s interpretationism and Abel’s philosophy of sign and interpretation is unmistakable and acknowledged by both philosophers throughout their works. Mainly the conception of interpretation as constructional activity, and the division into different levels make the two approaches akin. Divergences consist partly in the detailed classification of the different levels, the epistemological status of interpretationism itself and the ontological https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110592078-008

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hermeneutical “ars interpretandi”²⁰¹, but rather as a creative and constructive process. Accordingly, Abel distinguishes between interpretation in a narrow and a broad sense. Interpretation in a narrow sense refers to the process of interpretation in which a sign is clarified and explained in order to overcome a doubt or insufficient understanding of something (as in Simon). Interpretation in the broad sense refers to the specific creative and constructive acts²⁰², by means of which we: “carry out phenomenal discrimination, identification, reidentification, apply predicates and characterizations, assign, create connections, classify, and are, with regard to such formed worlds, able to have opinions, beliefs and also justified knowledge”.²⁰³ Furthermore, Abel distinguishes between signs in a narrow and in a broad sense corresponding to that of interpretation in a narrow and broad sense respectively. Here, signs in a narrow sense refer to both natural and artificial signs characterized by their representational function as a stand in and can as such be the object of scientific scrutiny as in the philosophical and scientific semiotics;²⁰⁴ whereas signs in a broad sense refer to anything, which in some way or another has a meaning or stands out as something.²⁰⁵ With regard to both signs in the narrow and the broad sense Abel lists five points of central status. These five points are in turn decisive for our question “who interprets” as a question about the ending of the otherwise unlimited semiosis, namely²⁰⁶: i) that everything is not always and already a sign, meaning that both signs in a narrow and in a broad sense originate genealogically from interpretation; ii) That nothing simply by itself is a sign, but that any sign (in both narrow and broad sense) is used and functions as a sign; iii) that every object or process can become a sign – and also lose its function as a determinate sign; iv) that the differentiation between signs in a narrow and a broad sense requires a reconstruction of the original interpretational praxes; v) that no sign (narrow or broad) exists already as fully, exact and finished, but is genealogically dependent on an interpretational praxis comprising context, situation, time, persons, culture and history. These distinctions might at consequences. These issues will be discussed consecutively throughout the following when relevant.  Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 25. The relation to philosophical hermeneutics will be discussed in detail later in section 7.3.  Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 22.  Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 26, [my translation]. See also Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 14; Abel, Was ist Interpretationsphilosophie? 1994, p. 16.  Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 20.  Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 21.  The following comprises the points given in: Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 21– 22.

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first seem insignificant, yet they are fundamental not only with regard to distinguishing Abel’s philosophy from that of both Lenk’s and Simon’s, as well as from the hermeneutics and the philosophical semiotics, but furthermore, as it will become clear in the following, they are fundamental for spelling out the inherent conception of man in Abel’s philosophy of sign and interpretation. However, before I go into detail with this, it is necessary to present a preliminary account of some central ideas and arguments in Abel’s philosophy. In order to distinguish the different processes of interpretation, Abel introduces a heuristic model of three levels or stages and three dimensions or intentions.²⁰⁷ The first level or stage, interpretation1, consists of original-productive, categorizing, individuating and constructive components, which are already provided for and presupposed in any organized experience and thus before any experience of a “so-and-so-experience” and any “so-and-so-world”²⁰⁸. The second level, interpretation2, contains customized and habitual patterns of uniformity in the organization of experience and meaning, e. g. through culturally or socially acquired practices and capabilities. The third level, interpretation3, covers the appropriating clarifications, e. g. by making a hypothesis or a theory, by explaining or reasoning.²⁰⁹ The three dimensions or intentions are understood as running through each level, namely an interpretation-logic, an interpretation-aesthetic and an interpretation-ethic. The interpretation-logic comprises the basic components within our systems of fundamental concepts; the interpretation-aesthetic involves the forms of sensual perception as well as the specifics of a sign’s or a judgment’s semantic character; and the third intention, the interpretationethic, covers the normative elements of the interpretational practice as well as

 Abel uses the notions stages (“Ebene”) and dimensions (“Dimensionen”) in the early article Interpretations-Welten (Abel, Interpretations-Welten. 1989), whereas levels (“Stufen”) and intentions (“Hinsichten”) are used in the later works (Abel, Was ist Interpretationsphilosophie? 1994; Abel, Sprache Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999; Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004). In the middle work: Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993) the notions stages (“Ebene”) and intentions (“Hinsichten”) are used. In the following I will simply use the notions levels for “Ebene” and “Stufe”, and intentions for “Dimensionen” and “Hinsichten” since these are in Abel the most common expressions, and because there is no substantial difference between these.  Abel, Interpretations-Welten. 1989, p. 3.  Cf. Abel, Interpretations-Welten. 1989, p. 3 ff.; Abel, Zeichen und Interpretation. 1992, p. 170; Abel, Was ist Interpretationsphilosophie? 1994 p. 17; Abel, Unbestimmtheit der Interpretation. 1995, p. 14 ff.; Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999 p. 27 ff.; Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004 p. 28 ff.

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rule-based and situation-dependent use of signs.²¹⁰ The combination of levels and intentions form a pattern within which the intentions run horizontally and the levels vertically and consequently each of the three levels contains the three intentions constituting different interpretation-worlds. The different interpretation-worlds are in turn possible to distinguish by means of the same model of interpretation-levels, though the distinction now concerns the relation between “world” and interpretation. A specific interpretation3, e. g. a scientific theory or an explanation, can thus turn out to be wrong and in this sense fail to represent the “world”. In such a case, not the “world” but the interpretation3 is altered. If certain interpretation2-processes, e. g. cultural customs or social codes, change, the “world” may remain unchanged, in the same way as our customs or social codes may remain unchanged when e. g. new physical or psychological phenomena are discovered. And yet, if a specific interpretation1 changes, i. e. a categorizing and individuating process, then the “world”, as a specific soand-so-world, also changes.²¹¹ In this conception the traditional ontological positions of realism and idealism are overcome in a non-ontological signo-interpretational conception of the relation of signs and reality, which Abel depicts by means of an analogy to a revolving door: every individuated and specific reality is always already a signo-interpretational constitution and every non-erroneous experience of content is always and already an experience of reality.²¹² The signo-interpretational approach is thus first and foremost critical towards ontology as such,²¹³ and hence neither in itself ontological nor substituting things and

 Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p.15. Cf. Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 29 ff. A detailed and extended explanation of the intentions is given in: Abel, Interpretations-Welten. 1989, p. 6 ff.  Cf. Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 16.  Cf. Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 13. The numerous objections to Abel for ending in a constructivist idealism or an ontology of processes are on this background utterly mistaken. Cf. Lenk, Welterfassung als Interpretationskonstrukt. Bemerkungen zum methodologischen und transzendentalen Interpretationismus. 1988, p. 71 ff.; Greaser, Interpretation, Interpretativität und Interpretationismus. 1996; Löhrer, Einige Bemerkungen zur Theorieebene der Interpretationsphilosophie. 1996. See also Abel’s own replies in e. g.: Abel, Interpretationsphilosophie. Eine Antwort auf Hans Lenk. 1988; Abel, Was ist Interpretationsphilosophie? 1994; Abel, Interpretationsphilosophie. Kommentare und Repliken. 1996. The decisive point in Abel’s philosophy of sign and interpretation is that it is non-ontological, i. e. Abel views ontology as secondary to interpretational processes, as I will return to soon.  “Philosophy of interpretation is not an ontology of interpretations. The approach is rather to leave behind both the older ontology of “essences” and the modern ontology of phenomenons, as well as the langauge-dependent ontology of “ontological commitments” (Quine).” Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 40, [my translation].

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facts with interpretations. That every sensation, perception, communication, cognition and action is an occurrence in and of signs and interpretations does not mean that all that is, is signs and interpretations, but rather that there are no pure and interpretation-free facts, i. e. facts irrelative to any conception or interpretation: “To say, that there are no clean “facts” completely free of conceptions, and that one always only has to do with “in interpretative processes formed (not created ex nihilo) facts”, with facts-of-interpretation and in this way with interpretations, does not mean, that interpretations “are given” in an ontologically strong sense, does not mean that interpretations take over the role of facts.”²¹⁴ The argument is thus not that no facts exist, but rather that talking about facts only makes sense within some already established signo-interpretational practice; a signo-interpretational practice which as such is not a fact: “That there are facts, can itself not be a fact, but must be a product of signs and interpretations.”²¹⁵ This critique of ontology as such becomes clear when we look at the relation between intension and extension of interpretations, i. e. the transition from merely intensional content of interpretations to extensional references. Abel lists the following points²¹⁶: a) The meaningfulness of signs with regard to communicative aims: notions and sentences as well as actions are in their intension at some point necessary extensional if not to obstruct our otherwise wellfunctioning communication. b) The transition from intension to extension is pragmatic and practical determined, relative to situations and ends. This also means that in order to be able to act, the process of interpretation3 must be ended, either as a natural ending or by intention. c) That the ending of the semiosis merely pragmatically comes to an end means that the interpretation3-process is ended because of practical requirements understood as a compulsion to act or decide due to some external force, e. g. social constraints, shortage of time etc. This merely pragmatic ending excludes any non-interpretative reality, whether understood as “the matter itself” or “in the long run”. d) The difference between intension and extension is parallel to the difference between interpretation3 and interpretation1. The clarification of an intension is thus a process within the interpretation3, whereas the extensional reference to things and objects is independent of this interpretation3 process. e) That interpretation-worlds are understood as processes of interpretation1+2+3 does not mean that Abel suggest an ontology of processes in opposition to an ontology of things.²¹⁷ Abel’s ar Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 40, [my translation].  Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 382, [my translation].  Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 40 ff.  “The point is not, to change from an ontology of things into an ontology of processes. Because then it is still an ontology.” Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 42, [my trans-

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gument is here, that both an ontology of things and an ontology of processes are dependent on language and thus rather about the difference between thing-language and process-language.²¹⁸ In this sense, our language obliges us to think within certain ontological conceptions. Any language, however, is conditional to and qualified by a specific interpretation1+2+3-praxis, i. e. derived from a specific interpretation-praxis.²¹⁹ The point is in other words that we always already are dependent on a certain interpretation1-practice, when we, within an interpretation3-perspective, reflect upon and make ontological arguments. Yet, that language induces certain ontological conceptions is not the same as a language-induced ontology. Our language does not imply ontological commitments (Quine) in the sense of necessarily leading to a specific ontology, but rather leads to certain ontological conceptions because founded in certain interpretation-praxes. In this way, a specific foundational interpretation-praxis of e. g. the thing-language is not absolute nor the only possible. Abel’s signo-interpretational approach thus leaves behind any ontology of things and processes as well as language-induced ontology, e. g. Quine’s conception of ontological commitments.²²⁰ The crux is that ontological implications of a certain language do not lead to a specific ontology, but rather serve as a critical argument against ontology as such. f) The non-ontological approach does not result in an extreme interpretation-relativism. Interpretations are always bound to actions, language and signuse, and thus within pragmatically obliging interpretation-worlds of interpretation1+2+3. g) The meanings of linguistic and non-linguistic signs are neither pre-determined nor merely subjective. Every interpretation3-activity is conditional to

lation]. This is Abel’s counter-argument to Lenk’s objection, that Abel constitutes an ontology of processes: Lenk, Welterfassung als Interpretationskonstrukt. Bemerkungen zum methodologischen und transzendentalen Interpretationismus. 1988, p. 73; Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 25, 63 ff, 308.  “The question about processes is primarily a question about process-langauge (in difference to thing-langauge). Process-language does, as all other language, all the time and already presuppose an interpretation-practice and is dependent on this”. Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 42, [my translation].  “Ontological arguments are dependent on language, signs, and interpretations. What is, and the way it counts as something being or not-being, is already an internal function of the system of interpretation which we use.” Abel, Interpretations-Welten. 1989, p. 1, [my translation]. Cf. Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 42.  Quine’s conception of ontological commitments is within Abel’s philosophy of sign and interpretation covered by the pragmatic obligations. Ontological commitments would then mean commitment within a certain interpretation-praxis, which is to say that not our language commits us to a certain ontology, but a certain ontology is committed to and founded in a certain interpretation-praxis.

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and qualified by specific interpretation1+2-processes, hence neither merely subjective nor absolutely determined. Abel crystalizes these points of the signo-interpretational model of levels and dimensions, and the critical stand towards ontology in a so-called “principle of interpretation”²²¹: “Everything which “is”, is interpretation, and interpretation is everything, which “is”.”²²² Three points are here essential: 1) the “is” in quotation marks does not express identity, but rather identification. The crux is here that identity is secondary to an interpretative process of identification and individuation and thus merely epistemic. To say that everything which “is”, is interpretation, is thus an expression, which underscores the interpretative character of everything, which is to say that everything “is” “something” secondary to a specific interpretation-praxis – not that “everything” as such is interpretation. As merely an epistemic expression the “principle of interpretation” furthermore eludes the objections that it is a) self-revoking because of self-referentiality, i. e. the objection: “when everything is interpretation, then it is also an interpretation, that everything is interpretation”; and b) selfcontradicting, i. e. the objection: “to say that something, x, is interpreted, implies that something, y, is not interpreted, but that, which x is the interpretation of.²²³ With regard to the first objection, Abel argues that the principle is not self-revoking, because it does not target “everything” but rather “everything which “is””. The weight is here again on the “is” in quotation marks, which expresses that it is pronouncing something about something, namely that any “something” is an interpreted “something”. The principle is itself of course an interpretation, but this does not imply that it is self-revoking because the truth of the principle does not imply that the principle itself is false.²²⁴ This is perfectly consistent with the difference between interpretation1 and interpretation3. That, which the principle is referring to or is about, is what happens at the interpretation1level, yet, the principle itself is obviously a specific principle within the interpre-

 In the German original: “Satz der Interpretation”.  In the German original: “Alles, was “ist”, ist Interpretation, und Interpretation ist alles, was “ist”” Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 57, [my translation]. Cf. Abel, Nominalismus und Interpretation. Die Überwindung der Metaphysik im Deneken Nietzsches. 1985, p. 60; Abel, Interpretationsphilosophie. Eine Antwort auf Hans Lenk. 1988, p. 82.  Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 60 & 62. Graeser views the second of these objections, whereas Löhrer views the first as the more crucial. Cf. Graeser, Interpretation, Interpretativität und Interpretationismus. 1996, p. 253 ff; Löhrer, Einige Bemerkungen zur Theorieebene der Interpretationsphilosophie. 1996, p. 261 ff.  Cf. Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 60.

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tation3-level.²²⁵ With regard to the second objection, Abel argues that the principle is to be understood as transcendental. To say that everything which “is” is interpretation means that we as finite creatures does not have a complete overview nor access to things as they are independent of our interpretation1+2+3-praxes. This is a Kantian point, stating that we only have access to phenomena, not the thing in itself. The objection that the concept of interpretation necessarily presupposes “something”, “y”, which “x” is the interpretation of is reliant on a concept of interpretation inherent of the traditional metaphysics of a subject–object dualism; exactly the kind of metaphysical dualism which Abel aims at abandoning. Graeser’s objection is that Abel’s principle of interpretation, that everything is interpretation, necessarily means that there is something, “y” of a non-interpretational character, which is interpreted. But this is merely begging the question. Graeser’s objection can in fact be reduced to the tautology: interpretation is interpretation of something; hence interpretation is interpretation of something. Instead Abel suggests a notion of interpretation by which it is possible to abandon the traditional idealism-realism metaphysics, i. e. Abel proposes a concept of interpretation as originally creative which in turn exceeds the common-sense conception of interpretation. This does not mean that interpretation is an act sui generis and not relative to “something”, but rather questions the character of this “something”. Abel’s conception of interpretation does

 Abel makes this clear in the contributions: Abel, Interpretationsphilosophie. Eine Antwort auf Hans Lenk. 1988; Abel, Interpretation und Realität. Erläuterungen zur Interpretationsphilosophie. 1996; Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999. E. g.: “The sentence “everything which “is”, is interpretation” belongs to the level of interpretation1, not to the level of interpretation2 or interpretation3. The interpretation1-circle is original-productive, i. e. without reference and without relativity. First through its completion it becomes fixed, what can even count as reference and as something external. It does not simply say “everything is interpretation”. The sentence in question refers exactly to the process by which reality is formed as a so-and-so-reality.” (Abel, Interpretationsphilosophie. Eine Antwort auf Hans Lenk. 1988, p. 82, [my translation]); “The sentence “everything which “is”, is interpretation” refers to the circumstance, that what “is” (localized and individuated in space and time) has a genealogy of activities within the interpretation1relations. The sentence itself is clearly expressed from a interpretation3-level.” (Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 62, [my translation]). Furthermore, I do not agree with Löhrer (Löhrer, Einige Bemerkungen zur Theorieebene der Interpretationsphilosophie. 1996, p. 264) that it is unclear, what, in the first quote, is meant by “belongs to” nor that there is a contradiction between the two formulations. The second quote quite clearly demonstrates that there is a difference between content and the literal statement of the sentence, i. e. the sentence itself. The two formulations thus cement a reading of the sentence as referring to different levels of interpretation with regard to content (interpretation1-level) and the literalness (interpretation3-level), i. e. the actual sentence. In this perspective Löhrers objection to Abel is mistaken in its very characterisation of Abel’s position.

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not mean creation ex nihilo, as every interpretation stands in a perpetual relation to other interpretations. Hence, interpretation is, in this weak sense, interpretation “of something”, i. e. interpretations in relation to interpretations, or interpretations of interpretations. In this way, the originally creative interpretation1process is not relative to “something”, but in the process of interpretation this relation is established, as Abel also made clear in the passage from before: “The interpretation1-circle is original-productive, i. e. without reference and without relativity. First through its completion it becomes fixed, what can even count as reference and as something external.”²²⁶ Abel’s non-ontological concept of interpretation is thus to be understood as a plurality of dynamic and creative-constructional interpretational processes in opposition to the traditional dual relation between a constituting subject and a constituted object. In turn, Abel suggests a pentagonal relation of interpretational processes, a processual “interpretation-circle”: “Interpretation happens (1), by which the interpreter already is interpreted, when and as he interprets (2) some other being, which is also interpreting (3) and interpreted (4) and which again interprets him (5).” This pentagonal “interpretation-circle” establishes an inter-dependant, interpretational relation of multiple interpretational processes.²²⁷ Yet again, this characterization must not be confused with an ontology of processes as mentioned above. The crux is that any ontology, as either thing-ontology or process-ontology, is constituted within a certain language which in turn is subordinate to some interpretation. 2) The interpretation-sentence is apagogical; hence it is formulated as a negative critique of the metaphysical tradition. The key issues criticized are a) that reality is understood as absolute and in-itself possible to grasp in a purely passive way and b) that it accordingly is possible to reach a final and complete understanding of such a reality. The philosophy of sign and interpretation is as such based on a double point of departure, namely i) that we as finite creatures are inapt of saying definitively “what is” and “what something is” and further ii) that everything which “is” is based on fundamental signo-interpretational processes. As a consequence of this Kantian inspired philosophy of radical finitude, any dogmatism is systematically ruled out.²²⁸

 Abel, Interpretationsphilosophie. Eine Antwort auf Hans Lenk. 1988, p. 82, [my translation].  Abel, Nietzsche. Die Dynamik der Willen zur Macht und die ewige Wiederkehr. 1984, p. 173, [my numbering, my translation].  Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 62.

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3) The interpretation-sentence does not adhere to the area of formal logic but rather expresses a transcendental point.²²⁹ As such the principle of interpretation applies to every cognition and perception to the degree that: “Every individuated real world is interpreted world, is interpretation-world.”²³⁰ Consequently, the metaphysical dualism of an ontological sphere and an epistemological sphere is overcome, whereby we are restrained to genealogical reflections of our specific life-praxes, which as specific “relations of interpretations” determine what “is”.²³¹ With this understanding of the principle, Abel is able to abandon “the whole dichotomy of “true reality” and “mere appearance” (and not only one of the sides).”²³² And the decisive point herein is that we, as finite creatures, are unable to break through the limits of our specific interpretation-relational life-praxis.²³³ The critical stand towards ontology is an overcoming of the metaphysical dualism of traditional realism/essentialism and traditional idealism/relativism. In turn, Abel formulates an internal interpretationism,²³⁴ as well as a theory of truth as interpretation-internal, both compatible with an empirical realism: “Only such interpretation-worlds, which are also coherent with the conditions for empirical validity can be treated as our worlds (in this sense it is possible to distinguish the empirically related interpretation-worlds from merely hallucinated worlds). And the interpretationist can naturally at the same time be an empirical realist, in the way explained several times. Because, there are evidently objects and processes independently of our interpretations2+3, which forces us, in the cases, when the interpretations2+3 does not fit these, to change our inter-

 Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 58. Cf. “The expression “everything which “is” is also to be understood in the sense of “each thing”, whereby “each thing” is understood in a transcendental sense and only refers to phenomena, not to things-in-themselves. The principle of interpretation is also because of this a principle wihtin an interpretation-transcendental logic, a fundamental principle for any experience and cognition, like the principle of sufficient reason.” Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 63, [my translation].  Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 59, [my translation].  Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 59.  Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 59, [my translation].  Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 59.  Abel distinguishes his internal interpretationism from the internal realism (H. Putnam) underscoring that the main difference is that internal realism fails to acknowledge the creative aspect of our world-version because relying on a “neutralist” view. Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 464. In turn, Abel conceives his internal interpretationism as a “radical” internal realism. Cf. Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 462.

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pretations2+3, yet not to change the world.”²³⁵ The crux is here again to make use of the heuristic differentiation of interpretation-levels. With regard to the question about the reality of things, i. e. about the existence of things, the point is that the conception of absolutely interpretation1-independent things is inexplicable and inconceivable, yet things are not products ex nihilo of our powers of imagination. This is, again, first and foremost a critical stand and thus about marking the limits of what is comprehensible, not about formulating an ontology: “The awareness is rather on the limits of what one in a critical approach meaningfully can say something about, and what not. The object is always object within our understanding, that is within interpretation.”²³⁶ The conception of things as internally conditional to a certain interpretational praxis is thus compatible with an empirical realism, when our interpretation1+2+3-activities function automatically (which is the normal case). In this situation of an unquestioned and automatically functioning interpretation-praxis, the problem of realism does not occur. Only when the already in practice and unquestioned interpretations are disturbed or broken, the reality-questions arise and we ask, what is and how it is; hence the problem of realism is derivative, not original.²³⁷ With regard to truth, the point is that truth is internal to a specific interpretation1-praxis to which a specific interpretation3 can fit or not.²³⁸ Now, our interest is not the concrete consequences with regard to ontology and truth, but rather the specific conception of the interpretational processes, in turn the question “who interprets” and ultimately the inherent conception of man. The question “who interprets” is within Abel’s philosophy of sign and interpretation only comprehensible on the basis of an appropriate understanding of the interpretational praxis. Now, the complex of different interpretation-practices can again be distinguished according to the triadic model of levels from above, and consequently the three heuristically differentiated levels each correspond to a level of a certain interpretation-praxis.²³⁹ We are, as such, always within a specific interpretation-world to the degree that the limits of the interpretations are the limits of the “world”: “Everything, which individuated and specifically so-

 Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 474, [my translation].  Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 46, [my translation].  Abel, Was ist Interpretationsphilosophie? 1994, p. 22; Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 48.  Cf. Abel, Wahrheit als Interpretation. 1989, p 331 ff.; Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 512 ff.; Abel, Was ist Interpretationsphilosophie? 1994, p. 32 ff.  Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 34.

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and-so- happen, happen for us within an interpretation-horizon, as well as within a interpretation-practice, which instantiates its rules (also when we do not know these, or not yet know these). In this sense the limits of our interpretations are the limits of our world and its meaning.”²⁴⁰ Now, with regard to the heuristic status of Abel’s triadic model of levels and intentions,²⁴¹ the crux is that it defines a philosophical method of reflection in opposition to any definition of ontological, naturalistic or anthropological layers. ²⁴² The very motive behind Abel’s philosophy of sign and interpretation is the endeavour to understand our understanding by reflecting the presuppositions constituting our numerous and various interpretational praxes, stressing the fundamental point that any reflective interpretation3 is already within, i. e. internal to a certain signo-interpretational praxis, wherefore it is impossible to attain an absolute and full understanding: “Following this pattern, “understanding of understanding” is not a meta-understanding, but rather means to move into the inner side of the processes of understanding as such. And the task is then, to explain the form of the interpretation1praxis, i. e. its logic, aesthetic and ethic.”²⁴³ The crux is in other words that the differentiation of the levels of interpretation itself is an interpretation: “The borders between the three levels are not distinct, not absolutely fixed and not out Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 26, [my translation].  “There is no theoretical claim connected to the model. It is therefore not alleged, that the three levels of sign- and interpretation-relations are “given” in a realistic sense. Rather, it is about levels, which by means of reflective reconstruction of the processes of our perceptions, representations, emotions, sensations, speaking, thinking and actions are possible to distinguish between.” Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 29, [my translation].  This is the decisive point in relation to Lenk’s model of interpretation-levels. The difference is clearly that Abel rejects any ontological or naturalistic understanding of the model, whilst Lenk’s model is naturalistic. I shall return to a discussion of this later. Cf: “With regard to the levels of interpretation, then the third level is at first the most important. At this level, in the moment we ask, a reflection of the presuppositions take place, which we in our direct and working interpretation3-operations (e. g. reasoning, explaning, descriping) already presume and use. In this way, the other levels of interpretation become visible. The level-model of interpretations ought therefore not to be understood as a naturalistic model, and not as a bottom-up layer- and field-model. The interpretation2-level and the interpretation1-level result from a reflective and recursive point, where questions are phrased, which appear at the interpretation3-level (e. g. when someone does not understand a reasoning argument at the interpretation3-level and therefore asks about the meaning of the used signs). The levels are in this way themselves conceivable as formations of interpretation. As long as no questions and problems arise at the interpretation3-level, i. e. as long as the context of understandings and actions functions directly, then no reason occurs to reflect the other levels of interpretation. Yet, when questions arise, then is the only way to provide satifying answers in the end to go back to the meaning-constituting presuppositions.” Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 29, [my translation].  Abel, Was ist Interpretationsphilosophie? 1994, p. 27, [my translation].

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side time. But it makes sense to draw them. And when we draw them, then we draw them as borders of interpretation. These can at any time again get into fluctuation.”²⁴⁴ When we ask: “who interprets” it is a reflection within a specific interpretation3-practice and as such expresses a certain interpretational praxis. Yet any interpretational3-practice is internal to specific interpretation1+2-praxes, which is to say, that any form of subjectivity (substantial, transcendental, phenomenological) is neither ontologically nor epistemologically primary but genealogically dependent on signo-interpretational praxes.²⁴⁵ In this sense, any fundamental theory of subjectivity becomes impossible because any such theory would be relative to a specific signo-interpretational practice.²⁴⁶ As such, the signo-interpretational praxes are pure processes and “in a certain sense without a subject”,²⁴⁷ which is to say: “The processes of interpretation themselves exist”.²⁴⁸ Yet again, only in a certain sense, as Abel puts it. The point is, that the philosophy of sign and interpretation fundamentally is a philosophical method of reflection, and thus not an ontology of processes as discussed above. One is not mistaken, when one within an interpretation3-perspective interprets oneself as a subject, yet this interpretation is genealogically dependent on other and more fundamental signo-interpretational praxes. It is therefore a futile question whether process or agent is primary, because they are, as pointed out above, reciprocally determining concepts within a specific signo-interpretational perspective. With this it becomes clear that any notion of a substantial subject who interprets in Abel is replaced with a certain complex of signo-interpretational processes in which every interpretation3 is internal to an interpretation1+2, and any interpretation1+2 is established from the perspective of an interpretation3. Within this complex the question about “who interprets” becomes a question of how and why the ending of the semiosis is carried out at level 1, 2, and 3 respectively. The question of the ending of the semiosis reflects, at first, within an interpretation3-perspective the conditioning interpretation1+2-practices. The ending of the semiosis may as such be seen in a double perspective namely as a) the ending of the semiosis within a specific interpretation3-practice and b) the ending of the semiosis within the genealogically presupposed interpretation1+2-practices. Within a) the specific interpretation3, the semiosis is ended pragmatically: “The (theoretical) threat of a bad infinity, an around-itself-going, always-ongoing     

Abel, Abel, Abel, Abel, Abel,

Interpretations-Welten. 1989, Interpretations-Welten. 1989, Interpretations-Welten. 1989, Interpretations-Welten. 1989, Interpretations-Welten. 1989,

p. 5, [my translation]. p. 16. p. 16. p.16, [my translation]. p. 16, [my translation].

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interpretation3 is cut off and undercut through the pressure of pragmatical and practical demands (thorugh the constraint of having to act and make dicisions). If not, then we would never actually come to speak, think, understand and act.”²⁴⁹ b) The ending of the semiosis within interpretation1 is impossible to determine any further than by saying: “When going back in the row of explanations and reasonings of one’s interpretations one can in the end not but determine: I interpret the way I happen to interpret. Here, one arrive, with Wittgenstein’s expression, the “bedrock” and “my spade is turned”. By this, neither a positivism of facticity is meant, nor a highest or deepest point of possible deductions. It is simply about ways of acting, and within these […] about the form or horizon of our interpretation-praxis.”²⁵⁰ With this double answer as to how the ending of the semiosis takes place, our overall question “who interprets” becomes relative to which level of interpretation is thought of. The decisive point is here that the pragmatically ended semiosis at a level 3 is bound to facticity, which itself is a specific interpretational process at level 1+2. Of fundamental importance is that any level 3 is founded on level 1 as its genealogical premise. Every interpretation-world is thus a complex of different interpretation-practices understood as life-world based human life-praxes,²⁵¹ in which the interpretation1-practice is understood as our fundamental being-in-the-world,²⁵² and of which it is merely possible to state, that: “We interpret exactly so, as we interpret, and we cannot even know, why this is so.”²⁵³ So, who interprets? – The specific interpretation1-practice which constitutes our reflecting interpretation3-practice. Yet, our “knowledge” of this fundamental interpretation1-practice is merely an internal sketch of the at any time functioning interpretations and thus necessarily an incomplete²⁵⁴ and temporary outline

 Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 41, [my translation].  Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 284, [my translation].  “It is about the human life-praxis, which processes may be characterized as interpretative. In this, “praxis” designate the network of conditions, from which and by which humans live, as they live.” Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 33, [my translation].  Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 488. Cf. Abel, Zeichen und Interpretation. 1992, p. 170.  Abel, Realismus, Pragmatismus, interpretationismus. 1988, p. 58, [my translation].  “Completeness is here not possible to achieve and also not anything to strive for. Because, we cannot wholly grasp and represent the background-network of conditions from which and by which our life takes place, as it happen to do. Strictly speaking we do not even know, what completeness should mean here. But to get to the bottom of where this border is, and to determine it, is an assertion made by each critical and enlightening philosophy.” Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 35, [my translation].

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of the limits of a specific interpretation-practice: “Firstly, it should be emphazised, that when something is present for us as a determinate something, then it is because of the forming by the interpretation1-and-interpretation2+3-processes. Secondly, it must be stressed, that we cannot go behind the interpretation1-border, and that we cannot view this border from the outside. Because that would mean, that we would want to stand outside any world and meaning. Thirdly, it should be remembered, that to go back in the row of interpretations and reasonings for following rules, makes out the form of our interpretation1-praxis, in which no further reason and no further transparency is possible, and from which point in the end must be said, that we interpret the way we interpret.”²⁵⁵ With this definition Abel outlines the overall task within the philosophy of sign and interpretation as to qualify this Wittgensteinian “bedrock” on which our spades turn. To qualify means here to spell out or to give the “form” of the specific interpretational praxes, within which our different interpretation-worlds take place. Abel names three such fundamental forms, namely a logical, ethical and aesthetical²⁵⁶ and outlines an extensive program of how to analyze the several independent interpretational praxes as “forms of knowledge”. Yet the crucial aspect is here not how different forms of knowledge concretize, but rather that such a form of knowledge only is cognizable by pointing out the limits of a specific interpretational practice; or in other words: by demarcating the borders of a specific interpretational practice. All self-knowledge is in turn knowledge of the particular interpretational practice which one stands within and from which one interprets. The act of examining the dominating interpretational practices in which we are embedded, e. g. science, art, moral or religious understandings of world, other, and self is thus an examination of ourselves in the way that these forms of knowledge express “who” we are at a particular time: “In science and also in art, moral and religion, humans rather experience something about themselves than the inner nature of the presumed things themselves, i. e. about the actual dominating and original forms of interpretation of his relations to world and self.”²⁵⁷ To “know” about one′s own interpretational practice is thus

 Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 114, [my translation]. Cf, Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 470.  “The interpretationist qualifies exactly this “hard rock”, as the form of our interpretation1praxis. At the same time, he emphazises that these borders consist of logical (i. e. the basic conceptualizations), aesthetic (i.e. the forms of sensual intuition), and ethical (i. e. the regularity of rules of interpretation) components.” Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, 471, [my translation].  Abel, Logik und Ästhetik. 1987, p. 118, [my translation].

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not to know about what is “as such”, but merely to know about the particular interpretational practice which determines what is. Every self-interpretation is in this way always deficient because it is internal to a specific interpretational practice. It therefore implies a skeptical consequence in the way that any self-interpretation merely reflects the particular interpretational practice in play. The self-interpretation cannot step out of its particular point of view into an absolute point of view. No self-interpretation is thus completely adequate because when the fundamental interpretation1-practice is the foundation upon which all knowledge becomes possible, then this foundation is not itself possible to know anything about: “Regardless how intensive the consciousness concentrates on itself within a reflexive focus, it is not able to make the network of conditions, from which and by which it is conscioussness, transparent to itself, to have it before itself as representation.”²⁵⁸ From this point of view Abel can regard traditional philosophical problems within the philosophy of mind (e. g. I, self, consciousness, self-consciousness, mind-body relation) as internal to certain interpretation-practices.²⁵⁹ Any “subject” or “I” may be explained as a specific sign-function internal to some certain original interpretational processes, wherefore the “subject” or “I” is simultaneously agent and process. The “subject” or “I” is as agent directly derivative of some underlying certain interpretational process: “The I-function can then be construed as process-function. This means the dissolution of a pre-set, stable subject of continually carrying nature, because of the outlined translation of the I back into the process-scheme. This dissolution of the concept of a subject is an inherent result of the consciousness-subject going back into itself, i. e. into its own presuppositions.”²⁶⁰ In this way Abel is able to speak of a subject, yet without substantiating it: “This does not mean, that man deceives himself, when he interprets himself as a subject. But it means, that this, his subjectivity, is neither ontologically nor gnoseologically primary, but as such founded within a complex genealogy of processes of interpretation, as a through time dominating regularity of rules of interpretation. Yet, when this subject is dependent on occurrences of interpretation, and when these are without a subject in the way outlined, then interpretations are also processes without a fixed substratum”²⁶¹ Furthermore, any conception is consequently a contingent function,

 Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 241, [my translation]. Cf. Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 69, 89, 90.  Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 309.  Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 227, [my translation].  Abel, Interpretations-Welten. 1989 p. 16, [my translation]. Cf. “The philosophy of interpretation prevents, that the individuum is rejected anew, and it does that without falling back into a

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not necessary, since any conception of a “subject” is derivative to a specific interpretational process. Abel can in this way refer to Kant’s statement that the “I” can be thought, but must not: “The I think must be able to accompany all my representations”²⁶² Following Abel, it is thus possible to think the “who” in “who interprets” as both agent and process, namely as a specific agent constituted as a function within a specific underlying process. The crux is here that the “I”-function is internal to some interpretational practice which could have been different. ²⁶³ From this point of departure, it becomes clear that Abel sketches out a de-naturalized conception of man beyond the anthropological/de-anthropological dichotomy. This is clear when it is considered that functions are always internal to some certain interpretational process, whereby the processes of interpretation as such cannot be explained as functions. Functions only appear within level 2 and level 3, not within level 1 interpretations. The fundamental interpretational processes are in turn not possible to explain as functions of something else (e. g. human needs) but rather that which constitutes functions altogether: “The processes of interpretation are not “caused” by a naturalistic “something”, to which they then in a naturalistic, functionalistic, eliminative and/or identifying way can be reduced.”²⁶⁴ In this way Abel arrives at a point, where the interpretational processes cannot be explained further; there are in other words: “no causes of interpretation.”²⁶⁵ This in turn implies an original skeptical stand in which a last explanation cannot be achieved, and wherefore the question of interest changes into a question about how signo-interpretational processes constitute man in relation to world, other, and self. ²⁶⁶

metaphysical individualism or solipsism. The referral to the interpretation-praxis prevents the latter, and requires the former.” Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 491, [my translation].  Kant, Critique of Pure Reason. B 132. 1998, p. 246. In the original German version the “I think” is expressed as a “können” (“can”). Cf.: “”Das: Ich denke, muß alle meine vorstellungen begleiten können”. Kant, Kritik der reinen Vernunft. B 132, 1998, p. 178.  “Everything, which is so-and-so, could also be different”. Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 65, [my translation].  Abel, Interpretations-Welten. 1989 p. 17, [my translation].  Abel, Interpretations-Welten. 1989 p. 17, [my translation].  “Therefore one can netiher define nor definitively say, what interpretation is, and that no more than what freedom, time, or life is. In this way, fundamental concepts must be understood in themselves. The decisive question is instead, what it means to understand human relations to world, other, and self by the guide of interpretiveness and perspectivity.” Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 25, [my translation].

7 Signo-Interpretational Processes: Genealogy, Creativity, Critique So far concentrating on the different understandings of the process of interpretation and the inner principle of the semiosis in Lenk, Simon and Abel, it is evident that the conception of the “who” in “who interprets”, and hence the endeavour to conceive the constituting process of our man-signs, show significant differences. These differences become clear when recapitulating the conceptions of action within Lenk, Simon and Abel. According to Lenk, action and interpretation are identical in the sense that any interpretation is to act and that any action is led by pragmatic, life-sustaining needs. In Simon, action is conceived as the limit or negation of interpretation in the sense that it only becomes possible to act, know and judge after the interpretational process is ended and comes to a temporary standstill in an immediate and perfect “understanding without interpretation”²⁶⁷ In Abel, the differentiation of the three levels of interpretation makes it possible to distinguish between different reasons for the ending of the semiosis. At level 3 the ending is pragmatic and at level 1 the ending is inexplicable. Yet, the pragmatic ending of the semiosis at level 3 contains a notion of action contrasting that of Simon’s. Action is, according to Abel, the ending of the semiosis itself and thus not a possibility resulting from this ending, but rather the limitation of the otherwise unlimited semiosis. We must not first bring the semiosis to an end and then act, but rather the semiosis is ended because we are required to act, because we act. In this sense, the specific action is the interpretant understood as a specific complex of interpretation1 +2+3-processes, which as such remains impossible to explain further.²⁶⁸ To summarize it can be said, that in Lenk’s methodological interpretationism man is conceived as the meta-interpretational being constituted by foundational and tran-

 Cf. “I agree with Abel in that, that “interpretation does not mean an additional procedure to our cognition”, but would like to stress, that we, in order to “know”, are in “need” of an understanding without interpretation (also if it is merely at a level 3), so that we at least temporarily will come to an end in our clarification and are able to make a judgment. Otherwise it would not be possible to understand, why at all judgments, also if only for a specific time, are valid, so that one, in one’s actions, “believes” that one can rely on them.” (Simon, Bemerkungen zu den Beiträgen zur Philosophie des Zeichens. 1992, p. 215, [my translation]). Cf. “The philosophy of the sign point to the actual understanding without interpretation, in order to make comprehensible, how temporary endings of processes of interpretation happen at all […].” Simon, Bemerkungen zu den Beiträgen zur Philosophie des Zeichens. 1992, p. 215, [my translation].  Cf. “We do not know what, “fundamentally” an act is, and we do not know our “last” motives.” Abel, Interpretationsethik und Demokratie. 1997, p. 46, [my translation]. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110592078-009

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scendental needs as the inherent guiding principle for our numerous interpretations and for the ending of the semiosis. So, in Lenk, who interprets? – specific needs interpret. In Simon’s philosophy of the sign, man is conceived as individual understanding carried out on the basis of a principle of meliorism and a general need for orientation, i. e. the intention of a better understanding as a need for orientation interprets. In Abel’s philosophy of sign and interpretation man is conceived as the specific interpretation1+2+3-practice whereby the differentiation and relation between the three levels prohibit any transcendental fundamentals by which the process of interpretation and the ending of the semiosis is guided, whether understood in a naturalistic way as needs or in a functionalistic way as meliorism and orientation. Thus, in Abel, a certain composite of interpretation1+2 +3-processes interprets. While Lenk’s and Simon’s approaches thus result in naturalistic-anthropological conceptions, Abel’s approach entails a potential of overcoming any naturalistic or functionalistic conception of interpretation and in consequence the anthropological/de-anthropological schematism. The following line of arguments will develop this point further in four overall steps. Firstly (7.1), by spelling out how Abel substitutes the methodological transcendentalism – characteristic to both Lenk and Simon²⁶⁹ – with a reflective genealogy. Secondly (7.2), by stressing that the dissimilar conceptions of interpretation as a creative process within Lenk, Simon and Abel are crucial for the understanding of the interpretational process and thus of man as signo-interpretational being. Thirdly (7.3), the differences in how to understand creativity is further developed in a digression on the hermeneutical dichotomy between creation of meaning and finding of meaning, whereby the difference between an original signo-interpretational conception of man and the hermeneutical understanding of man becomes evident. Fourthly (7.4), it is shown how Abel’s de-transcendental and trans-hermeneutical approach involves a conception of the interpretational process as critique.

7.1 Interpretation as Reflective Genealogy Lenk understands his methodological interpretationism in line with the Kantian transcendentalism and points out the pragmatic assertion of a unified world as a “transcendental necessity” for action. Regardless of the fact that Lenk repeatedly underscores that his methodological interpretationism is merely a non-funda-

 Cf. “The philosophy of the sign stands in the tradition of transcendental philosophy”. Borsche, Vorwort. 1992, p. VIII, [my translation].

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mental transcendentalism, within which it is impossible to point at any absolute transcendental conditions, a specific hierarchy of the different levels of interpretation is established. This hierarchy constitutes a sort of layer-cake model of ontological domains in which Lenk distinguishes between more or less fundamental levels of interpretations. And it is exactly this transcendental model which presupposes a certain conception of man, namely as certain naturalist-pragmatic needs. In a similar vein, yet more sophisticated, Simon regard his philosophy of the sign, and its intrinsic conception of man, as transcendental: “Only therein that everything remains a sign, and even the human being does not as a “subject” fall into the misunderstanding of there being an Archemedian standpoint of interpretation, is the critical transcendental approach of philosophy completed.”²⁷⁰ Simon‘s understanding of his philosophy of the sign as transcendental is closely linked to the time-bound finiteness of all cognition. As in Lenk, this understanding of the transcendental method echoes the potential unlimited semiosis, when namely the possibility of reaching a highest, final or absolute understanding is ruled out: “In the sense of statements about “what” something definitively be, for example, what “knowledge” ultimately and properly be, thus in a real definition, or how knowledge be possible, the philosophy of the sign says nothing. It signifies only the provisionality and conditionality of all such statements, and it is, in this comprehensive sense, itself transcendental. It is transcendental not only vis—a—vis statements about objects, but also vis-a-vis statements of transcendental philosophy about “conditions of the possibility” of such statements.”²⁷¹ Within this “weak” conception of the transcendental method, man is merely a fluctuating, time-bound sign. Furthermore, the Kantian distinction between “sensibility” and “understanding” is in Simon substituted with the distinction between the immediate and perfect understanding of a sign and the discursive clarification or interpretation of a sign. This difference is not relative to a transcendental subject as the reason’s operations in Kant, but relative to a specific individuum or person and hence “in” that person relative to time,²⁷² where-

 Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 258.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 149.  “In the philosophy of the sign, the difference between the immediate understanding of signs and the discursive interpretation of signs takes the place of the transcendental-philosophical difference between sensibility and understanding. But, while sensibility and understanding in transcendental philosophy are regarded as “capacities” of one subject at all times, the corresponding difference between an immediate and a discursive capacity is a difference from person to person and a difference of time within “the same” person.” Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 82.

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fore man as merely a “sign”, becomes impossible to interpret “exhaustively”.²⁷³ Nonetheless, while Simon thus renounces speaking of a foundational “subject”, remnants of such a “subject” remain when the semiosis ends due to a need for orientation and the principle of meliorism, which replicates the hermeneutic “will” or “intention” to understand. Kant’s transcendental categories are according to Simon exchanged with transcendental needs. Abel’s philosophy of sign and interpretation is in its method de-transcendental²⁷⁴ in the sense that no last stance or absolute true and a priori condition for the signo-interpretational practice can be reached, exactly because of the signointerpretational character of every definition of a certain matter, including the status and role of the interpretational process itself.²⁷⁵ Although Abel’s purpose is also to spell out the signo-interpretational character primary to- and determining for any specific interpretation3-perspective, and therefore in a certain sense his philosophy is transcendental ²⁷⁶, he does not aim to spell out transcendental categories, but rather to formulate the forms of specific signo-interpretational relations: “It is crucial in the philosophy, to give the form of this content, and this convention.”²⁷⁷ Where Simon’s philosophy of the sign can be taken as a specific transcendental anthropology, Abel’s philosophy of sign and interpretation is an attempt to say something about the underlying signo-interpretational processes determining any understanding of world, other, and self by means of a reflective genealogy. This reflective genealogy first and foremost answers the hitherto remaining and foremost critical question: is not any characterization of the foundational in Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 256.  Cf. Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 455  “Thereby is, along with a nearly unnoticeable movement of our interpretation1-system and world-view, the possibillity by reflection to reach something like the “one and highest point”, or to defend a strong apriority, itself undercut. That means also, that we cannot naturalize logic itself. But, it does mean, that our perspective is de-transcendental.” Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 118, [my translation].  Cf. “At the same time it is unmistakable, that the philosophy of interpretation is conceived in line with the Kantian criticism. Since it is a central insight, that the interpretativeness is before any so-and-so experience, it can, in a certain sense, also be conceived as half-way transcendental. And a not to orthodox reading of Kant seems to me to be compatible with it. Yet, in the philosophy of interpretation the issue is not transcendental relations, but instead relations of interpretation.” Abel, Interpretationsphilosophie. Eine Antwort auf Hans Lenk. 1988b, p. 86, [my translation].  Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 333, [my translation].

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terpretation1+2-processes necessarily a reasoning within an interpretation3-perspective? Are we not irrevocably caught within the interpretation3-level? Is not Abel’s heuristic model of interpretation-levels itself an interpretation which suffices and gives us an immediate and orientation-giving understanding of who we are, as Simon suggests?²⁷⁸ Abel’s response to this critique is that in order to judge, know and reflect at the interpretation3-level some basic formations must already be at hand and available. These formations are an outcome of the fundamental signo-interpretational processes, i. e. the interpretation1-processes. The interpretation1-processes are the necessary premises for the interpretaion3processes: “Without this fundamental function [i. e. the interpretation1-process; MPW], which can be conceived as a function of signs and interpretations, the putting forward of judgments (“to say that x is f”) would not be possible at all. And, naturally, the basic sign- and interpretation-products are already presupposed, when it comes to empirical judgments and their justifications and explanations.”²⁷⁹ In this sense we are to understand the phrase: “Nothing is by itself and already a sign.”²⁸⁰ So, where Simon’s point is that we always take our point of departure at the third interpretational level (interpretation3), Abel insists that though always understood within a vocabulary of interpretation2+interpretation3 processes, we must presume an underlying interpretation1-process. This is of course always yet another interpretation3, but as such exactly underscoring the very essence of the reflective genealogy in its difference to a transcendentalist stand, namely that the reflective genealogy is founded on the awareness and acknowledgement, that any genealogical search is nothing but yet another interpretation, or as Nietzsche, the founder of philosophical genealogy, states: “a continuous chain of signs, continually revealing new interpretations and adaptations”²⁸¹, and that this Nietzschean genealogy therefore comprises the radical signo-interpretational approach: “The form is fluid, the “meaning” even more so …“²⁸² As such this reflective genealogical method radicalizes the transcendental method. Yet, Abel does not thereby suggest an ending to philosophy, which

 Simon, Bemerkungen zu den Beiträgen zur Philosophie des Zeichens. 1992, p. 215.  Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 18, [my translation].  Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 21, [my translation].  Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals. Second Essay, # 12, p. 55. The English translation is here imprecise, as the chain of signs does not “reveal” interpretations and “adaptations”, but rather is such interpretations and adaptations. Further, the English word “adaptation” does not fully cover “zurechtmachung”, as the latter literally is “to arrange something”. Cf. The original German text: “eine fortgesetzte Zeichenkette von immer neuen Interpretationen und Zurechtmachungen”. Nietzsche, Zur Genealogie der Moral. Zweite Abhandlung #12, 1999, p. 314.  Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals. Second Essay, # 12, p. 55.

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one might think, but rather urges us to reflect the numerous actual and possible forms of interpretations,²⁸³ following the Nietzschean maxim: “the world has once again become “infinite” to us: insofar as we cannot reject the possibility that it includes infinite interpretations.” ²⁸⁴ So, what is interpreted? – Signs are interpreted. What is a sign? – A sign is a specific interpretation. Signs always have a specific genealogy – signs are not magically there and meaningful. Interpretations are necessarily bound to signs and we cannot ask what is first – sign or interpretation. The question is meaningless, as it would require an absolute beginning to the semiosis and thus the achievement of escaping the fundamental interpretational character of all thinking; the point being: within an original signo-interpretational philosophy there is no such problem as that of an ultimate beginning, since we have always already begun. ²⁸⁵ Yet, does this not suggest that the initial creative moment of any interpretation is questioned and a sort of determination within the interpretational process is suggested? To conceive the reflective-genealogical method as an interpretational process always bound to something (a sign) thus leads to the question of how to understand creativity.

7.2 Interpretation as Creativity Interpretation is in Lenk, Simon and Abel a creative process. But what is interpretation understood as creativity? First and foremost, it is clear that with the conception of interpretation as creative, the traditional sharp dualism of an interpretation-object and interpretation-subject is sought abandoned. The interpretation-object cannot be isolated and determined as something “in itself” prior to the creative-interpretative act, but is a “something” first determined in that very act. At first this seems to be equally evident in Lenk, Simon and Abel. Nonetheless, both in Lenk’s methodological interpretationism and in Simon’s philosophy of the sign creativity is conceived as a function of needs, hence necessarily constituting a “who”, whereby both Lenk and Simon in consequence revert into a sharp dualism between interpretation-object and interpretation-subject. In Abel interpretation as creativity is conceived by regarding interpretation as and interpretation of as concurrent moments. At first Abel thus undercuts the  Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 474.  Nietzsche, The Gay Science. #374, 2001, p. 239.  Cf. Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus.1993, p. 104 ff.

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sharp dualism of interpretation-object and interpretation-subject, because he thinks creativity without referring to an interpretation-subject, whom the creative process is a function of. Yet, Abel further conceives creativity by differentiating between the three levels within the interpretation-model, wherefore Abel rephrases the question of the relation between an interpretation-subject who interprets an interpretation-object, which again is interpreted at a deeper level, now as an inverted functionalistic relation between interpretation-object and interpretation-subject. In order to avoid this intrinsic problem of an inverted functionalism in Abel’s interpretation-model, I will instead, on the basis of the concurrency-thesis, propose a theory of creativity as double negation, which in turn abandons any functionalistic understanding of creativity altogether. In Lenk interpretation is a creative-constructional activity secondary to some input, i. e. secondary to something “given”, the interpretation-object, which is interpreted by “someone”, the interpretation-subject. In Simon, any interpretation is interpretation of a not-understood sign. The creative-constructional interpretation and the sign-interpretation is thus re-action, i. e. reactive to either an “interpretation-object” or a not-understood sign. This understanding of the creative act of interpretation is in Lenk the reason for his enduring and unresolved discussion of the idealism-realism problem. Simon’s conception of signs as a dynamic process of understanding and not-understanding on the other hand rephrases the traditional ontological question into a question of the grade of understanding, which is why Simon at first disables the stalemate within the idealism-realism discussion. Yet, as we shall see, both Lenk and Simon commit themselves to a subject-object dualism because any interpretation in the end becomes a function of either transcendental needs (Lenk) or the strive to establish a perfect understanding (Simon). This pattern is relatively easily recognized in Lenk’s methodological interpretationism, which is why I will concentrate on the more complex case in Simon. To Simon, only when I do not understand immediately and perfectly, I interpret and strive for a “better” understanding. Further, I strive to uphold the achieved understanding: “Thinking attempts to understand “on the whole,” thus to preserve the already understood as thus understood. Suum esse conservare, to be able to remain in the picture by means of the power of imagination, is its purpose. If this is successful, pleasure arises, otherwise, displeasure.”²⁸⁶ Here it is clear, that Simon stands within the modern tradition of conceiving life and rationality as a general strive for self-preservation, and in this vein Simon follows Descartes’ understanding of displeasure as something which follows doubt and

 Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 150.

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uncertainty, why we, at least temporarily, must overcome the doubt and uncertainty in order to reach a pleasant state and secure our identity: “It exists [i. e. displeasure; MPW], so long as (quamdiu) we are doubting, but in no way for all time, and, so long as we are doubting, we are also capable of finding a basis for certainty. We ourselves would otherwise be finished (with our identity).”²⁸⁷ Interpretation is as such merely creative as a function of the need for clarity, orientation and the securing of an identity.²⁸⁸ Even when Simon admits the case in which continual pleasure eventually changes into displeasure without any direct outer stimuli or initiator, or when he acknowledges that by the achievement of a stable identity, one eventually strives to break out and overcome the already reached in a new and other understanding,²⁸⁹ because the already achieved becomes “unbearable”, the creative interpretation is thought as a function, namely as a function of the strive for a better understanding, now a better in relation to the unbearable, i. e. a strive for a “better”, now understood as something “bearable”. Consequently, creativity remains a mere function of the strive for a better, wherefore Simon reverts into a sharp dualism of interpretation-object (the not-understood sign, displeasure, the unbearable) and interpretation-subject (the strive for perfect understanding, security and a bearable state). The sign-creation is thus in Simon exactly not free and un-determined, but rather un-free and determined by the need for an always better understanding.²⁹⁰ This in turn reveals that Simon’s interpretation as creativity is understood by reference to an already established understanding of man as an orientation-needing being, wherefore a radical understanding of the man-signs as an outcome of  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 50. Cf. “Thinking that is successful leads this affection back into “apathy,” and the sign-changing thought of what something – as distinguished from the affecting perception – “objectively” be gives back to the subject the reassuring identity of its orientation, as well as, in this sense, the certainty of its own being, and thus meaning to the sign “subject.” Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 50.  This, in turn, has wide consequences with reards to the the implied ethical perspectives of Simon’s philosophy of the sign, because freedom as “semiotic” fact (Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 192) thus is restrained by and not the actual characteristic of our being. Cf. Hogrebe, Metafisica Povera. 1992, p. 97.  “Yet lasting pleasure changes once again, after a certain time, into displeasure, without any conscious disturbance of this state at all having to have resulted from outside. Most of our representations, even according to Kant, remain “obscure.” Hegel says that a “form of life” become “old.” The identity of the “I” reached in understanding and in understanding oneself does not remain sufficient unto itself. It outright seeks the disturbance, the irritation, becomes unbearable to itself. Thus does it attempt to understand itself anew, differently.” Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 150.  The routine understanding of Simon’s philosophy as a philosophy of radical freedom must as such be revised. Cf. Hogrebe, Metafisica Povera. 1992, p. 97.

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a creative signo-interpretational process is unattainable on the basis of Simon’s philosophy of the sign. Yet, the question remains: how is interpretation as creativity to be understood without referring to an already established man-sign? In Abel interpretations are active and creative-constructional processes. The crucial point is that Abel conceives the inner moments of interpretation, namely interpretation as, and interpretation of, as necessarily connected moments in every interpretational act, i. e. as originally concurrent and inseparable.²⁹¹ This concurrency-thesis is at first negatively construed because any other view would mean to accept something “given” (“facticity”) in contrast to “someone” who then interprets this “given”: “Facticity and perspectival constructivism is not possible to separate sharply. The finer the analysis is made, the more difficult it is to make such a separation, and in the end it is impossible.”²⁹² The concurrency-thesis of interpretation as and interpretation of follows the interpretationmodel understood as a grade-model. There is a gradual transition from a complete concurrency between interpretation as and interpretation of at level 1 to a clear distinction at level 3, so that interpretation at level 3 primarily is an interpretation of something specific constituted at level 1. The creative-constructional activity thus works on both a cognitive level as well as on a pre-cognitive level. The crux is that e. g. visual perception is not merely passive but also a creativeconstructional activity in which something is individuated as something. Visual perception may thus be divided into a cognitive level where the eye organizes, delimits, associates, differentiates, prefers, adds, discards, decodes, scans, synthesizes, constructs and projects,²⁹³ and a pre-cognitive level understood as an initial individuating process in which something is seen as something specific (“as a specific something”).The cognitive level is thus distinct from the pre-cognitive level in the difference between seeing something as a specific something and seeing something as something, i. e. the difference of “”seeing-somethingas-a-hare“” and “”seeing-a-hare“”.²⁹⁴ Yet Abel’s three-level model merely reintroduces the sharp dualism of an interpretation-object and interpretation-subject, now as different “levels” and the difficulties of conceiving interpretation as creative process without constituting it as a function of an interpretation-subject (interpretation3-level) relating to an interpretation-object (interpretation1level) reappear within Abel’s level-model. On the other hand, the concurrency-

 Cf. “[…] from a critical point of view, the character of reality as a reality of signs and interpretations is primary. Reality is discovered and constructed at the same time.” Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 191, [my translation].  Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 1994, [my translation].  Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 192.  Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 193, [my translation].

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thesis prepares the ground for thinking creativity without establishing it as a function, since Abel’s intention clearly is to reject the sharp dualism of interpretation-object and interpretation-subject. So how is creativity to be thought when not as a function? The decisive point with regard to creativity is that creativity necessarily is bound to something which is interpreted. The essence within all branches of the philosophy of signs and interpretations is that this “something” which is interpreted is not something “in itself” but always a sign. So far Lenk, Simon and Abel agree. Yet the crucial point is how the creative process 1) creates this “something” and 2) how the creative relation to this “something” can be understood without explaining it as a function (whether as a function of certain needs in man (Lenk, Simon) or of foundational level 1-interpretations (Abel)). The question with regard to interpretation as creativity is thus not whether there is “something” “in itself” but whether the relation between sign (interpretation-object) and interpretation (interpretation-subject) is possible to understand a-functionalistic. Abel takes with his concurrency-thesis a step in this direction, yet without thinking creativity radically as a-functionalistic.²⁹⁵ With creativity, we normally mean the creation of something new and different, which alters the way we see and understand something. Traditionally, creativity is understood as the essence of art, yet in all sorts of actions from everyday practices, play, craft, scientific experimenting to highly technical thinking and practice, an element of creativity is evident. Within the vocabulary of the signo-interpretational approach, creativity can be understood as the interpretation of a sign by setting a follow-sign. Now, in order to understand the perpetual flow of signs and follow-signs (the semiosis) beyond any logical, causal or functional explanation (the latter always founded in a specific man-sign) creativity may be conceived as a process of negation, by which a sign is set instead of an already given sign. Negation is here understood broadly as change, alternation, nuancing, addition etc. and not merely as a directly opposing sign. Negation thus simply mean: to negate a given sign by setting another sign, a follow-sign. Negation thus always relates to something (a sign) and is therefore, with a Hegelian expression, a determinate negation. ²⁹⁶ Now, the creative process further relates to the unlimited potential of possible follow-signs, which can be set as a follow-sign. The creative process is thus concurrently an indeterminate negation, in the sense of setting a specific follow-sign by negating the unlimited

 In Abel, we thus find a preliminary understanding of creativity beyond any logical and causal determination. Cf. Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 335.  Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit. 2010, p. 75.

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potential of possible follow-signs, which could have been set. Creativity is in this sense a process of double negation, which does not refer to “someone” to which the follow-sign is a function and without defining the follow-sign logically or causally. Rather the follow-sign is nothing but double negation, i. e. always both a determinate and indeterminate process as it is both bound to a specific sign which is negated in a spontaneous act of setting another sign, and bound to the possible follow-signs which too are to be negated.²⁹⁷ Yet, we must here distinguish between grades of creativity, with a conventional creativity and a radical creativity as two extreme poles. Conventional or weak creativity is here the process of setting a follow-sign, where the process of negation is restrained to a choice between a finite number of possible follow-signs already more or less specified. Radical creativity stands in opposition as radical negation in the sense that both the initial given sign is negated (determinate negation) as well as any pre-specified, possible follow-sign (indeterminate negation). The former is the ordinary way of creativity, the latter a rare exception. While any creativity may be said to be the process of a double negation, most follow-signs are nonetheless unoriginal, conform and directly derivative of already given signs, i. e. altogether and predominantly put in an unoriginal way by following some already given way of interpretation, which pre-scribes which possible follow-signs can be set. Interpretation in this case applies to the world as a plurality of signs and ways of interpretations already known and immediately available. The cause for this is neither the nature of interpretation nor a certain tendency in man, but rather the fact that for every set follow-sign a new infinity of potential follow-signs arises, while at the same time the number of definite signs increases proportionately. The result is that radical creativity becomes ever more difficult to carry out, because ever more definite signs are to be negated. True creativity is as double negation both the negation of a given sign and the negation of all possible signs, whereby a setting of a new, which as new, goes beyond the already known follow-signs. This process of a double negation is perhaps most evident in art: the painter’s brushstroke; the musician’s striking of a note; the poet’s choice of a word are all creative processes understood as double negations. The artistic originality is exactly the talent of setting an unforeseen, an unexpected follow-sign, which exceeds the already known possible follow-signs, yet always in relation to an initial sign. This creative process of a double negation is the very nature of any signo-interpretational process. It reveals the insight that everything

 Simon on the other hand understands negation as merely determined (“definite”) negation (“bestimmte Negation”) and every determined negation as a function of the strive for a better. Cf. Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 95.

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could have been different – yet is not; and in the encounter with creativity – either passively or actively – we get a glimpse of our own signo-interpretational being. Yet the radical or true creativity remains for us a nebulous phenomenon and may perhaps best be described in a Kantian manner, namely as an individual talent which is present to a greater or lesser degree – if at all; and when present, then a skill only to be practiced, cultivated, trained – not taught, such as Kant also defines the concept of “power of judgment”.²⁹⁸

7.3 Digression: A Trans-Hermeneutical Approach to Man and Finitude The discussion of how to understand interpretation as creativity bears a resemblance to the dichotomy of creating and finding meaning within the hermeneutics. Lenk sees, as noted above, his own methodological interpretationism as coherent with the hermeneutical approach, yet with the reservation that the hermeneutics fails to stress the constructional aspect of interpretation. Simon’s conception of understanding and interpretation as an intention for a better is not only coherent with the hermeneutics but may be seen as a genuine hermeneutical approach akin to Gadamer’s approach in his Truth and Method. ²⁹⁹

 Cf. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason. A 133 / B 172, 1998, p. 268.  Cf. “”Understanding” is within the logic of the philosophy of the sign defined as a lettingoneself-take-in-the-signs, which also means, that understanding “remains an effort” and “never ends in the unified picture”; on the other hand it is again and again defined as “clarification”, “better interpretation”, “translation into understandable” etc., i. e. lifted into a continuum of meaning, in which the understanding as interpretation is described as the substitution of signs with other signs, which are possible to understand better (Simon must confirm this juxtaposition of understanding and interpretation, which is constitutive for the traditional hermeneutics).” (Forget, Vor dem Zeichen. 1992, p. 114, [my translation]). Forget also sees an affinity to the metaphysical truth-telos in the meliorism: “Such a perspective reiterates and makes, in my opinion, the truth-telos of the metaphysics absolute, exactly when it is reduced to the ideal of harmony conceived as meaning made understandable.” (Forget 1992, Vor dem Zeichen. p. 114, [my translation]). Also: “Simon’s ideal of clarification is built on the metaphor of clarity (which is not thinkable, without the metaphor of obscurity.” (Forget, Vor dem Zeichen. 1992, p. 114, [my translation]. Cf: Simon: “”Being”, at the level of post-critical reflection, does not possess the “character” of an out-standing sign. Kant talks about the preposition is. This sign connects other signs in the way, that it names one as the meaning of the other – as the “better” version, “ad melius esse”, and not, as it to Kant still is thinkable within mathmatics, “ad esse”. Only when conscious about this meliorisation the semantic “relation to the object”, as an, in relation to the signprocess itself, “external” meaning in the traditional sense, is made, through the substitution of given signs through “better” understood signs, with signs held-to-be “better”. Consciousness un-

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Abel’s signo-interpretational approach however, is in contrast distinctly transhermeneutical in two overall aspects, viz. i) with regard to the concept of interpretation and in consequence ii) the conception of “the interpreter”, i. e. the conception of man. Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics is in the following taken as an exemplary case for spelling out these differences. As in the discussion above, the point of departure is taken in the discussion about the essence of interpretation as either “creation of meaning” or “finding meaning”³⁰⁰ – in the hermeneutics standardized as a discussion of the relation between “text” and “interpretation”. This discussion is a consequence of the initial hermeneutic abandoning of an ontological difference between subject and object and as such aligns with Abel’s signo-interpretational approach. That “text” and “interpretation” is not to be understood as another subject-object relation becomes clear, when Gadamer underscores that the concept “text” is itself secondary to that of “interpretation”, and that the “text” as such is only comprehensible as something “given” in relation to “interpretation”.³⁰¹ So far, the approach of Gadamer is not different from Abel’s signo-interpretational insight, that whenever we understand something as something, it is interpreted. The actual difference is found elsewhere, first and foremost in the concrete conception of interpretation, i. e. the character of interpretation as creativity. And here Gadamer is very clear. Interpretation is in relation to a text, but only as a question about “what it actually says”. In this questioning, the character of interpretation itself is revealed as an “intention of meaning”.³⁰² An intention of meaning which is not only restricted to the actual reading of actual texts, but essentially the very drive of inter-personal communication and ultimately the essence of “the dialogical character of language”.³⁰³ When Gadamer therefore writes that interpretation cannot be understood as merely “an additional procedure to cognition” but must be seen as “the original structure of our “being-in-the-world”“³⁰⁴, it does not change the fact that “interpretation” is understood as an “intention of meaning”, and as such relative to a “text”, which serves as “the firm point

derstands itself as this intention of a “better”.” Simon, Zeichenphilosophie und Transzendentalphilosophie. 1994, p. 97, [my translation].  Gadamer, Text und Interpretation. 1986, p. 339, [my translation].  “It must be maintained, that only from the concept of interpretation, the concept of text is constituted as central concept within the linguistic structure; it characterizes the concept text, that it only in connection with interpretation, and from this, represents the actually given, which is to be understood.” Gadamer, Text und Interpretation. 1986, p. 340, [my translation].  Gadamer, Text und Interpretation. 1986, p. 335, [my translation].  Gadamer, Text und Interpretation. 1986, p. 335, [my translation].  Gadamer, Text und Interpretation. 1986, p. 339, [my translation].

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of reference in contrast to the questionable and contingent, or at least manifold of interpretations, which are possible when addressing a text.”³⁰⁵ This becomes explicit when looking more carefully into how Gadamer formulates his hermeneutic ontology and speculative understanding of language as a “coming into language of a totality of meaning”,³⁰⁶ when namely the event of language, in which “Being that can be understood is language”³⁰⁷ shows or indicates something which remains beyond that, and which comes into language; something which “[…] stays, at that, which is to be understood, that, which comes into language […]”³⁰⁸. The addition, that this, in turn, “albeit […] always is taken as something, taken-to-be-true”, does not change that Gadamer understands language on the basis of his concept of interpretation as “intention of meaning”. The process of the “coming into language” itself is, as a completion of knowledge relative to “the thing”³⁰⁹, and therefore only comprehensible on the basis of the concept of interpretation as intention of meaning as the primordial concept in the hermeneutical approach. The main difference between the signo-interpretational approach and the hermeneutical is thus exactly that interpretation in the signointerpretational approach is not reduced to “intention of meaning”. Rather, interpretation as “intention of meaning” is one among many other forms of interpretation, but not the only, nor the most fundamental.³¹⁰ That Gadamer in the end links the essence of language to a vague concept of man’s finitude³¹¹does not make the hermeneutical ontology clearer, but it under-

 Gadamer, Text und Interpretation. 1986, p. 340, [my translation].  Gadamer, Truth and Method. 2013, p. 490.  Gadamer, Truth and Method. 2013, p. 490.  Gadamer, Text und Interpretation. 1986, p. 334, [my highlighting, my translation].  “In fact there is no reflection when the word is formed, for the word is not expressing the mind but the thing intended. The starting point for the formating of the word is the substantive content (the species) that fills the mind. The thought seeking expression refers not to the mind but to the thing. Thus the word is not the expression of the mind but is concerned with the similitude rei. The subject matter that is thought (the species) and the word belong as closely together as possible. Their unity is so close that the word does not occupy a second place in the mind beside the “species” (Lat.); rather, the word is that in which knowledge is consummated – i. e., that in which the species is fully thought. Thomas points out that in this respect the word resembles light, which is what makes color visible”. Gadamer, Truth and Method. 2013, p. 444, (436 – 445).  Cf. every understanding is an interpretation, but not each process of interpretation is understanding (e. g. to see, to make diagrams, to apply graphs and models).” Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 16, [my translation].  Cf: “Language is the record of finitude […]”, and also: “We have considered important turning points in European thought concerning language, and from these we have learned that the event of language corresponds to the finitude of man […]”; and also: “it is the medium of lan-

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scores the point that the difference between the hermeneutics and the signo-interpretational approach lies primarily in the conception of man. Where Gadamer presupposes a certain conception of man, man’s finitude, as the basis from which language, as intention of meaning, happens, the signo-interpretational approach is, that any conception of man, any man-sign, is an outcome of an interpretational practice, as a specific fixation of a sign, but that this fixation neither necessarily and primarily is constituted by an intention of meaning, nor possible to regard as a function of the finitude of man. This becomes evident in a closer look at the different conceptions of finitude in Gadamer and Abel respectively. Gadamer does not spell out a distinct and positive conception of finitude, yet it is possible to reconstruct the meaning of finitude in Gadamer by looking at the way he grasps the process of thinking itself, i. e. what we so far have named the semiosis. Gadamer stresses, as Abel, the discursiveness of thinking. Though, according to Gadamer, the discursiveness of thinking does not mean that any consistency or basic “subjectivity” is completely dissolved. Gadamer underscores that through the discursiveness of thinking a connection takes place: “When human thought passes from one thing to another – i. e., thinks first this thing and then that – it is still not just a series of one thought after another. It does not think in a simple succession, first one thing and then another, which would mean that it would itself constantly change in the process. If it thinks first of one thing and then of another, that means it knows what it is doing, and knows how to connect the one thing with the next.”.³¹² This proposition of a “connection” which makes out the consistency within the discourse of thoughts echoes not only Kant‘s transcendental “I” in a direct way, but furthermore reveals that something is subjectum within the process of thinking. And this subjectum is the incomplete spirit of man in opposition to the complete spirit of God. Now, Gadamer lists three points in his description of the incompleteness of man, viz. i) the point that any conception of something at first enters our mind in an incomplete way, wherefore we seek the complete expression of it: “But what comes into our mind in this way is not yet something finished and thought out to its conclusion. Rather, the real movement of thought now begins: the mind hurries from one thing to the other, turns this way and that, considering this and

guage alone that, related to the totality of beings, mediates the finite, historical nature of man to himself and to the world.” Gadamer, Truth and Method. 2013, p. 473. The discursiveness of thinking is exactly what the signo-interpretatinal approach defines as thinking in signs as an unlimited semiosis. It is not justified to argue that the unlimited semiosis itself is a concept of man – rather any concept is established within such a semiosis.  Gadamer, Truth and Method. 2013, p. 440.

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that, and seeks the perfect expression of its thoughts through inquiry (inquisitio) and thoughtfulness (cogitatio). The perfect word, therefore, is formed only in thinking, like a tool, but once it exists as the full perfection of the thought, nothing more is created with it.”³¹³ ii) Secondly, Gadamer points out, that the human spirit is never present to itself in its totality, wherefore it cannot express itself in just one word but in a manifold of words. The crux is here, that human spirit is not, in what it is and what it knows, completely self-present and thus in need of many words, yet never able to fully express what it knows: “It [i. e. the human spirit; MPW] does not really know what it knows”³¹⁴ iii) Thirdly, Gadamer finds that because we as incomplete beings are incapable of expressing the full content of our spirit – regardless our striving for it – our thinking perpetually and freely composes ever new projects: “The word of human thought is directed toward the thing, but it cannot contain it as a whole within itself. Thus thought constantly proceeds to new conceptions and is fundamentally incapable of being wholly realized in any.”³¹⁵ These three points regarding the process of thinking or the discursiveness of thoughts, viz. the seeking of a complete expression, the need for a manifold of words to do so and finally the freedom to ever new sketches, reveals that Gadamer regard the discursiveness as a function of the incompleteness and finitude of man. This is particularly evident when Gadamer understands every word as merely a predicate to our spirit, as: “a mere accident of the mind³¹⁶ whereby our thoughts are given a subjectum to which they are but predicates. Gadamer thus ends up committing the very fallacy which Kant repeatedly has warned us about, namely “that in all substances the true subject – namely that which remains after all accidents (as predicates) have been removed – and hence the substantial itself, is unknown to us”.³¹⁷ This is the more surprising, as Kant argues by referring to the discursive character of our thinking itself as the very reason why we cannot assume anything about an underlying subject.³¹⁸ Gadamer’s

 Gadamer, Truth and Method. 2013, p. 442. The similarity between Gadamer and Simon is here obvious.  Gadamer, Truth and Method. 2013, p. 443.  Gadamer, Truth and Method. 2013, p. 443.  Gadamer, Truth and Method. 2013, p. 443.  Kant, Prolegomena to any future metaphysics that will be able to come forward as science. §46, 2002, p. 125.  “Pure reason demands that for each predicate of a thing we should seek its appropriate subject, but that for this subject, which is in turn necessarily only a predicate, we should seek its subject again, and so forth to infinity (or as far as we get). But from this it follows that we should take nothing that we can attain for a final subject, and that the substantial itself could never be thought by our ever-so-deeply penetrating understanding, even if the whole of

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conception of interpretation, as intention of meaning, is thus based on an anthropology of finitude as the ground or subjectum from which all understanding as a discursive process takes place. Gadamer, and the hermeneutics in general, are thus not able to radically comprehend the man-signs as constituted within a semiosis, because the semiosis is thought the other way around, namely as a function of a specific conception of man (finitude). In Abel, man is also characterized as finite, yet the crux is here, that finitude is not the cause of the discursiveness of thinking but rather the discursiveness itself, or, in other words, the semiosis. In Abel a concept of finitude can be reconstructed by recapitulating the general characteristics stipulated throughout his work.³¹⁹ Finitude means for Abel a number of circumstances, which can be summarized in the following three points: 1) Our realities and our worlds are necessarily interpreted realities and interpreted worlds and as such an outcome of a limited or certain perspective, not an absolute and objective perspective. 2) Thinking as a specific interpretation2+3-process is necessarily internal to a specific interpretation1-process. 3) Every perspectival and interpretation-internal reality and world is in addition individual, meaning a particular interpretation1+2+3-process takes place within a specific time, history and culture and as a specific dynamic body-mind organization. ³²⁰ Finitude expresses a triadic character of the signo-interpretational processes as perspectival, interpretation-internal and individual and as such crystalizes the very nature of the unlimited semiosis itself as an ongoing creative signo-interpretational process. Finitude is thus, according to Abel, not an anthropological category but rather a characterization of the signointerpretational process itself qua unlimited semiosis. In Gadamer, finitude is the cause of the discursiveness of our thinking; in Abel finitude is the discourse itself. The crux is that finitude is not a characterization of man but a characterization of the very process within which any conception of “man” is conceived.

nature were laid bare before it; for the specific nature of our understanding consists in thinking everything discursively, i. e., through concepts, hence through mere predicates, among which the absolute subject must therefore always be absent.” Kant, Prolegomena to any future metaphysics that will be able to come forward as science. §46, 2002, p. 125.  As such we do not find a clearly defined notion of finitude, but the concept finitude is used adjectively throughout Abel’s works.  Cf. Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 68 ff.; Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 25, 57, 107.

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7.4 Interpretation as Critique The reflective-genealogical methodology inherent to Abel’s signo-interpretational approach is distinct from the transcendental methodology in Lenk and Simon in two crucial aspects. Firstly, by providing a highly applicable conceptual base from which the interpretational processes can be understood beyond any naturalistic, functionalistic or anthropological point of view, yet still refer to man, and thus overcoming the anthropological/de-anthropological schematism altogether by conceiving signo-interpretational processes beyond naturalist presumptions. Secondly, by conceiving interpretation basically as a process of critique whereby complying with the initial critical potential towards any metaphysics of the sign and of interpretation. With regard to the first aspect, a particular presumption of naturalist and instrumentalist character is evident in the understanding of man in both Lenk and Simon, viz. in Lenk as the transcendental need for unity and in Simon as the strive for a better understanding and the need for orientation. This particular naturalist-instrumentalist presumption is based on a deep-rooted understanding of the relation between man and world, which I shall call the contingency-mastering-thesis. In short the contingency-mastering-thesis suggests that we as human beings are subjected to contingency which in turn must be mastered. This is manifest in (at least) a fourfold way, namely when regarding man: a) as being in a chaotic world which must be mastered by means of a rational ordering; b) as being in a world without any stable and reliable anchoring points, wherefore we must orientate ourselves by means of finding and creating holding points; c) as being alienated or homeless in a world of non-existent or mere contingent values, wherefore we must establish and secure our identity as a counterweight to the perpetual flux; d) as exposed to a perpetually fluctuating semiotic process without any absolute certainty or absolute truth, wherefore we are inclined to rely on compensational, temporary and pragmatic arrangements in order to cope with our own finitude and general deficiency. This contingency-mastering thesis clearly operates with a dualist view of man and world as a residue of the traditional subject-object dichotomy. The philosophies of both Lenk and Simon may be seen as remnants of this, when conceiving man as need for unity or orientation. Abel’s signo-interpretational approach is able to conceive man beyond the subject-object dichotomy and the various anthropological categories of deficiency, by means of deconstructing the contingency-mastering thesis as such. The main argument is that there is a crucial difference between i) “the world” as fluctuating and interpretations as delivering stability, and ii) the interpretations as worlds, hence themselves per-

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petually fluctuating.³²¹ Lenk and Simon comply with the former, Abel with the latter. The point being, that as interpretation1+2+3, our worlds cannot in toto be contingent, although seem contingent and alien within an interpretation3-perspective. The crux is that the quality “contingency” only makes sense within an already established perspective, hence necessarily being interpretation-internal. Therefore, contingency does not determine interpretations, but rather interpretations determine contingency: “Interpretation is not determined by the contingent, rather the contingent can be conceived as a component internal to an interpretational relation; it cannot (since the contingent can be compared and distingushed from the non-contingent), not stand in this relation, and is in this sense necessarily bound to interpretation.”³²² Not the world as chaos, and a need in us, defines the interpretational process, but rather the other way around, as also Nietzsche notes: “Need. – Need is taken to be the cause why something came to be; in reality, it is often merely an effect of what has come to be.”³²³ It is possible for Abel to show that contingency is internal to a specific interpretational practice, and as a consequence leave behind the innate naturalist and instrumentalist anthropology of the contingency-mastering-thesis evident in Lenk and Simon. Man is as such neither in an autonomous world nor isolated without a world. Rather, the heuristic model of different interpretation-levels makes it possible to conceive man as embedded in the world, in the sense that the world is our specific interpretation1+2+3-activities. So, who interprets? A specific interpretation1+2+3-process. What is man? A specific sign determined within a specific interpretation1+2+3-process. Hence man is both conceived as process (i. e. a specific interpretation1+2+3-process) and agent (i. e. as the specific sign determined within the interpretation1+2+3-process). Here, Abel overcomes the anthropological/de-anthropological scheme altogether by advocating for a skeptical disposition towards any man-sign, in which it does not make sense to ask what is first, the interpretational process or the particular sign, since every sign is an interpretation and every interpretation is an interpretation of a sign. This skeptical disposition is a method for not reversing into naturalist/functionalist conceptions of the sign and interpretations and thus absolute anthropological categories, yet at the same time able of conceiving man as signo-interpretational being.

 Cf. Abel, Interpretations-Welten. 1989.  Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 488, [my translation].  Nietzsche, The Gay Science. #205, 2001, p. 142.

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With regard to the initial critical stand towards any metaphysics of the sign and of interpretation, the main difference between Lenk and Simon on the one hand and Abel on the other is the inherent critical potential of their philosophies. Lenk and Simon explain the ending of the semiosis as either a life-sustaining need for unity and order (Lenk) or as the striving for an immediate understanding without interpretation (Simon) by which one becomes able to orientate oneself and act. In Abel, the ending of the semiosis is at level 3 due to pragmatic reasons but a level 1 is not possible to determine any further than stating that it has ended. In Simon, the process of interpretation is thus primarily concerned with establishing a complete, perfect and immediate understanding, which can provide orientation and allow us to act. In Abel, the interpretational process is not solely about establishing orientation. And exactly this makes out the most crucial difference: Simon understands the process of interpretation as something which must be ended as a prerequisite for acting and judging, and accordingly the semiosis is sought ended (in an immediate and better understanding in relation to a former). Abel does not require the process of interpretation to have ended in order to be able to act; rather action is itself the ending of the semiosis. As such the semiosis is ended all the time and automatically, wherefore the very motive of the signo-interpretational approach is not to end but instead to initiate the semiosis or process of interpretation. The challenge is not to establish a firm belief, but rather to prevent particular interpretations from enduring and becoming absolute, hence cementing the inner critical potential in the philosophy of interpretation and understanding interpretation basically as a process of critique. Based on the contingency-mastering-thesis, to which man is in need of gaining a secure, unified and perfect understanding (without need for further interpretation) the initial critical potential is in Lenk and Simon restrained and eventually completely suppressed. Yet, where in Lenk the critical potential only in an insignificant way is restrained due to the need for a pragmatically unified world, it is in Simon an inevitable and direct consequence of the absolutism of the individual understanding. Simon thus ends up constituting a new metaphysical conception of the sign and of interpretation which fails to fulfill the initial critical potential within the philosophy of signs and interpretations, and which in turn bears significant epistemological and ethical consequences. The absolutism of the individual understanding is the fundamental principle in Simon’s philosophy of the sign. Simon at first avoids a radical solipsism with an argument of Hegelian and Nietzschean province, namely that self-knowledge is only possible through others: “For one “I” can experience itself as the “center” of its “ontology” only in another “I,” in a “you” that puts this “ontology” into question not in everything, but rather only in some things, so that the one “I”

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very well distinguishes itself from the other “I,” but – at least in this distinction and in what is connected with it – still knows itself to be united with it.”³²⁴ In this acknowledgement of the other not only a rejection of solipsism is founded, but furthermore a certain ethical principle is visible, namely a principle of justice: “In knowing one’s own individuality (or “finitude”) lies justice vis-a-vis others’ understanding otherwise, also vis-a-vis the fact that they understand me otherwise than I understand myself. Self-consciousness has, in a philosophy of the sign, no priority over alien-consciousness.”³²⁵ Yet the crucial point is, that regardless the fact that one only understands oneself by recognizing the other, this recognition is nonetheless based in one’s own individual understanding: “One cannot say that understanding may concede to others other concepts for “the same” given, for a same thing (and thus also a something) is something only under the concept under which it is grasped in each case.”³²⁶. Hence, Simon fails to break the absolute individualism although he escapes the radical solipsism. Any interpretation of a not-understood sign is guided by the need for a better understanding and orientation. This does not exclude the existence of others, yet others are merely signs which I have an understanding of, an understanding which is my own, serving my needs for orientation and my version of what is a better understanding: “Thus it depends on how “I” understand it in each case, in that in a “proof” “I” replace signs by means of other signs in such a way that for me, according to my reading or interpretation, the meaning remains the same. For, that different signs would have the same meaning, hangs from the reading of the signs, that is, therefrom that, within my horizon, the new signs appear to me to be better (for certain purposes) than the ones first given, to which latter the former are, by virtue thereof, equated as meaning the same thing.”³²⁷ The ethical principle of justice towards and acknowledgement of others is in Simon restrained by the principle of meliorism, wherefore it fails to spell out a convincing ethical position and ultimately reverts into the opposite of its declared acknowledgement and tolerance of the understanding of others. Simon’s radical individualism means that the relation between a sign and a given individual understanding of it remains an estranged relation,³²⁸ which is why Simon ends up with the consequence, that if any understanding and interpretational process is

 Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 203.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 114.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 114.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 140.  “What is individual of the attempt and what is individual of that which is to be understood, that is, that it is not to be understood definitively, remain vis-a-vis each other.” Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 113.

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taking place according to the principle of meliorism and orientation, then we end up with a plurality of individual but self-sufficient understandings, which has no incentives for understanding differently, and thus no incentive for accepting the understanding of the other, because it remains other understanding relative to my understanding. In other words: I have no incentives to try to understand differently, if my current understanding provides me with the orientation needed, i. e. the orientation I as an individual need. Simon’s individualism does therefore not lead to an ethical principle of Kantian province, by which I should interpret in a way, so that the maxim of my interpretation admits the existence of other interpretations.³²⁹ The principle of meliorism based on the need for individually constituted orientation makes such an ethical principle impossible. Simon might very well have seen this inner inconsistency in the attempt to combine a radical individualism with a tolerance of other understandings, when ultimately any sign-understanding is founded in an individual “power of imagination” as a “power of understanding”.³³⁰ Such a vague concept of an individual “power” which dictates to which degree one is able to accept other understandings than one’s own might as such work as an ethical principle, yet is to an even higher degree inconsistent with Simon’s very basic principle of a need for orientation and secure identity. An intrinsic need in man for orientation, security and certainty seems incoherent with a moral demand for accepting a plurality of interpretations because 1) such a plurality leads to disorientation, insecurity and uncertainty and 2) the tolerance for other interpretations must tolerate the case of an intolerant interpretation, wherefore it ends up with either accepting a potential destruction of itself (which is incoherent with the basic need for self-preservation). Alternatively, a general presumption must be made, that every interpreter must apply to the common restriction, that no interpretation may be set as absolute, which in practice would mean, that not all interpretations are allowed, but only those who already apply with plurality, in which case the ethical principle is prescribed and not an inherent result of the philosophy of the sign. An ethical principle of plurality is thus not a possible sequitur

 As such Hogrebe sees the inner ethical principle in Simon’s philosophy of the sign: “Its principle can perhaps be grasped in a Kantian manner as this: interpret in a way, that the maxim of your interpretation always lets other interpretations be. Otherwise formulated: keep your interpretations open for other interpretations!” Hogrebe, Metafisica Povera. 1992, p. 98.  “Since understanding of signs rests on power of imagination, it rests on power. As an answer to the question of what the sign “sign” mean, something other than “sign” has to be accepted; other signs have to be accepted, for example, “power of understanding.” Freedom (in the un derstanding of signs) is a matter of the power of imagination.” Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 192.

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from the understanding of man as orientation-needing being and Simon’s absolutism of the individual thus has a much more dangerous consequence than that of a merely hypothetical solipsism, namely rather the fact that any critical potential is eliminated. Anyone may suffice in his or her own understanding and anyone is in their right to remain in his or her own understanding. Simon’s ethical principle of justice towards the other’s individuality is thus perverted into any individual’s self-justification. How can we criticize? We cannot! We have no right to criticize! The consequences of Simon’s philosophy of the sign are therefore not epistemological solipsism and ethical relativism, but rather epistemological absolutism and ethical self-righteousness; an epistemological isolation and an ethical self-sufficiency disguised as liberal individualism. Further, when the main goal of all interpretation is to obtain a state of understanding without interpretation, yet this state constantly is disturbed and interrupted because of the course of time, Simon’s philosophy ends up being an endless battle with time and change, seeking to establish immediate understanding, without need for further interpretation. As such, one retreats into one’s own understanding, revels in one’s own intellect, finds merely the barren “I” and “seeks only being-for-itself”.³³¹ Simon thus ends up with what Hegel criticizes in his cutting description of how consciousness generally responds when suffering the violence “at its own hands”, the recurrent ruining of its own restricted satisfaction, i. e. the perpetual change (the semiosis), namely to retreat from its anxiety by striving to hold on to what in the course of time and change is in danger of being lost.³³² Simon’s absolutist individualism is the logical consequence of his initial naturalist conception of the semiosis as a striving for better understanding because of a need. In Abel, the implicit restraints of the critical potential in Simon are avoided on the basis of the non-naturalist conception of the signo-interpretational processes as described above, yet without having to repudiate the individual as such.³³³ Moreover, the signo-interpretational processes as creative processes are not functions of a need for orientation and stability wherefore an inner critical potential is given. The reflective genealogy underscores the interpretational character of everything, and thus reflects the initial critical stand towards any metaphysics of the sign and of interpretation, namely that it is impossible to break out of the semiosis and the signo-interpretational processes as such.

 Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit. 2010, p. 76.  Cf. “Consciousness suffers this violence at its own hands and brings to ruin its own restricted satisfaction. Feeling this violence, anxiety about the truth might well retreat and strive to hold onto what it is in danger of losing.” Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit. 2010, p. 76.  “Cf. Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 491.

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The critical potential reflects the initial signo-interpretational insight that everything could have been different, wherefore it includes a perpetual endeavour to ask whether something as something could be interpreted differently. Now, the critical potential inherent in Abel’s position may be said to lie inherently in the very nature of the signo-interpretational process understood as creativity qua a double negation. The critical potential together with the conception of a perpetually creative process thus encompass what I shall call a skeptical disposition, which is to be elaborated next, in part II.

Part II Man as Signo-interpretational Being – The Skeptical Disposition towards World, Other, and Self

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As any conception of man is determined by a perpetual interplay of signs and interpretation it becomes futile to establish a firm foundation which can function as man’s nature or essence. Yet alongside and by means of the very same interplay of signs and interpretation a complete dissolution and withdrawal into an ever deceptive pretense is evaded as well. The thesis is that it is possible to conceive a conception of man amid this ever-fluctuating interplay of signs and interpretation, and beyond the overall antinomy of anthropocentrism on one hand and de-anthropocentrism on the other. Now, this original signo-interpretational conception of man materializes as a skeptical disposition towards world, other, and self. With the label skeptical disposition I seek to conceptualize the inner character of the signo-interpretational process as such. It is thus neither the aim to specify and unfold various skeptical arguments, nor to reject and argue against specific skeptical propositions, whether it concerns the possibility of knowledge of an external world; of knowledge of the true meaning of words; of knowledge of the existence of other minds or true knowledge regarding ourselves. Any such questioning is already embedded in a specific interpretational practice and therefore only of secondary relevance. Rather the point of view is, that inherent to the signo-interpretational approach the signo-interpretational conception of man materializes as a skeptical disposition towards world, other, and self. Now, this skeptical disposition may be seen as the essential potential of the philosophy of sign and interpretation altogether. Abel thus takes his point of departure in skepticism as a philosophical method. This method consists of three steps: 1) skepticism is applied; 2) skepticism is rejected by referring to a practical dimension always at hand; 3) this practical dimension is of interpretational character.³³⁴ The point is in other words that 1) skepticism is inherent to philosophy as such, i. e. as the inner method of philosophical reasoning and 2) that when applying the skeptical method, we are automatically led to the very core of the signo-interpretational approach, namely, that in order to doubt, we must already ascertain something, i. e. we must already hold some belief of signo-interpretational character.³³⁵ The skeptical disposition does therefore not imply that we do not possess or hold any knowledge at all, but that our knowledge is based upon, and the manifestation of, a specific signo-interpretational practice and therefore only possible to explain and justify as relative to this: “The internal interpreatationism does therefore not suggest, that no knowledge exist at all, al Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 13, 14.  Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 46.

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though it does propose, that the meaning of knowledge already is embedded in an interpretation-praxis, and only possible to understand and reconstruct in relation to this.”³³⁶ The crux is here, that any epistemological skepticism is derivative to a certain signo-interpretational practice, wherefore any terminal skepticism as such is impossible to carry out. Abel distinguishes between two forms of skepticism: a terminal or total skepticism and a philosophical or internal skepticism. The former is an excessive skepticism yet itself metaphysical in its approach, because it derives directly from a metaphysical realism. The terminal skepticism arises when the Cartesian endeavour to establish absolute knowledge and absolute certainty fails. Yet, the point is that such a terminal skepticism only arises because of a covert metaphysical ideal of absolute knowledge and certainty, which is put as the measure to which everything is held; a metaphysical ideal derivative of a metaphysical realism, by which it is possible to arrive at a thing in itself.³³⁷ Abel thus argues akin to Hegel’s description of the “natural consciousness”, which does not possess “real” knowledge, but merely has a “concept” of knowledge. Here, the philosophical path of doubt turns into a path of despair, whereby consciousness ultimately loses itself, because what is merely a “concept” of knowledge is taken as “real” knowledge.³³⁸ The skeptical doubt carried out by the “natural consciousness” thus ends in a terminal skepticism, because the natural consciousness remains within a one-sided view of the skeptical movement undertaken; a one-sided view that only ends with “the abstraction of nothingness or emptiness” , but does not see that the skeptical doubt undertaken is a determinate negation, and thus already has some content.³³⁹ Or akin to  Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 49, [my translation].  “The metaphysical realism contains not only no answer to the question, how it can be thought, that our experience is the way it is. Rather, the metaphysical realism is precisely outstandingly capable of undermining the familiarity of our interpretation-worlds, which we understand, and bringing forward gnostic world-alieanation. With reagrds to both of these points, the metaphysical realism and the metaphysical skepticism are one of a kind. The latter is covertly bound to the metaphysical realism; because it grounds its own possibility on the thesis, that we as finite and perspectival minds, and exactly because of this finitude and perspectivity, are cut off from “the true nature of the things themselves”.” Abel Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 45, [my translation].  Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit. 2010, p. 73.  “It is the very skepticism which always sees in its results only pure nothingness and which abstracts from the fact that this nothingness is only the determinate shape of the nothingness from which it itself has resulted. However, it is only the nothingness which is taken as the nothingness of that from which it emerges which is in fact the true result. That nothingness is itself thereby determinate and thereby has a content. Skepticism which ends with the abstraction of nothingness or emptiness cannot progress any further from this point but must instead wait

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Nietzsche’s reasoning on the arrival of nihilism: that when one interpretation becomes incredible, then everything seems meaningless, yet only because this one interpretation was seen as the only one. ³⁴⁰ The essential point is that the metaphysical or terminal skepticism tries to break out of those signo-interpretational conditions which any thinking and reasoning necessarily takes place within (the semiosis). In contrast to this, internal skepticism finds that it is neither possible nor desirable to break out of the foundational signo-interpretational conditions. This in turn is exactly what is meant with finitude, as elaborated above. The point is that as long as only a theoretical or epistemological argument is used, any pure theoretical or epistemological skepticism is impossible to counter. However, the theoretical and epistemological skepticism is highly artificial and even before it is carried out it is countered because it is necessarily formulated within some already functioning interpretational practice. Skepticism is thus not proven wrong, but it is an impossible stand, which is why it is not necessary to refute altogether.³⁴¹ As a reversing of Wittgenstein’s metaphor, we may say that the “bedrock” is not reached by way of digging, but already taken for granted as the solid ground on which we stand, when we start to dig. And further, beliefs are not reached by argumentation but held before argumentation commences. Also here, the metaphor of the Owl of Minerva is right, namely as reasoning and argumentation necessarily come after some beliefs are held. The signo-interpretational approach inverts the skeptical challenge of a terminal skepticism into a skeptical disposition, by which a terminal skepticism is excluded, yet, a critical potential is upheld. The overall thesis is that an original signo-interpretational conception of man is possible to spell out as such a skeptical disposition towards world, other, and self. The following will present this original signo-interpretational conception of man in four sections: The Skeptical Disposition (8); Interpretations of World (9); Interpretations of Others (10); Interpretations of Self (11).

to see whether something new will come along and what it will be, if indeed it is then to toss it too into the same empty abyss.” Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit. 2010, p. 73.  “One interpretation has collapsed, but because it was considered the interpretation, it appears as though there is no sense in existence whatsoever, as though everything is in vain.” Nietzsche, European Nihilism. 2006, p. 386.  “Although, this does not mean – and that is a crucial point –, that the skeptical possibility of a theoretical openness and indetermination of the reference also remains in practice, also remains wihtin the praxis of real speaking, thinking and action. Because, when we actually speak, think and act then some determinations and fixations are unavoidably made. But, a refutation of the skepticism does not follow from this. Rather, the interpretational-constructive nature of such fixations become clear.” Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 216, [my translation].

8 The Skeptical Disposition The next will spell out the inner elements of this signo-interpretational skeptical disposition by extending Abel’s above mentioned three-step method into a fourstep argumentation in which four phases of skepticism are set apart, viz. 1. augmented skepticism; 2. mitigated skepticism; 3. a skeptical tendency; 4. a skeptical attitude. Firstly, it is shown how the signo-interpretational approach initially proposes a complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation by which an augmented skeptical challenge occurs. In turn it is described how this augmented skeptical challenge is automatically refuted as the complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation internally sets an explicit line between signs and interpretations. Secondly, we shall take a closer look at how the augmented skeptical challenge proposed by the signo-interpretational approach is mitigated when the sign is conceived as consistency, independently from any conception of man; and how the sign as consistency holds its own identity. Thirdly, we will examine how interpretation is basically a practice of differentiation by which signs in their consistent identity are challenged and dissolved. This practice of differentiation makes out the inner skeptical tendency of any interpretational practice and thus makes out an ontological aspect of the skeptical disposition. Fourthly, it is shown how the inner skeptical tendency of any interpretational practice cannot stand alone and therefore must be accompanied by a genuine skeptical attitude or an ethical dimension. This skeptical attitude has the single aim to break free from the overwhelming influence of the signs and thus to secure the autonomy of interpretation. This emancipatory aim materializes in an overall skeptical attitude towards world, other, and self, concretely as 1) active dissolution of fixed signs; 2) openness towards other signs; 3) intended halting or holding back of definite interpretations, i. e. an interpretational epoché. In general, the signo-interpretational skeptical disposition thus materializes in two ways, namely as 1) a persistent inner tendency of the interpretational practice itself and 2) as an attitude towards world, other, and self. In this way, the signo-interpretational skeptical disposition comprises both an ontological and an ethical level. In the next section, an elaboration on the inner constituents of the signo-interpretational skeptical disposition is carried out in four steps, viz.: 8.1 Facticity and Interpretation – Augmented Skepticism; 8.2 Consistency of Signs and Disciplines of Interpretation – Mitigated Skepticism; 8.3 Interpretation as Correction – The Skeptical Tendency; 8.4 Freedom and Autonomy – The Skeptical Attitude.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110592078-010

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8.1 Facticity and Interpretation – Augmented Skepticism The complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation is expressed with the point, that what is, is a matter of how we interpret it, yet how we interpret is conditioned by what is interpreted. Consequently, the determination of what is and how we interpret absconds any constancy and disappears within an ever-fluctuating process of demarcation, where neither what is nor how we interpret, is given an anchor of a stable structure or scheme. The crucial point is that any discernment between the interpretation-object which is interpreted and the interpretation-subject which interprets necessarily is nothing but interpretation.³⁴² Yet, this does not mean that any individuation, discrimination and distinction is void or illegitimate, but that no set identity, delineation, description or definition is absolute and therefore rather represents the materialization of a specific temporary ending to the otherwise unlimited semiosis. In a late fragment Nietzsche reflects on this foundational point distinctively, when he underlines the restraining of our interpretations to certain schemes: “The rational thinking is an interpretation which follows a scheme, which we cannot throw off.”³⁴³ Yet, at the same time Nietzsche points out the limits of the effects of such, or any, transcendental schematism: “It is not in our power to change our means for expressing ourselves: it is possible to understand in what way they are merely semiotics.”³⁴⁴ Nietzsche’s point is here double. That the schemes by which we interpret the world are merely “semiotics”, refers firstly to the fact that our schemes do not depict a reality “as it is” but that they are interpretations. And secondly, it reveals that the very characterization of our “schemes” or transcendental conditions is, as self-characterization, also merely “semiotics”, i. e. not a determination of absolute constants but a dynamic and fluctuating set “line” between what we interpret and how we interpret, between interpretation-object and interpretation-subject. As such Nietzsche’s point exemplifies the signo-interpretational concurrency of facticity and interpretation, by which any attempt to spell out some logical, linguistic, naturalistic, psychological, historical or existential categories, structures or schemes by which thinking as interpretation takes place is undercut, and by which any spelling out of a transcendental structure or scheme

 In this vein Abel reminds us of Putnam’s point that we cannot discern sharply between the subject and the object, when imagining a continuum between the two, because: “The cut can be put very differently. Result: “the idea of a “point at which” subjectivity ceases and objectivitywith-a-capital-O begins has proved chimerical”.” Abel, Realismus, Pragmatismus, Interpretationismus. 1988, p. 57, [my translation].  Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente,1886/87, 5 [22], KSA 12, 1999, p. 194, [my translation].  Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente, 1888, 14 [122], KSA 13, 1999, p. 302, [my translation].

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may be regarded as nothing but an attempt to “save the phenomena” from the insight that everything is sign and interpretation. Even Lenk’s and Abel’s systematizations of different “levels” of interpretation are attempts to spell out some solid “structure”, although these levels are in both Lenk and Abel acknowledged as merely heuristic self-interpretations. And in Simon’s case the fluctuating process of sign-understanding is anchored in a need for a better understanding. Now, because of the secession of the signo-interpretational processes from any conception of man, the signo-interpretational approach seeks to go a step further or a step behind any transcendental-anthropological structure as such. Only when the essence of the signs and our interpretations are not founded in a conception of man, it is possible to grasp the complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation. Only when the signo-interpretational character of all things is not hidden behind transcendental categories and anthropological necessities, which establish pretence of firmness and substantiality, the signo-interpretational approach may be revealed. The complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation becomes specifically apparent in the transitive character of all signs which is expressed in the fact that signs are subject to interpretation. Any sign which appears is as such transient. The central point is that both in action and in thought this transitivity of the signs is immediately evident, i. e. the fact that when we act and when we think we relate to a firm and consistent sign and interpret it in some certain way relative to some situation, motivation or intention. This is the reason why the same sign may mean something different relative to both the circumstances it appears within and how one is inclined to interpret the sign. Yet, for now it is in our sole interest to consider that when acting and when thinking a movement or transition is taking place by which a sign is both given and in the making. In the moment one acts or thinks, the transition of a sign into another is apparent. The same sign may be interpreted in different ways, yet the specific and momentary interpretation appears as a concrete act or thought. A sign is instantly interpreted as something and this is the action or the thought. So, the transitivity of signs is concretely evident when we act and when we think in the sense that the concrete act and the concrete thought is the concrete interpretation of a sign as something. Hence, the view that in order to act the interpretational process must first have been ended, as in both Lenk and Simon, is here inverted so that the very act or the very thought is the actual momentary ending of the otherwise unlimited semiosis. Any action or thought may here be taken as example: from the immediate or instinctive reaction – as when a loud noise provokes a startle – to the carefully planned and carried out act; from the immediate and instinctive mental association – as when one assumes fire when seeing smoke – to the trained and methodically conducted reasoning. In the concrete action or thought

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the complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation is expressed immediately so that instead of saying that first there is a sign, then this sign is interpreted and finally the action is the outcome of the interpretation, we should say: action takes place, this action is the embodiment or materialization of a signo-interpretational process in which a sign is given and interpreted instantly. Neither the fact that some actions are only carried out after careful consideration, nor that thought may be carefully conducted (as in science), alter this. Rather this is to be seen as a slowing down of the very same process in order to control it, and thus a question of opposing the heteronomy within the sign-use and interpretational-practice. Whereas the majority of our actions and thoughts thus happen automatically, i. e. as ruled or as heteronomous, the careful consideration prior to action or the methodically conducted thinking is the attempted autonomy of the same. While I shall return to this matter in detail below, another aspect is here to be elaborated further, namely doubt. At first, the phenomenon of doubt seems to represent a break from the concurrency of facticity and interpretation namely as the case in which an instantaneous or immediate interpretation of a given sign does not happen. Doubt occurs as a kind of disturbance or interruption of the otherwise continuous proceeding of action and thought, and materializes in action as hesitation, in thought as uncertainty. Yet, it is important to underline that the case of doubt is the exception, not the rule, in both action and in thought. Usually our actions and our thinking proceed uninterrupted and undisturbed. We act within a complex world of multiple signs without further problems and our thinking is normally a perpetual flow. In other words: practical doubt in the form of hesitation and theoretical doubt in form of uncertainty occur only as border-phenomena. This is apparent for example when we notice that our familiar way of acting and thinking become challenged, when we move out of the known surroundings, or more concretely when we undertake a journey to a foreign culture or when reading a text with an unfamiliar subject. As such, doubt lets what otherwise occurs as self-evident stand out as something which could be different, and therefore also reveals the transitivity of the sign because when a sign-use and interpretational practice is interrupted and disturbed it suddenly stands out as something which could be different, yet is not different, i. e. as a particular sign subject to some certain interpretation. In the phenomenon of doubt a certain line between sign and interpretation thus become evident. The always already set and inherent line between facticity and interpretation is not only present within our “well-functioning” sign-use and interpretational practices, but makes out the firm foundation for any case in which the customary sign-use and interpretational practice is interrupted and disturbed; i. e. when we hesitate to act and when we become uncertain of our beliefs. It is the basis from which all doubt arises, in the sense that doubt would not occur, would not at all

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be possible if the relation between facticity and interpretation was not already established in some certain way. The concurrency of facticity and interpretation is a materialization of a specific set line intrinsic to all action and all thinking, so that a certain relation between facticity and interpretation is already established and expressed. The complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation does therefore not lead to an augmented skeptical stand in which it becomes impossible to draw a line between what (signs) is interpreted and how (interpretation) we interpret. Rather such skepticism is immediately mitigated as a line is always already evident in every action and within all thought. The complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation disclosed in the transitivity of the signs, concretely manifest in action and thought and pre-existent to all doubt thus means that there are no “neutral” signs, which then in a sort of second approach are interpreted. The point is therefore, that what is and how is interpreted are two equal constituents within any signo-interpretational practice. In Simon’s words this means that: “A sign separated from the manner of understanding does not exist.”³⁴⁵ This demonstrates the previous point with regard to a possible skepticism, namely that a state of complete doubt is impossible to fulfil. Rather, there will always be a residuum of some belief in order to initiate doubt at all, as expressed by Peirce: “We cannot begin with complete doubt. We must begin with all the prejudices which we actually have when we enter upon the study of philosophy. These prejudices are not to be dispelled by a maxim, for they are things which it does not occur to us can be questioned. Hence this initial skepticism will be a mere self-deception, and not real doubt; and no one who follows the Cartesian method will ever be satisfied until he has formally recovered all those beliefs which in the form he has given up.”³⁴⁶ The question is not how to discern between facticity and interpretation (because we cannot but distinguish heuristically), but rather how facticity and interpretation as concurrent elements constitute every signo-interpretational process by internally and instantaneously setting a fine line between what is and how we interpret. The task is not to define some unconditional facticity, nor to list some unavoidable structures of interpretation, but rather to point at the reciprocal constitution of signs and interpretation within all signo-interpretational processes.³⁴⁷ Of course, it is possible to catalogue and systematize what sign is inter-

 Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 76.  Peirce, Some Consequences of Four Incapacities. 1960, p. 156.  Cf. “Our interpretaion-praxis is not dependent on the explanation of theoretical problems of interpretation, and clearcut analysis. The concrete situations in which we speak and act, in so far as we actually speak and act, does not allow that. Everything else would mean a paralysis of any speaking and acting, because of theoretical problems, and thus turn the dependency upside

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preted or how our interpretations concretize, yet the point is again that any such systematization would be subsequent to some already set line between facticity and interpretation and therefore necessarily merely a systematization of some particular, i. e. contingent sign and way of interpretation. Philosophically, it is not that or that particular sign and interpretation we are interested in, but rather the fact that signs and interpretations per se are materializations of a fine line between facticity and interpretation. The main thesis is that doubt (hesitation and uncertainty) as a border-phenomenon discloses these always and already set fine lines between facticity and interpretation in any both practical and theoretical signo-interpretational process. We shall return to this later, but first we take a closer look at the nature of signs and interpretation.

8.2 Consistency of Signs and Disciplines of Interpretation – Mitigated Skepticism What makes a sign a sign, when we are not to refer to or base it on a conception of man? It cannot, as in Simon, be conceived as what we understand, because understanding here is grounded in man’s needs. Neither is it possible to understand it as a function, orientation, representation or reference. That the sign can be understood and is capable of expressing meaning, carrying a function, giving orientation, showing or referring is rather founded in another, more primary nature of the sign as sign, namely its consistency. According to Peirce: “Consistency belongs to every sign, so far as it is a sign; and therefore every sign, since it signifies primarily that it is a sign, signifies its own consistency.”³⁴⁸ The sign is as sign consistent. Something which is not consistent is not a sign. A sign may be annihilated or replaced by another sign, which is to say that the first sign loses its consistency and no longer is. A sign which loses its consistency ceases to be. There are no inconsistent signs. Consistency belongs to the very appearance of the sign as sign. To ask whether the consistency is something which is given to the sign through an interpretation is strictly speaking not possible to determine without presuming a man-sign as the interpreter for whom the sign is consistent. It is enough to say, that the sign as sign appears as something consistent. A sign may have a down. Yet, these, in our interpretation-praxis indispensible fixations, in and through interpretation itself, does not lead out of the interpretativeness, bur rather into the practical foundation of every determinate interpretation, and maybe most decisively.” Abel, Interpretations-Welten. 1989, p. 6, [my translation].  Peirce, Some Consequences of Four Incapacities. 1960, p. 188.

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number of equal interpretations each of which represents a particular consistency. Consistency is therefore not to be confused with unambiguity and a sign may “carry” a plurality of interpretations of it. The sign is thus consistent, yet also “plastic”, which basically means that it is subject to interpretation, it does not oppose interpretation, and therefore it is capable of “adopting” new interpretations, without losing its original consistency. A sign’s plasticity does not contradict its consistency. Plasticity merely means that a sign is possible to interpret. Yet any possible interpretation of a sign takes its point of departure in an already consistent sign. The sign now appears as a particular sign with a particular meaning, and the sign may either materialize as an order or hierarchy of more or less basic interpretations of the same sign or the first sign is given an interpretation which materializes as a new sign. Consistency is the materialization of a unity and thus the marking of a boundary: it expresses a relation to something else. The sign as consistency marks both identity and difference simultaneously. Every sign holds its own identity and as such marks a difference to another sign. Identity and difference are thus concurrent; identity is by being different to another and any difference marks identity. Identity and difference are concurrent aspects of the consistency expressed in every sign. The manifestation of identity may be said to be the objective aspect of every sign, or what is attributed to the given sign. The marking of a difference may be said to be the subjective aspect of every sign, or what is attributed to the interpretation of the sign. The two aspects of the consistent sign, identity and difference, thus show the inseparable connection of signs and interpretation. The sign holds its own identity and interpretation sets a difference. The point is that these two aspects are concurrent and therefore cannot be separated except in thought. This captures the initial insight that everything is sign and interpretation, at the same time given and in the making. The sign holds its own identity. The sign is the “object” which stands out as a firm individual with a clear border towards other signs. The sign holds its identity and is thus the object of interpretation or that which is interpreted. It is the immediately met and familiar thing, concept, meaning, gesture, word, sound, vision, smell or feeling and may appear as more or less complex, i. e. with more or less subordinate parts. A painting or a piece of music may both stand out in its totality or one may focus on subordinate details, each of which are signs, but as parts assembled in the whole. Every sign as consistency therefore involves a complex of signs. The absolute singular and unrelated sign does not exist. When signs are, then there are interpretations. When interpretations are, then there are signs. Every sign involves a trail of interpretations. Any trail of interpretations constitutes a specific order or rule by which a sign is followed by another. The crux is here to understand that the setting of a follow-sign does not only follow a rule,

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but also invents rules, or as Wittgenstein puts it, follows, invents and/or changes rules “as we go along”.³⁴⁹ And more importantly: the setting of a sign is not a function, as it is in Simon³⁵⁰, but a creative play by which signs are made up and related in various ways. Any trail of interpretation thus simultaneously 1) departs from an already existing sign and 2) materializes as a concurrent invention and following of a rule. Any interpretation may as such be said to create an order between follow-signs and a more primary sign, although strictly speaking it is not possible to state which sign is the more original and which is a followsign; rather the interconnection of diverse signs is akin to the interconnection of the particular tones and rhythms in a piece of music; each is only what it is in relation to the other. The main constituent of any interpretational practice, be it actions, a practical conduct, some form of knowledge, a game, an orientation, a train of thoughts is in turn the composition of a specific linking or ordering of signs. Any such ordering of signs within any interpretational process I shall call a discipline meaning the instantaneous materialization of a conduct or pattern. Interpretation is thus some certain discipline, understood as the concurrent abiding by and making up/changing of a rule as we go along. In this way, we may say that any concrete discipline is the concrete materialization of the always already set fine line between facticity and interpretation. The discipline within any signo-interpretational process materializes as a specific way of interpretation. Any such way of interpretation becomes concrete as a specific suggesting tendency or as a specific governing tendency within the signo-interpretational process itself, as also Simon puts it: “Now one cannot say, however, that this certainty would result only within the grammar of a definite thinking and not from “thinking in general.” For there is no “thinking in general” that would not follow a definite grammar, as a definite one, yet once again still as also only a presupposed one, that is, no thinking that did not have its work with “making the articulated phone capable of the expression of the thought” in accordance with that grammar. The discipline or normativity thus conditioned first turns the otherwise corporeal phantasy into (directed) thinking. Only it suggests meanings and kinds of meanings to the phantasy producing signs.”³⁵¹ Now, this suggesting tendency may be divided in an objective

 “And is there not also the case where we play and – make up the rules as we go along? And there is even one where we alter them – as we go along.” Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations. #83, 1974. p. 39.  In Simon, any interpretation is under the rule that the follow-sign is understood better than the first sign. Cf. Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 216.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 188.

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and a subjective aspect. The objective aspect is the way which the trail of interpretations may be said to be governed from the outside or from the signs themselves. Any sign thus itself suggests certain interpretations as is directly evident in e. g. a piece of music, a film or a book. All signs are here carefully ordered with regard to which interpretations they are believed to call forth in the listener, spectator or reader. A text is i this sense the intended suggestion to follow a specific rule of thought. In contrast, the subjective aspect is the way in which the trail of interpretations may be said to be governed from the inside or from the interpretations. Any interpretation is as such the manifestation of a specific rule. A rule is the way by which a follow-sign is put and is what we call a habit, as also Peirce states: “That which determines us, from given premises, to draw one inference rather than another, is some habit of mind, whether it be constitutional or acquired.”³⁵² A habit is in this sense broadly conceived as a guiding principle³⁵³, yet as such not detached from the signs and interpretations, but directly present as what and how the signs occur. Every sign is already interpreted within an already established habit; or in other words: a sign is the concrete materialization of a habit simultaneously followed and made up as we go along. As already elaborated above, the signo-interpretational process is not carried out before action is taken, but rather takes place or materializes as action. In this sense, the disciplines materialize both practically and theoretically as certain action- and thought-patterns, whereby the distinction between practical and theoretical is an inadequate distinction since the difference between practical and theoretical is purely gradual and thus not a distinction between two distinct categories. Hence, we may speak of a gradual transition from completely non-rational instinctive actions to rationally conducted actions. In this sense thinking is a specific kind of action only gradually different from other actions by the degree of abstract rationality involved. This gradual transition from practical to theoretical actions means that there are more or less rationally premeditated actions, which means we may distinguish between more or less conscious theoretical actions. Theoretical actions or thinking may be conceived with regard to the degree of self-awareness, or self-consciousness. This standpoint is consistent with Abel’s continuum-theory of consciousness. Abel writes that we must conceive conciousness within a “continuum” of what exists in one way or another “from the outmost of the anorganic over the organic up to mental conditions,  Peirce, The Fixation of Belief. 1960, p. 227.  Cf. “the particular habit of mind which governs this or that inference may be formulated in a proposition whose truth depends on the validity of the inferences which the habit determines; and such a formula is called a guiding principle of inference.” Peirce, The Fixation of Belief. 1960, p. 228.

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consciousness, self-consciousness, cognitive and other mental activities and to projecting actions and the carrying out of actions.”³⁵⁴ Within this perspective, consciousness is a late development; famously stated by Nietzsche: “All of life would be possible without, as it were, seeing itself in the mirror; and still today, the predominant part of our lives actually undfolds without this mirroring – of course also our thinking, feeling, and willing lives, […]”³⁵⁵ In other words: rationality is not necessarily self-conscious but is rather a both “late” and “contingent” property of the intellect as such which is the reason why we must, as Nietzsche – and Schopenhauer before him³⁵⁶ – , operate with a gradual and transitory conception of rationality. The theoretical disciplines are just as practical disciplines the setting of follow-signs. Where the practical disciplines may be said to remain blind, despite some being rational, the theoretical disciplines are all rational, yet some becoming self-referential. Again, it is important to understand the transition as a gradual transition from a completely instinctive stage over a partly non-rational, partly rational stage, to a rational and self-referential stage in which the rational itself is interpreted rationally and thus creates “self-signs”. This gradual transition is a fundamental trait of all signo-interpretational processes and perhaps most obvious in the inscrutable phenomenon of “knowing how” in relation to all theoretical knowledge as a “knowing that”. Both practical and theoretical disciplines take place over time, meaning that some given sign is connected with another sign either placed in the past or in the future. Again, we can here distinguish between grades of memory from practical or bodily recognition to a fully self-conscious conceptual memory. The crucial aspect is here that an immediately present sign is interpreted in direct relation to either an earlier sign or an expected sign and thus instantiates a connection through or over time.³⁵⁷ All disciplines are thus interpretation by which a connection is made through time and the difference between practical and theoretical disciplines is a matter of the extension and constancy of this memorizing connection. As such all disciplines are also historical phenomena in which a chronological development can be traced through time. The learning of a language is

 Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 214, [my translation].  Nietzsche, The Gay Science. #354, 2001, p. 212.  Schopenhauer develops a very similar theory of the intellect as not necessarily self-referential. Schopenhauer calls it the intellect without reason (“vernunftlosen Intellekt”). Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung II, Kapitel 5. 2007, p. 72.  Cf. Kant: “as concerns natural signs, the relation of sign to thing signified, depending on the time, is either demonstrative or rememorative or prognostic (Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. 2006, p. 86.) In this sense the signs represent the three modi of time, namely present, past and future.

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carried out/performed as a disciplining by which a specific use is institutionalized³⁵⁸ and in a similar vein we may characterize social codes and moral ideas as certain disciplines which are implemented over time. In addition, a certain violent aspect plays an important part in all disciplining as all disciplines are implemented by breaking or changing a previous discipline. In every new interpretation, a previous interpretation is violated and replaced. Although this violation may happen in many ways, be it physically or mentally, it is principally the setting of a follow-sign. In Nietzsche, we encounter such a theory of how morality as such is implemented through explicit physical disciplining. According to Nietzsche, all morality is made possible through the disciplining of man to be an animal which may promise, by way of inflicting pain.³⁵⁹ Yet, what Nietzsche sees as a specifically gruesome tendency, is in our perspective merely a contingent aspect to the point that disciplines and memory are not two distinctively different elements, but rather inescapably intertwined. Where Nietzsche sees the infliction of pain as the most powerful tool for a “technique of mnemomic”³⁶⁰ our point is that disciplines and memory are two aspects of the same; or differently: disciplines are nothing but concrete materializations of certain “mnemo-techniques”; mnemo-techniques are nothing but certain disciplines. Any specific discipline as the concurrent following and making of a rule or order as we go along materializes as a mnemo-technique, whereby a certain pattern over time is constituted. In practical terms, this can be seen in all actions and in theoretical terms it is seen in association. The instinctive and completely non-rational actions (e. g. organic functions) as well as rational actions (e. g. dancing or playing music) thus constitute as patterns over time. Theoretically associations take place either non-consciously as in routinely carried out associations (e. g. individual thought-patterns) or self-consciously as in association applying to certain abstract rules (e. g. controlled association as in methodologically governed science.

 In this way Wittgenstein conceives the learning of a “language-game” as training, i. e. a sort of implementation of a routine, or in my vocabulary: correction. Cf. “Here the teaching of language is not explanation, but training.” (Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations. #5. 1974, p. 4.); Also: “An important part of the training will consist in the teacher’s pointing to the objects, directing the child’s attention to them, and at the same time uttering a word; for instance, the word “slab” as he points to that shape. (I do not want to call this “ostensive definition”, because the child cannot as yet ask what the name is. I will call it “ostensive teaching of words”. – I say that it will form an important part of the training, because it is so with human beings; not because it could not be imagined otherwise.)” Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations. #6. 1974, p. 4.  Nietzsche On the Genealogy of Morals. Second Essay, # 3, 2007, p. 37– 39.  Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals. Second Essay, # 3, 2007, p. 38.

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8.3 Interpretation as Correction – The Skeptical Tendency Interpretation sets or constitutes a difference. Interpretation is the dynamic and active marking of a difference in relation to another. It is the determination and individuation of something as something, whereby a difference is set between a sign and other signs. By way of setting a difference, a sign stands out as a particular sign in opposition to other signs. Now, every interpretation materializes as a discipline as we go along, whereby an already established discipline is violated and a new is set. Interpretation is as such a kind of correction, whereby a double meaning is expressed, namely 1) correction as the changing or re-arranging of an already given discipline and 2) correction as disciplining in the way of imposing a new discipline. Yet, interpretation as the instance of correcting is here understood without it creating something “better”, be it more true or more right, in relation to the former. As the signo-interpretational process is divorced from any conception of man and because of the complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation any statement about a “better” is impossible to make with regard to the signo-interpretational processes as such. As any correction simultaneously violates and creates a new discipline, the corrections undertaken show the set line between facticity and interpretation always already set, as any correction creates a new line. The corrections are signs of the always already set line between facticity and interpretation as they momentarily display that a certain set line could have been different. In the corrections, an interruption occurs by which a specific discipline and the establishing of a new appear as contrasting disciplines. The set line therefore becomes apparent as what it is: a set line which could be different. At a practical level corrections appear immediately and continuously and are directly evident in actions. At a theoretical level the corrections come about only reluctantly in thoughts and are directly evident in the course of thinking. In principle, we encounter the set line between facticity and interpretation all the time and everywhere as corrections take place perpetually. Yet, the set lines become explicitly apparent in the former mentioned border-phenomenon of doubt. Doubt is in this perspective the slowed down correction – why it also appears as hesitation (practically) and as uncertainty (theoretically) – and in the phenomenon of doubt we therefore have the correctional process before us so to speak in slow-motion. Doubt may be enduring for a longer period and psychologically cause despair; yet, doubt is always overcome, if not by resolution then by the force of nature itself, as the signo-interpretational process will carry on incessantly and independently of all intended doubt and thus automatically set a new discipline. This is why all doubt, when not actively removed, fades away unnoticed. This automatic and perpetual change of signo-interpreta-

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tional disciplines is exactly what makes out the inner skeptical tendency in all signo-interpretational processes as such. Yet as we shall see now, this inner tendency holds an inherent ambiguity. As all interpretation is a correction by which a previously set discipline is replaced by a new, we may describe the signo-interpretational process as a pendulous movement between dissolution and consolidation. Interpretation as dissolution is the act of challenging a sign in its immediate consistency. It is the attempt to interpret a sign as something else than what it immediately appears as. A difference is here set between the first sign and a follow-sign which is in opposition to the first. Dissolution is thus interpretation by which a sign is altered, violated, questioned, disbelieved or distrusted. Yet, by setting a followsign the dissolution automatically involves another new and consistent sign, which is set. Any dissolution is therefore only a momentary negation of a sign, because it instantly sets of a new consistent sign. The continuous process of interpretation is this unlimited semiosis of negating a sign by setting a new sign. The process of interpretation is thus a circular movement between dissolution and consolidation and it is not possible to discern what is first because it is not a temporal circle, but a logical. The sign is as sign already consistent and thus solid. It does not need consolidation in so far as it is a sign. Interpretation proceeds as dissolution but in this process, it necessarily sets new signs. The process of interpretation thus has a concurrent tendency of dissolution and consolidation and the signo-interpretational process is the movement from consistency to consistency as a movement from one sign to another by way of simultaneous dissolution and consolidation. In this sense, it may be said that the interpretational practice has an inner skeptical tendency, namely its innate negating nature. This skeptical tendency is the very drive of any interpretational process. Interpretation is in its purest form negation of a sign by setting another sign. Interpretation understood as a perpetual correctional process can be described as a creative drive. This drive is not a function of something else, although signs may be explained as functions of this drive. In this sense, we may explain the phenomena of pleasure and displeasure as functions of this drive. But in contrast to Simon the drive itself is not a function of pleasure and displeasure.³⁶¹ Pleasure and displeasure are rather to be understood as epiphenomena of the perpetual creative process. Displeasure is thus the epiphenomenon of the stalling, slowing and holding back of the creative interpretations. Pleasure is the epiphenomenon of the creative drive being nourished, stimulated and encouraged.

 See above Part I, section 5.

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The phenomena of displeasure and pleasure are thus not something which is ascribed to a fixed state, but rather to the process as such – displeasure is when the process stalls, pleasure is when the process is thriving. This in turn also explains why “life” in general keeps striving, changing and altering instead of coming to a stand-still, regardless of pleasure and displeasure. In Simon on the other hand, it remains a problem that the blind striving for something else seems to endure, even when sufficient understanding, in Simon’s view a pleasant state, of world and oneself is attained.³⁶² The pleasure we have in watching a film, reading a book or listening to music as being guided and led in a specific predetermined way, is caused by the illusion of freedom this gives, although it still suggests a way of interpretation. It is a flow of signs which bear a resemblance to the creative interpretational process itself so pretence of freedom and autonomy is given. The pleasure experienced when in some sort of ecstasy is nothing but the perpetual flow by which you are carried away and moved forward insistently. Regardless of the continuous movement from sign to sign, the skeptical tendency within the interpretational process is constantly countered by an ever-increasing number of new follow-signs, which make out an ever-expanding complex of consistent signs. By always setting new consistent and solid signs the interpretational process threatens to limit and hold itself back; something which was mentioned above as the reason why radical creativity becomes ever more difficult. So, exactly because of the overwhelming power of the already solid and consistent signs, and because of the increasing restrictions to the innate skeptical tendency within every interpretational practice, a genuine ethical imperative understood as a skeptical attitude must be formulated as a supplement. This primary ethical task is not about managing a dissolute and contingent world into moral categories, but rather to discharge the overwhelming suggestions of the ubiquitous and solid signs, which threaten to hold back the process of interpretation altogether. Only by means of a genuine skeptical attitude, which at all times challenges the present signs, the overwhelming force of these may be alleviated and the process of interpretation given autonomy.

8.4 Freedom and Autonomy – The Skeptical Attitude The signo-interpretational skeptical disposition is 1) the persistent inner tendency of the interpretational practice as such, and 2) an attitude. This double setting may be explained as 1) the ontology of signo-interpretational processes and 2)

 See above Part I, section 5.

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the ethics of the signo-interpretational processes, whereby the latter is the consequence of the first. The signo-interpretational ethic is in general concerned about the relation of the particular interpretation to the already existing signs. Concretely, it is the attempt to escape the overwhelming presence and intrusiveness of signs. This skeptical attitude may therefore be conceived as a continual process of emancipation, yet because of the nature of the interpretational process itself, which at all times involves the setting of new consistent signs, it is unable to reach freedom and therefore merely possible as a perpetual negation. As perpetual negation, the skeptical attitude become a continuous attempt to uphold the autonomy of interpretation. Above I wrote that interpretation is never absolutely free, because 1) some sign is always the point of departure for any interpretation and 2) any interpretation is the instantaneous following and invention of a discipline as we go along. This leaves us with the problem about how to think freedom and autonomy, when everything is sign and interpretation. Taking the nature of signs, i. e. the sign as consistency, together with the interpretational process as following and inventing a discipline as points of departure, freedom and autonomy appear at first hand restrained if not completely impossible. The decisive point is to abandon the traditional conception of freedom as a property or function of something and instead conceive it as a constituent of thinking itself, namely as the inner nature of the signo-interpretational process understood as an unlimited semiosis.³⁶³ Such a definition may be elaborated with the Kantian definition of the relation between thinking and perception, namely that all thinking is secondary to some perception, which in turn is the material or the object for thinking. Thinking is the spontaneous act, as also Simon states: “Freedom is the understanding abillity, which chooses between different possibillities of interpretation.”³⁶⁴ Thinking is in relation to something which is given. Consequently, freedom is the negative relation of interpretation to this given. The given is generally speaking the signs which surrounds us. I will follow this point of departure but qualify the determination further and distinguish between objective and subjective inhibitions of all interpretations. Any interpretational process is thus from the moment it commences disciplined by inhibitions from mainly two sources. a) From a plurality of signs which all stands out and merit attention. The intrusiveness of signs leads the next interpretation to take a certain path, wherefore we may also call it an objective inhibi Cf. Borsche, Freiheit als Zeichen. Zur Zeichenphilosophischen Frage nach der Bedeutung von Freiheit. 1994, p. 101.  Borsche, Freiheit als Zeichen. Zur Zeichenphilosophischen Frage nach der Bedeutung von Freiheit. 1994, p. 111, [my translation].

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tion. b) From the disciplines or rules already established and which also merit attention and inhibit the process of interpretation. This inherent suggestive appeal of the already instituted disciplines provokes certain ways of interpretation wherefore we may call these subjective inhibitions of interpretation.³⁶⁵ These subjective inhibitions are not to be understood as a priori categories but rather as residues of previous interpretations established through time. Here, a historical trace-search has its relevance and raison d’être. Now, these two overall elements adhere to the conception of creativity as a double negation as elaborated above, and freedom is consequently to be thought basically as negation, whereby we may distinguish between different grades of freedom spanning from weak freedom to strong freedom dependent of what is negated. Weak freedom corresponds to the negation of a present sign, yet by way of following a prescribed way of interpretation, i. e. a certain discipline. Strong freedom on the other hand is the double negation of both a present sign and the different prescribed and already available ways of interpretation, i. e. certain disciplines. The former corresponds the conception of a weak or ordinary creativity; the latter that of a radical creativity. Consequently, there is no such thing as absolute freedom, i. e. an absolutely free interpretation. A concept of absolute freedom is inconceivable because it would be a sort of interpretation “ex nihilo”, without any connection to any sign – it would be interpretation out of nothing.³⁶⁶ An absolute emancipation is thus unachievable, as interpretation necessarily always takes its point of departure in some signs already “at hand” and present. In Abel’s vocabulary, this is expressed as the difference between relativism and relativity. Relativism is the absolute free interpretation or the idea that we are able to interpret absolutely freely without any restraints of any kind. Relativity on the other hand is the idea that all interpretation3 necessarily follows some certain interpretation1 +2. Radical relativism or absolute freedom is thus, according to Abel, impossible due to the always established interpretation1-praxes.³⁶⁷ What Abel understands  Cf. “The disciplined power of imagination, adjusted to thinking, is a limited power of imagination, one not activated in its entire fullness. It is guided by a schema.” Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 188.  Borsche also rightly notices this: “A completely free thinking would only be explicable as the border-concept of divine or immediate, creative thinking.” Borsche, Freiheit als Zeichen. Zur Zeichenphilosophischen Frage nach der Bedeutung von Freiheit. 1994, p. 112, [my translation].  Cf. “Again the important condition should be recalled, that we cannot at a specific time and at random change the medium of our interpretation1 and, with that, our fundamental way of our being-in-the-world (since interpretation1, as said before, is not merely an additional process of our cognition, but rather make out the form of our being-in-the-world itself)”. (Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 488, [my translation]). Also: “Every categorized and individuated, i. e. each determinate world, is

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as the most fundamental, categorizing interpretation1, is thus in my vocabulary expressed by the fact that every interpretation is restrained by some already existing signs. When therefore Simon stresses the individuality and freedom of any sign-process and understands freedom as a semiotic fact ³⁶⁸ – and in Simon still under the restriction that the free interpretation must lead to a “better” understanding³⁶⁹ – it is only correct in so far as the interpretational process in fact can negate both a present sign and a way of interpretation. Yet, freedom is by no means a fact, when we by facts understand something simply there and at hand. Freedom is rather an idea which must perpetually be pursued and which is never fully attained. Freedom is only the momentary negation of established signs and ways of interpretation. Yet, that interpretation automatically negates in a radical way equivalent to radical creativity is not the normal case, but rather the exception. Therefore, negation – and thus freedom – must be actively encouraged. Because the negation of a sign or a way of interpretation instantaneously sets a new sign and way of interpretation, freedom cannot be, i. e. it is not a state, but a process only noticeable in the momentary and particular negation. Thus, the question of freedom becomes a question of the autonomy of interpretations in relation to signs, whereby we may distinguish again between a weak autonomy and a strong or radical autonomy. Weak autonomy is negation of a sign by way of choosing a certain already available way of interpretation on the basis of some motivation. Strong or radical autonomy is the negation of a sign as well as the negation of the already available ways of interpretations and so to carry out a double negation. The former is ubiquitous, the latter a rare exception. Where the former can be analysed in details and be said to be the subject for an

in this sense interpretation-world. Reconstructed this shows also in that, that both the catogorizing and the individuating principles could have been different. Yet, as a rule one is not conscious about this possibility anymore. If the individuating principles have already established, then one is, to a great degree, not unlimitedly free anymore. This easily makes one forget, that it is about active-creative interpretation-relations at all. Yet, these are not thereby revoked.” Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 27, [my translation].  “Freedom is not an “ontological” factum, but rather a semiotic one, one that becomes problematic where its signs come to be in need of interpretation with the goal of definitively signifying how it is.” Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 192.  Simon thus restricts the absolute free interpretation in the sense that it is governed by the intention of a better grounded in a specific need of man: “Freedom lies in interpretation, even in the interpretation of “freedom.” To this extent, this “concept” is central to the philosophy of the sign. That it does not signify the same thing as “arbitrariness” results already therefrom that all interpretation of signs aims at temporarily coming to a conclusion, and, to be sure, in such a way that the interpreting sign, the new one in place of the old one, be better than the old one, and thus that the interpretation itself be good.” Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 208.

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empirical psychology the latter is the subject of a signo-interpretational philosophy. Freedom is no fact but a question of interpretational autonomy. Equivalent to the gradual transition from completely non-rational to self-conscious disciplines and to the aspect that the rational and self-conscious disciplines make out the smallest part of all signo-interpretational processes, autonomy is the latest development and therefore most rare achievement. Autonomy is the self-governing of the interpretational process and as such a kind of self-control with regard to the influence of a) the signs and b) the ways of interpretation already at hand. Now, self-control or autonomy of interpretation is, as underscored before, not absolute freedom or creation ex nihilo, but always the interpretation of a sign under the influence of established ways of interpretation. In Peirce, this is formulated as different levels of self-control, not completely unlike both Lenk’s and Abel’s different levels of interpretations: “To return to self-control, which I can but slightly sketch, at this time, of course there are inhibitions and coordinations that entirely escape consciousness. There are, in the next place, modes of selfcontrol which seem quite instinctive. Next, there is a kind of self-control which results from training. Next, a man can be his own training-master and thus control his self-control”.³⁷⁰ The last kind of control which Peirce here lists – the control of self-control is in the vocabulary of the signo-interpretational approach exactly the circumstance that interpretation is not absolutely free, but always subjected to signs. Control of self-control is thus the autonomy with regard to the signs already and always there. This autonomy does not appear automatically, wherefore it is only attainable by way of a skeptical attitude. The thesis is in other words that interpretational autonomy understood as such a control of self-control may be achieved by way of the skeptical attitude or differently: the skeptical attitude is the practice of such an interpretational autonomy. Autonomy is therefore not about interpreting beyond and free from all disciplines – that would be impossible as all interpretation is discipline – it is about the intended doubt or the intended challenge of both the objective inhibitions (signs) and subjective inhibitions (disciplines) because by way of such doubt the line between facticity and interpretation become evident as something which could be different. Or, in other words: autonomy of interpretation concretizes as an intended skeptical attitude. The skeptical attitude is intended doubt, whereby the already set line between facticity and interpretation is revealed and becomes explicit. Intended doubt questions and challenges the set signs and the functioning disciplines.

 Peirce, Unpublished Papers. 1960, p. 371.

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Yet this is not done by proving a reality or ensuring true conceptions. Rather, the skeptical attitude exposes signs of world, other, and self as certain materializations of a set fine line between facticity and interpretation, which could have been different. Since corrections take place all the time in every signo-interpretational process, the set fine lines between facticity and interpretation in fact lie bare and overt in front of us all the time as signs of world, other, and self. But although corrections are made all the time at the ontological level, as it is the nature of every signo-interpretational process to set new signs, the ontological level will as long as it is not accompanied by an ethical strive remain blind, although it is not empty, i. e. without content. The ethical level is a sort of advanced signo-interpretational level in which the corrections are made visible. The signs of world, other, and self which are always there in front of us, yet not fully grasped and noticed, are in the intended skeptical attitude made explicit. The skeptical attitude thus discloses signs of world, other, and self and reveals any conception of world, other, and self as concurrently sign and interpretation; at the same time given and in the making. By way of intended doubt and dissolution the skeptical attitude makes any sign of world, other, or self appear as a direct materialization of a complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation. The skeptical attitude may therefore also be said to include a self-enforcing element, as for every challenged sign and discipline the indispensible volatility of these become ever clearer. The skeptical attitude materializes in general as an on-going emancipation from the overwhelming power and intrusiveness of signs; and in particular, as an intended correction of the signs of world, other, and self. In this manner, the skeptical disposition is in its intention directly oppositional to the hermeneutical “intention of meaning” in the way that, where the hermeneutics in general is concerned about finding and establishing meaning in the world, the signo-interpretational skeptical disposition is concerned about intentionally correcting, i. e. breaking free of the ubiquitous and overpowering meaning already in effect. Understood as intended doubt the skeptical attitude comprises a) dissolution, i. e. the intentional challenging, questioning or negation of a fixed sign; b) openness towards other signs, i. e. the preparedness to give up an already established interpretation; c) interpretational epoché, i. e. the deliberate halting of interpretations or the reluctance to give a sign a definite interpretation. The uniqueness of this signo-interpretational skeptical attitude is, however, that it does not spell out any single method by which this dissolution, openness and interpretational epoché is to be carried out; rather it uses a plurality of approaches and techniques and is so not an end in itself but an instrument which may be tuned and re-tuned according to which signs and interpretations are questioned. The skeptical attitude is thus a way of thinking understood as the

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perpetual upholding of a skeptical attitude instituting a critical potential and thereby a genuinely anti-dogmatic position.³⁷¹ The skeptical attitude is thus vital in order to avoid any absolute signs and instead suggests the perpetual upholding of intended doubt with regard to world, other, and self. As a genuine ethical approach neither epistemological nor ontological questions are ends in themselves, but rather understood as sine qua non for the overall ethical aim, namely the endeavour to maintain a skeptical attitude as a way of life in order to secure enduring emancipation. As critical potential and ethical approach this skeptical attitude does not spell out any concrete moral principles, but merely takes its point of departure in a vague designation of definite interpretations as evil; a sign which is interpreted as fact is evil as such: it is a sign which one cannot escape – neither in action nor in thought.

 Cf. “So it is about a thinking without a fundamentalistic base, and at the same time about having to live one’s life without a last metaphysical reason, yet still normatively oriented.” Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 59, [my translation].

9 Interpretations of World The signo-interpretational conception of man materializes as a skeptical disposition towards world, other, and self. The skeptical disposition towards world in particular, takes form as the inner tendency of the signo-interpretational practice as such, as well as the intended skeptical attitude. Now, any interpretational practice constitutes world and is constituted by world concurrently, equivalent to the complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation. Consequently, the relation between world and man is redefined, so that man neither is in a predefined and unyielding world, nor ordering a chaos into a system and thus fixating its world due to some original needs. World is always already something, yet at the same time dynamic and fluctuating; in other words: world is sign-world subject to interpretation. World is sign-world and as such always and already interpreted. Every sign-world thus encompasses man-signs and every man-sign is bound to a specific sign-world – they are mutually determining. Yet, the complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation does not, as shown above, result in a radical skepticism, but rather founds some relation between world (sign) and man (interpretation) internally. ³⁷² Interpretation (man) does therefore not stand in an external relation to facticity (world). In every act of interpretation, a line between signs (facticity) and interpretation is already set. World is thus not something which is reached out for by way of designating, but rather directly and immanently connected with an interpreting process, which is why world – strictly speaking – cannot be lost. ³⁷³ The proposition of any radical skepticism, that world and man are divided or alien or unconnected in some way or another, is undercut as all interpretation happens within some certain and already existing constitution of facticity and interpretation. Now, this already set sign-world is present in an overwhelming way within all practice and within all thinking as what I shall call the significant other. ³⁷⁴ World stands out as a significant other

 Cf. “In so far as the signs are being directly understood, then they must not firstly be connected with the world and the meaning. This connection is always already pressuposed deep within the working interpretations-praxis, as well as in the succesful usage and understanding of the signs.” (Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 50, [my translation]). Cf. “Our being-in-the-world is not in a second step also interpreted, but instead take place intrinsically as interpretation-event.” Abel, Zeichen und Interpretation. 1992, p. 170, [my translation].  Cf. Abel, Sprache, Zeichen, Interpretation. 1999, p. 51.  I use the term “significant other” exclusively in relation to the present elaboration of the signo-interpretational relation to world. The term is thus developed and conceived without any connection to the use of “significant other” within psychology, where it is commonly used to signify “someone who has power over one and provides a point of reflection for accepthttps://doi.org/10.1515/9783110592078-011

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and is as such that, which holds its own identity. World appears primarily as another in relation to interpretation. As significant other the sign materializes some delineation between facticity and interpretation, between what is interpreted and another as what interprets. The augmented skeptical challenge at first resulting from the complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation is in this way instantly mitigated and the relation between world and man is basically a relation between facticity as a manifold of signs (world) and interpretation as the ongoing creation of follow-signs (man). The actual task is not to compensate an excessive deficiency, contingency and skepticism, but rather to challenge the always set and solid identity of the significant other by way of a skeptical attitude. The concrete approach of such a skeptical attitude towards world is the ongoing attempt to escape the overwhelming significance of the consistent sign-world(s) by challenging and dissolving the sign-world(s) in their overwhelming power as significant other. In the ongoing signo-interpretational processes understood as both practical and theoretical corrections, sign-worlds are at the same time given and in the making. As we go along a set line between facticity and interpretation materializes as a certain sign-world directly through the constant practical and theoretical corrections. Through practical and theoretical corrections certain signworlds are directly revealed as settings of a line between facticity and interpretation. In actions a certain sign-world is directly revealed as concrete signs of reality and in thoughts a certain sign-world is revealed in signs of truth. Signs of reality and truth-signs are in other words signs of world, understood as a set line between facticity and interpretation. Now by way of a skeptical attitude it becomes possible to disclose the signs of world (signs of reality and truth-signs) as what they are, namely set lines between facticity and interpretation, which could have been different. The signs of world, i. e. the signs of reality and the truth-signs in turn make any fixed sign-world appear practically as worlds and theoretically as versions. I shall elaborate this signo-interpretational relation between world and man in two steps: 9.1 Significant Other; 9.2 Signs of World.

9.1 Significant Other Inherent to every signo-interpretational process a fine line between facticity and interpretation is evident. The instantly set difference in every signo-interpreta-

ing and rejecting values, norms and behaviours.” Reber, The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology. 1984, p. 698.

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tional process constitutes a relation. This relation includes something which stands out or merits attention and something which pays attention or is receptive. Now, this relation may be seen from either side, i. e. we may focus either on that which stands out, disturbs and merits attention or on that which is receptive, pays attention and is disturbed. The first I call the significant other and the last the ways of interpretation, or what in traditional terms would be the objective and the subjective aspect of the signo-interpretational process. This set difference between facticity and interpretation, between what stands out and who interprets, is unavoidable in the sense that this difference is the reason why something is, rather than not. Any distinction between the two is nothing but a merely temporary ending of the otherwise unlimited semiosis. In the following, I shall therefore concentrate solely on the very appearance of the significant other as such, without asking why and how it stands out as this specific “other” and not as something else, i. e. without asking how the significant other necessarily is connected to a specific way of interpretation, since this would lead directly back to the question of the complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation which has already been sufficiently answered above. That which is always and already set as facticity within the signo-interpretational process appears as a sign-world. Every sign is primarily characterized by its significance, regardless of its type, place, use, function and origin. A sign is, broadly speaking, that which stands out in some way or another; it merits attention and is intrusive. In other words: sign-world appears as significant other. The significant other is everything which in some way or another stands out, merits attention and appears immediately intrusive. Any sound, scent, bodily impression, sensation, thing, notion or picture is therefore a significant other. From general neural stimuli, chemical and physical reactions to highly individual perceptions of meaning, feelings and thoughts every impression is thus, generally speaking, a significant other. An important point is here that also the deficient mode of all these phenomena may be said to be significant other, e. g. the absence of sound, i. e. silence, or the absence of visual perceptions, physical stimuli, meaning and thoughts. In other words, both the absence of something and the presence of something appear as significant other. While the significant other is a particular and delimited occurrence, it is never isolated but part of a complex. The significant other may appear more or less complex, i. e. with more or less subordinate “parts”. For example, both a single note and a whole piece of music as an assembly of tones may stand out as significant other. It is always possible to analyze some certain significant other and “decompose” it into smaller parts, albeit this is necessarily done in an auxiliary process and therefore always after its original appearance. In any such auxiliary analysis, every part

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distinguished from another would again stand out as a particular significant other, lo another infinite signo-interpretational process. So, first a more detailed description of how to understand the significant other is needed. Signs are by nature significant; they merit attention, stand out and are therefore explicitly intrusive. The following qualities may be emphasized as essential to the way the significant other appears: 1) The significant other is expressive: as a consequence of the concurrency of facticity and interpretation signs always express meaning. The significant other is always already interpreted and therefore only stands out as an object already having meaning, i. e. as something. Strictly speaking there are no things (signs) without meaning; and the meaningless is merely possible within a specific complex of signs, not per se. Hence, what in everyday life or to common sense is regarded as meaningless or without meaning is a sign, which does not fit within an already established sign-complex, yet as such not without meaning. The meaning expressed is exactly “meaninglessness in relation to-”. That the significant other is expressive therefore means that we cannot encounter anything, which is not already something. Yet, that the significant other expresses meaning is not to be understood as if everything that stands out is conceptual. Meaning is rather understood broadly as something which stands out and is met in some way or another. Any physical, bodily, emotional, aesthetical as well as ethical encounter already expresses meaning. In physical contact, bodily sensation, or when emotionally moved, aesthetically stimulated or ethically affected some significant other stands out and expresses meaning. That this meaning most often is a complexity of several significant others, as mentioned above, leads back to the question of an auxiliary decomposition and ultimately back to the question of the complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation. Concentrating only on how the significant other as such appears, the expressivity concretely means that the significant other always comes upon us laden with a specific meaning and therefore intrudes, as a specific meaning is instantly imposed. In other words: when we meet some significant other, it is already what it is, i. e. it is the very materialization of a set line between facticity and interpretation, not some “material” which is then, in a second step, interpreted. 2) The significant other appears solid: as a direct consequence of the sign being consistent, the significant other appears concrete, firm and delineated. Being solid, the significant other puts forward resistance by being reluctant to change and in opposition towards its immediate surroundings from which it is instantly and clearly delineated. The solidity of the significant other is delineated in relation to other, which is why the solidity implies a plurality of different things each standing out and in relation to each other by way of reciprocal resistance and opposition.

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3) The significant other is excluding: as a direct consequence of its solidity, the significant other excludes or overpowers other “things”. A worry or physical pain may stand out so fiercely that it excludes everything else; a loud sound excludes other sounds but also other sensations in that moment. Further, a view or sound or smell may exclude and drive away a thought; a specific thought may exclude other thoughts and so forth. This excluding effect makes out the overwhelming power of the significant other and cannot be subtracted or regarded as a merely secondary quality. Rather it is inherent to the significant other as such although the force or overwhelming power by which some significant other appears may differ greatly. As significant other or as standing out it necessarily excludes something else. Or differently: if something does not exclude it does not stand out. 4) The significant Other is indicative: although immediately excluding, any significant other is nonetheless indicative. Being indicative, the significant other automatically leads to other signs. This indication towards another is temporally subsequent to the immediately excluding appearance of a significant other. So, where the excluding quality is momentary, the indicative is temporal, or put differently: exclusion is only momentary, yet instantly indicates some other significant standing out. Time may be said to be the constant shifting or succession of one significant other to another significant other, each of which momentarily excludes, yet indicates something else. Any significant other indicates several other significant others, which is why a sign may be given many different follow-signs. Yet, when that which is indicated by a significant other is narrowed down to very few or even just one other significant other we may call it suggestive, in the sense that it leads to a specific follow-sign or commences a train of specific followsigns all closely related to one another. Such a suggested specific train of signs and follow-signs is the origin for every specific way of interpretation. The listed characteristics of how the significant other appears, explains its overall intrusive nature. Essential to this intrusive character is an inherent delineation, which is why, as another general distinguishing trait, we may point out that any appearance of a significant other includes that something else withdraws into insignificance. Or in other words: the very moment something stands out, something else is overshadowed. With the concept of a significant other, we thus have to do with a dynamic play of significance and insignificance and exactly this dynamic play makes out the essence of any sign-world. That we have to do with a dynamic play of significance and insignificance means that any significant other appears more or less significant, more or less intrusive and interfering and as such either possesses a higher or lower impact, namely dependent on the force of its significance in relation to the concrete surroundings. In this sense, a sign-world is constituted as a specific order between what is significant

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and what is insignificant. The crux is here that world is this expression of a specific order, not the sum of the particular significant others which stand out. Since a sign-world is a specific order between significance and insignificance, and because the significant is that which stands out, the insignificant is only negative in relation to the significant. What the insignificant is may therefore only be described in negative terms, as that which is and stays unnoticed. The insignificant is not clearly delineated, because it does not stand out. Instead the insignificant is blurred and evades attention and thus withdraws into anonymity. Yet as part of the dynamic play with the significant, the insignificant is not nothing. It is the hazy background upon which the significant stands out and materializes. The insignificant is in other words the familiar and wellknown, which we do not question nor notice as something in itself. As such, the insignificant may be said to express meaning just as the significant does, although the expression of meaning is not direct and concrete as when the significant stands out as this and this; rather it expresses meaning indirectly, namely in the form of being simply as it is, provoking no attention and simply taken for granted. The meaning expressed by the insignificant is in other words the given which always surrounds us, yet is not noticed per se. The insignificant is the residuum in any directed and concrete interpretation; that which cannot be the object of our focus, because it makes out that firm ground from which our perspective becomes focused. The meaning expressed by the insignificant is the blind spot in any interpretation and is impossible to catch up with or to grip, because it would demand a Munchhausen like act. The insignificant is that which escapes when we describe. The insignificant is the blind spot in all our interpretations, or the point from which something is seen. This standpoint cannot itself be seen at the same time; it is not in sight, but it is what determines what can be seen. As such this standpoint is not questioned and cannot be questioned unless we move ourselves to another new standpoint; a new standpoint which then again would be our blind spot. The insignificant is that which is always already believed and it is the rest, which in any interpretation necessarily is left over; it is the “bedrock” from which we interpret and the background upon which the significant stands out and is noticed. The insignificant thus may be said to equal Simon’s concept of an “understanding without interpretation”, although with the important restriction that even the insignificant is, as sign, already interpreted, as the above elaborated thesis of a complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation states. The point being that signs are never without interpretation, yet signs may withdraw into insignificance. The insignificant is in other words the unnoticed background on which the significant stands out and gains contours and concrete meaning. It may be equated with e. g. Gadamer’s notion of “prejudice”, yet distinctively exceeds the mere conceptual and linguistic sphere.

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The insignificant is everything that withdraws when some significant stands out within all phenomena, physical and mental, and within both practical and theoretical activities. The eyesight, hearing, the speaking of a language, a train of thought, a line of arguments, the concrete act or practical undertaking as well as the more overall political and ethical ideas are thus all constituted as a dynamic relation between significant and insignificant. The relation between significant and insignificant is a dynamic flow, which is always changing so that what now is significant, in the next moment withdraws into insignificance. The crux is here 1) that neither the significant nor the insignificant is a firm unchangeable foundation; and 2) that whenever some previously insignificant becomes significant something else withdraws. The dynamic play of significance and insignificance constitutes a signworld. It is only within such a dynamic play that signs have a function and use or not. Hence, any function and any use ascribed to a sign refer back to a specific sign-world, which materializes as a specific order or hierarchy between significant and insignificant, between what stands out and what does not. A sign’s function or use is in other words relative to its place within a certain sign-world, i. e. within a certain dynamic order between significant and insignificant. Orientation is a certain way in which a sign stands out in relation to other signs. The institution or constitution of significance or insignificance simultaneously institutes or constitutes a specific function or use of a sign. This is why every way of orientation must be learned, in the sense as to learn to distinguish between significant and insignificant in a given situation. That a traffic sign indicates which way to go is relative to the current sign-world or order between significant and insignificant. Certain things may thus give orientation between significant and insignificant in one setting and not in another. All orientation within every particular sign-world thus presupposes some education and all education is basically concerned with learning the art of distinguishing between significant and insignificant, i. e. the art of defining (theoretical learning) or acting (practical learning) according to a distinction between significant and insignificant. This becomes evident when we leave the area of simple signs and look at more sophisticated signs such as technical symbols, artificially construed sign-systems within mathematics or formal logic and complex metaphors (theoretical) or socio-cultural expressions, allegorical or ironical expressions and situation based signs (practical). The point is that any specific function or use is secondary to the distinction between significant and insignificant. Only as part of a well-known sign-world, i. e. an already established (learned) relation between significant and insignificant a sign can appear immediately as orientation. Hence everyday orientation is based on the well-known and familiar way in which the everyday world materializes a certain distinction between significant

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and insignificant; a distinction which is already in play and works when we think and act. The sign orientates immediately; it guides and leads instantly without us having to actively interpret it first. Yet, it orientates instantly only because it as a sign always and already is within a dynamic relation of significant and insignificant. Ultimately it may be said that all distinct subjects, e. g. aesthetics, scientific semiotics, culture-theory, sociology, design and architecture, media-theory, communication and rhetoric, psychology and behavioral studies, history and politics, i. e. all regional sciences are based on a more original differentiation between significant and insignificant which is already instantiated. Only philosophy, as it is no science, can say something about this more original constitution. The perpetual setting of ever more follow-signs is consequent of the inherent creative drive of the signo-interpretational processes. An ongoing flow of more or less new signs appears, and sign-worlds as a relation between significant and insignificant are constantly established anew. Neither the significant nor the insignificant is given a primacy as they only appear together. Any sign-world understood as a significant other includes something insignificant, wherefore the intrusiveness is not a normative character attributed to signs (sign-worlds), but rather an ontological character of sign-world as sign-world. Whether the intrusiveness is interpreted as a negative or as a positive is a subsequent question, and does not change the very character or ontological status of the sign-world as intrusive – i. e. as significant other, constituting an order between significant and insignificant. The intrusiveness is in other words a direct consequence of the very setting of a sign, namely as every sign is consistent and thus appears expressive, solid, excluding and indicative, while constituting a relation towards the insignificant. Now, the intrusiveness comes about in a certain way, directly and empirically evident, namely as a mutual oppositional relation between signs; a mutually oppositional relation in the sense that the appearance of one sign drives back the appearance of another sign. The multitude of signs which are already set and the continuous creation of ever more new signs result in a sort of fight or competition between signs. The setting of a new sign requires that this new sign stands out and is expressive, solid, excluding and indicating, wherefore it will be set in opposition to already existing signs as well as in opposition to other possible signs. The setting of a new sign is in other words by nature designed to stand out. Again, this is not caused normatively in a motive but due to the very nature of the sign in conjunction with the signo-interpretational process as a continuous creative drive. Because every sign by nature is excluding, a fight between signs occur; and because there is an ever-increasing number of signs and follow-signs, the fight to stand out becomes ever fiercer. This is empirically evident as an ever-increasing number of signs make it harder

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and harder to stand out, which is why signs in turn are explicitly designed to stand out. At a normative level this is grounded in some motivation, i. e. in psychologically determinable structures such as the desire for wealth, reputation, gain, power or similar. Such structures are explicitly noticeable as a driving force in the building and form of contemporary societies as well as its social and cultural constructions. Here the ever-increasing multitude of different signs makes it a specific task to create signs which escape anonymity, from commercial to personal branding, which is the reason behind both commercial and personal media-strategies to increase one’s visibility and thus one’s significance within a world, which constantly makes one fall back into anonymity. The problem of how to become significant is similar to the problem of radical creativity: the more signs are put as follow-signs, the more difficult radical creativity becomes; similarly, the more signs present, the harder it gets to stand out. Or differently: the struggle for attention is proportional to the number of signs. Nonetheless, these normatively determinable structures, which of course are some sort of descriptions of man, are more originally founded in the constitution of world as an order between significant and insignificant. It is the nature of the sign as intrusive which makes different signs, as well as complexes of signs (sign-worlds), oppose each other. The crux is, that this mutual opposition is founded in the very character of world as significant other, namely as an inherent constitution of significant and insignificant meaning that signs either explicitly stand out or withdraw into anonymity. As the struggle for attention is proportionate to the number of signs, any specific sign’s solidity is conversely proportional to its significance, i. e. the more significant the less solid and vice versa the more insignificant the more solid. Or in other words: The more noticeable and the more intrusive, the more vulnerable the sign gets: it attracts attention and becomes subject to interpretation, i. e. subject to change. Conversely, the insignificant is the more stable, as the anonymity leaves the sign be as it is, because it is not noticed and therefore not challenged and dissolved by interpretation. Existentially and psychologically this becomes evident when an increasingly complex and multifaceted world of increasingly significant signs, at the same time appears increasingly unstable. Every sign-world appears as an order between significant and insignificant. This is not a result of a disposition in man, but rather a consequence of the very nature of the sign itself as being consistent yet plastic as elaborated above. Further, both the significant and the insignificant are characterized by solidity in the way that the less significant a sign is, the more solid it is. Because the signo-interpretational process continuously creates ever more follow-signs, more and more signs in turn withdraw and become insignificant; with the result that

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world as sign-world appears as an ever-increasing multitude of more or less solid signs. As elaborated above with regard to facticity and interpretation, the relation between world and man is not an external, but rather an internal relation, which is why the world as such cannot be lost. In addition, we may now say: the world which cannot be lost is a sign-world internally determined through interpretation, and furthermore as always already interpreted appearing as significant other, i. e. as expressive, solid, excluding and indicative. This sign-world is always already a specific and determinate sign-world and in this sense, it holds its own identity. The augmented skeptical challenge following the complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation is thus mitigated by means of the very character of world understood as sign-world because it holds its own identity. World as sign-world is not the result of an organization of chaos into order as commonly conceived from Kant to Goodman;³⁷⁵ and identity is not something which must be established by way of individuating.³⁷⁶ Rather, world already appears as an order of significant and insignificant and all individual things are already as signs individuated and thus express identity. In an empirical perspective, the world is originally one and only subsequently, by way of the signo-interpretational process, appears as a plurality of different things. This in turn solves an old problem with regard to identity, namely how it is possible to recognize something as something specific: when everything originally is “one” and “the same”, re-identification is no longer a problem, as what is set as different as such already belongs to the original. Psychologically and epistemologically this is evident in the fact that originally everything is “the same”, and then we learn to distinguish. So, how do “order” and “identity” emerge? Posed in this manner, the question is misleading, because order and identity are already there. What on the most fundamental level takes place within any signo-interpretational process is differentiation from a basis of an already set sign-world which appears expressive, solid, excluding and indicating, i. e. as significant other and which holds its own identity. World appears to man (interpretation) as an overwhelmingly suggestive multitude of solid signs and the initial augmented skeptical challenge consequent of the complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation is mitigated albeit in turn transformed into another challenge, namely the challenge to break free from the overwhelming force of the significant other.

 Cf. “Identity or constancy in a world is identity with respect to what is within that world as organized.” Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking. 1978, p. 8.  “Identification rests upon organization into entities and kinds.” Goodman, Ways of Worldmaking. 1978, p. 8.

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9.2 Signs of World World is sign-world simultaneously given and in the making. The relation between world and man is defined anew as a relation between an overwhelming and intruding significant other and the interpretation hereof. The conception of the sign-world as significant other accordingly exceeds both practically and theoretically the traditional conceptions of “Being-in-the World” (Heidegger), a phenomenologically accessible, pre-scientific “life-world”, as well as a constellation of multiple “worlds in the making” (Goodman). All these positions involve remnants of the traditional scheme; that world is some material waiting to be ordered in some way or another, be it as hermeneutical understanding (Heidegger), phenomenological description (Husserl), or symbolic ordering (Goodman).³⁷⁷ Furthermore, the signo-interpretational approach involves a critique of the traditional ontological and epistemological point of view in which an independent world is out there and our thinking is somehow either developed through the inputs of the outer world or the activity by which the outer world is ordered. Abel thus summarizes his interpretational-internal conception of world as opposing the traditional ontological and epistemological propositions of common-sense, natural-sciences, logical positivism, naturalist epistemology and evolutionary epistemology altogether: “It is still a widely held view, that “the world” is something finished which is to be found, that it consists of selfidentical objects, that the division into things, movements and species lie in the world itself (an not in our thinking), and that it is the only world. 1) in the view of common sense the world is there, immediately in front of our eyes and ears. 2) in the natural sciences the world consists of elementary parts. 3) in the logical positivism the world is the totality of the simple, indivisible and unbreakable facts. 4) in the naturalized epistemology the world is the totality of objects, from which excitations reach the surface of our bodies. 5) in the evolutionary epistemology the subjective structures of our cognition have evolved through adjustment to the real world.”³⁷⁸ This critique is for the signo-interpretational approach point of departure. World is a sign-world and as such a specific materialization of a certain signo-interpretational process in which a line is set between sign and interpretation concretized in a specific order between significant and

 Cf. “The hyphen in “Interpretations-Worlds” demarcate these against both “interpretations of the world”, and against the speaking of “world-interpretations” (Lenk), and it also blocks both the understanding of the world as some material waiting to be organized, and the wrong conclusion, that interpretation-processes are simply identical with the referent and the products of interpretation.” Abel, Interpretations-Welten. 1989, p. 4, [my translation].  Abel, Interpretations-Welten. 1989, p. 1, [my translation].

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insignificant. In this way world appears as significant other and the relation between world and man is consequently a relation between an overwhelming and intruding sign-world and the ongoing interpretation hereof. As elaborated above, all interpretation takes place as correction by which a certain discipline is followed and made up as we go along. When it comes to the relation between world and man, the practical corrections which appear immediately in action may be taken as signs of what is real; the theoretical corrections which appear immediately in the course of thinking may be taken as signs of what is true. In this way, the concept of “reality” and the concept of “truth” are derivative to interpretation understood as a correcting process formulated strikingly clearly by Peirce: “And what do we mean by the real? It is a conception which we must first have had when we discovered that there was an unreal, an illusion; that is, when we first corrected ourselves.”³⁷⁹ In an original signo-interpretational approach it cannot – because of the complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation – be the task to determine what reality is, and how we may have true knowledge, but rather how signs of reality and truth-signs appear and constitute the relation between world and man. The point is that within the signo-interpretational philosophy reality and truth appear internal and subsequent to signo-interpretational processes. Now, signs of reality and signs of truth are consequent or subsequent to a correction by which a follow-sign is set in relation to an initially appearing sign-world. Signs of reality thus appear continuously through practical corrections as that which is corrected, i. e. that which initiates some certain action. Truth-signs only appear within theoretical corrections, in which an intention to consolidate certain signs and certain interpretations over time is imposed as discipline. This understanding of reality and truth is compatible with the way the conceptions are conceived within the philosophy of signs and interpretation in general, although an important shift is undertaken as it is not about conceiving what can count as reality or what can count as truth, but rather about signs of reality and truth-signs, i. e. how reality and truth appear within the signo-interpretational process and as such make out exemplary signs of world understood as an intruding significant other subject to interpretation. Reality is within all the branches of the philosophy of signs and interpretations explained as internal to interpretational processes. The signo-interpretational approach follows this internal conception of reality as is also underpinned by the proposition of the complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation.

 Peirce, Some Consequences of Four Incapacities. 1960, p. 186. Cf.: “The problem of reality is derivative – not original.” Abel, Was ist Interpretationsphilosophie. 1994, p. 22, [my translation].

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However, the trail followed here is not a further elaboration and underscoring of reality as internal to signo-interpretational processes, but rather an analysis of how this interpretational-internal reality appears as concrete signs of world. The question of realism is within the signo-interpretational approach accordingly a question about the signs of reality. In a similar vein to the aforementioned concept of reality, within the branches of philosophy of signs and interpretations, truth is an interpretational-internal conception. In Lenk, truth is function within a merely methodological and therefore ontologically neutral³⁸⁰ interpretationism and truth is consequently correspondence between certain levels of interpretation.³⁸¹ In Simon, the concept of truth is transformed to be internal to the process of understanding signs.³⁸² Truth is thus the better understanding which exceeds the mere private elucidation and therefore the signs which are “generally better” ³⁸³, i. e. within a social act. Truth is thus the better interpretation of signs within a “meaningfully directed serialization”³⁸⁴ of clarifications, i. e. within a communal perspective. This communal perspective or social act is understood as negative to a merely private understanding, and does thus not strive for some final opinion which, as such, would mean the ending of all interpretation altogether. Truth is not achievable as correspondence between statements and a world out there, but merely as correspondence between different understandings (logos)³⁸⁵, whereby truth is the ongoing search for a better common understanding. Finally, according to Abel, truth is interpretational-internal, just as in Lenk. Abel understands truth under the conditions of two general regulative “as-if-idealizations”, namely idealizations of 1) the epistemic conditions under which true propositions are possible and 2) idealizations which assume transparency of the interpretation -functions and -practices in play, when making truth statements.³⁸⁶ Consequently, any truth

 Lenk, Interpretatioinskonstrukte als Interpretationskonstrukte. 1994, p. 51.  Cf. “The correspondence is between constructs of interpretation on different levels.” Lenk, Interpretationskonstrukte. Zur Kritik der interpretatorischen Vernunft. 1993, p. 72, [my translation].  “Since all understanding of signs that is not immediate is interpretation of signs, the concept of truth is neutralized in the understanding of signs that is happening.” Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 221.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 216.  Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 216.  Cf. “But how does he at all know about this difference between the logoi and the thing, that is, how can he know that the logos refers to something other than again and again only to another logos? For something other than another logos is never given. No archetype directly presents itself as a tertium comparationis.” Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 45.  Cf. “This as-if counts in two ways at the same time. Firstly, it is to be understood as an idealization of the epistemic conditions: we speak, as Putnam rightly stresses, as-if “there were

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statement is internal to a specific interpretational practice and thus in a critical perspective about how statements fit other statements and how statements within an interpretation3-level fit to the conditions within the interpretation2-level and interpretation1-level.³⁸⁷ Now, the signo-interpretational approach takes its point of departure in the conceptions of truth in Lenk, Simon and Abel, yet seeks to elaborate how truth may be conceived without any anchoring in a conception of man who interprets. For this reason, the conceptions of truth in both Lenk and Simon are inadequate and must be rejected. Abel’s outline of a truth conception, although broadly applicable to an original signo-interpretational approach, remains within a narrow perspective in which it is mainly about explaining what and how truth is interpretational-internal and therefore fails to reach beyond the mere statement that truth concepts are conditioned. The crucial shift to an original signo-interpretational approach to truth is hence to change focus to what and how signs of truth appear internal to a signo-interpretational process understood as an ongoing process of corrections, yet beyond any anthropological anchoring. Essential to the signo-interpretational approach is that truth is not rejected all together as illusionary. Rather, it is to be understood by following Nietzsche’s insight that, when the idea of an absolute true world is left behind, then so is the complementing idea of an absolute illusionary world.³⁸⁸ In other words: the dualistic scheme of an either true or illusionary world is itself reconstructed, in the sense that we operate with concepts of truth both in everyday life and in scien-

such things as epistemically ideal conditions”, and call a proposition “true”, “if it would be justified under such conditions”, e. g. under the ideal of the assumption of frictionsless surfaces. Secondly, the as-if is to be understood as an idealization concerning the transparency of the interpretation-functions in our language and conceptual systems, as well as in our interpretationpraxis: we do as-if the functions of our interpretation-signs are clear and distinct, and as-if our interpretation1-cum-interpretations2+3-praxis, from which and in which we interpret the way we interpret, is transparent and clear. None of these assumptions is in fact met, nor possible to meet.” Abel, Was ist Interpretationsphilosophie? 1994, p. 34, [my translation].  Cf. “Truth is in this way essentially a matter of fitting, first and foremost between sentences and other sentences, secondly between held sentences within an interpretation-network, which makes out our understanding of world and ourselves, thirdly between sentences and the conditions of empirical experience, and fourthly between sentences and the two mentioned as-if idealizations.” Abel, Was ist Interpretationsphilosophie? 1994, p. 34– 35, [my translation].  “The true world is gone: which world is left? The illusory one, perhaps? … But no! we got rid of the illusory world along with the true one!”. (Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 2005, p. 171.) Cf.: “The point is rather, that the architecture itself has changed. The dichotomy of true and illusory world as such is left behind. Our worlds are always already interpretation-worlds.” Abel, Interpretationswelten. Gegenwartsphilosophie jenseits von Essentialismus und Relativismus. 1993, p. 107, [my translation].

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tific research and therefore necessarily also operate with concepts of falseness. The question is how we may conceive this within a signo-interpretational approach? The signo-interpretational approach is an attempt to explain truth as a consequence of corrections and thus asking about truth-signs as exemplary signs of world understood as an intruding significant other subject to interpretation. The signo-interpretational view of reality and truth in turn presents us with a revised relation between world(s) and man crystallized as a skeptical attitude towards the overwhelming power of the significant other. The signs of reality constantly reveal world as a specific practically grasped sign-world (significant other), which is constantly interpreted anew through actions. The truth-signs constantly reveal world as a specific theoretically grasped sign-world (significant other) which is constantly interpreted anew through a certain intention to discipline the constant corrections to abide to a rule of absolute certainty and as such materialize as a will to truth (Nietzsche). As such all actions and all truth-signs are direct signs of the ongoing signo-interpretational process itself; in actions positively, as actions themselves cannot conceal reality as the firm foundation from which corrections are carried out – in thought negatively, as truth is nothing but an attempt to conceal the constant change through intended consolidation of certain signs under the rule of absolute certainty, and thus the intention to make some signs absolute. Reality and truth are thus signs of the perpetual signo-interpretational process although essentially opposite occurrences. Reality thus always shuns categorization into truth and falseness altogether; and truth is but a name for a futile endeavour to counter the unlimited semiosis of the signointerpretational process. The signo-interpretational relation between world and man concretize practically and theoretically as different ways of corrections. Practically all actions are signs of a plurality of independent worlds (plural); theoretically truthsigns intend to constitute and consolidate one absolute world (singular). In consequence, the skeptical attitude, as the ethical aspect of the skeptical disposition, materializes as the intended dissolution of a specific theoretically grasped sign-world by way of an intended dissolution of given signs of world, openness towards other sign-worlds and an interpretational epoché with regard to setting new definite sign-worlds. The skeptical attitude thus opposes the intended consolidation of the truth-signs by revealing it as nothing but another set line between facticity and interpretation. By way of a skeptical attitude, the initially set fine line between facticity and interpretation within any signo-interpretational process is exposed. What in the practical corrections lie bare all the time, namely a plurality of worlds immediately evident in actions, is within the theoretical corrections only by way of a skeptical attitude disclosed as a plurality of

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overlapping versions. I shall elaborate this further in the three following steps: 9.2.1 Signs of Reality; 9.2.2 Truth-Signs; 9.2.3 World(s) and Versions.

9.2.1 Signs of Reality As a specific sign-world stands out and intrudes as significant other a reaction occurs and materializes immediately as action. Action is thus reaction to a specific sign-world and as such a follow-sign. Now, since every sign-world appears intruding, the continuous setting of follow-signs may be said to be a continuous series of corrections. Action may thus be described as a correctional process by which a specific order between significant and insignificant, i. e. a specific signworld is rearranged and re-disciplined. Action is in other words the continuously correction or adjustment in relation to a set sign-world and reality may be said to be the particular sign-world which stands out as significant other by way of such corrections. In our actions as corrections reality shows itself; or: actions are signs of some reality. All action is as such the immediately and empirically given sign of the concurrency of facticity and interpretation. All actions are signs of reality and reality is thus evident in all action. Actions are here understood in a broad sense, meaning all activities which somehow show themselves within both organic and inorganic processes. Actions are thus not necessarily carried out on the base of some conscious decision. In fact, the conscious or premeditated actions make out a very little part of the actions undertaken, and these are still founded on a large amount of actions carried out without any premeditation. Our so-called consciously or rationally premeditated actions are of course also corrections to a reality – but they are “late” or subsequent to non-conscious or non-premeditated actions. The point is that all actions whether rational or irrational may be conceived as signs of reality. Actions are not a clearly delineable occurrence, but rather a process in which signs are interpreted and the interpretations again serve as new signs for further follow-signs. Actions are thus perpetual processes without beginning or end, which is why it also does not make any sense to delimit a concrete action and ask when and where it begins – when and where it ends, although it is done all the time. Similarly, we may say that realities and actions constitute each other in the sense that realities provoke actions as well as actions create realities. Actions are thus the continuously corrective activities in which a specific signworld becomes visible and is changed concurrently. Actions are practical signs of reality and the on-going corrective activities as such to be conceived as signs of the inner tendency of the interpretational practice understood as the on-going setting of a difference between facticity and interpretation. To reiterate:

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the singular action is a follow-sign and as such challenges a specific sign-world, i. e. a specific order between significant and insignificant. This corrective activity happens in actions, wherefore actions are signs of reality. In this conception of reality as something which shows itself directly in action, the abstract philosophical questions about how to distinguish between the illusionary and the real are – so to speak – invalid or irrelevant. A certain signworld provokes an action, and in this sense this sign-world is real, meaning simply that it is there as something to some interpretation. The hallucinations of a madman are in other words no less real than the text on this page or the wind in the trees, i. e. they are real in the way that they show themselves in the actions carried out as responses or reactions to these and are thus real sign-worlds. Now, whether such a reality may be said to be true as objectively and inter-subjectively provable is another question, which does not apply within the ontological level of signo-interpretational processes. Such questions – and the answers to them – take place on another signo-interpretational level, and constitute as certain theoretical corrections.

9.2.2 Truth-Signs Like reality, truth is within an original signo-interpretational approach to be understood as derivative to a correcting process. The point is that truth only appears within a signo-interpretational process carried out as a series of theoretical corrections. As derivative to such series of theoretical corrections truth is directly evident in the course of thinking as a discursive process of signs and followsigns. Now, all signo-interpretational processes concretize by following and inventing a rule as we go along. The discursive process of thinking itself takes place within a concrete discipline, namely within language understood as a system of signs materializing certain rules. Any theoretical discipline is in this way linguistic, meaning that it takes place within a specific language. As language, we may identify any sign-system, which sets and follows certain rules by which significations and connections between significations are instituted and established as communication. Language is thus first and foremost communication, whereby it is important to notice the difference between language as communication and language as an instrument for communication. Where the latter remains within an anthropological framework by indicating some anthropological dispositions for creating languages in order to be able to communicate, the former keeps within a strict signo-interpretational approach and thus abstains from making any anthropological propositions. In a signo-interpretational approach language is simply communication and thus a discipline which in its

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very essence is communal and hence involves a number of individuals. Now, the point is that as communication and as a certain theoretical discipline language institutes i) truthfulness with regard to its basic elements, namely the different particular significations and later ii) an idea of truth with regard to the connections of significations. Regarding the first, the fundamental point is that in order to be communication the significations which make out the basic components of any language are necessarily assumed to be truthful, meaning simply that they are immediately perceived as reliable. Any initial signification is as such a sort of lawgiving, whereby some meaning is fixed and significations thus constitute some sort of authority which is followed in thoughts and actions. Nietzsche gives a precise account of this in his early work on truth and lies: “At this point what is henceforth to be called “truth” is fixed, i. e. a universally valid and binding designation of things is invented and the legislation of language supplies the first laws of truth.”³⁸⁹ Any signification is, within language understood as a communicative discipline, initially constituting authority. In this sense truthfulness is to be understood as an inherent part of any communicative practice (language). Truthfulness is a prerequisite for any language as communication. Yet, it is here important to notice that truthfulness is not imposed onto an already existing non-truthful language, but rather the very way language as such is constituted. The argument is as follows: we do not first have some unreliable language and then in a second step apply truthfulness as a moral rule; rather language is the establishing of truthful communication in the way that any language qua communication can only ever exist as inherently being reliable, i. e. expressing truthfulness. It is impossible to imagine a language as a communicative discipline (as a system of signs) without it already being truthful expression. The point is further, that only subsequent to an initial truthful signification it becomes possible to break or violate this authority and make a correction. In this breaking with authority the original truthfulness transforms into an idea of truth, as Nietzsche remarks in the following passage to the abovementioned quote: “For it is here that the contrast between truth and lie first comes into being. The liar uses the valid designations, the words, in order to make the unreal appear as real […]”.³⁹⁰ The crux is here that there must already be a valid, reliable and authoritative signification in order be able to violate it; and furthermore that any violation of a valid, reliable and authoritative signification introduces a difference between true and false because the violation of one authoritative sign happens by setting an opposing authoritative sign. Now this difference between

 Nietzsche, On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense. 2009, p. 255.  Nietzsche, On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense. 2009, p. 255, [my highlighting].

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true and false constitutes an idea of truth as such, as the theoretical discipline (as all disciplines) is a certain mnemo-technique proceeding as a series of corrections, which continuously violate previous authoritative signs. The truth-idea may be described as this inherent tendency as any linguistic signification is a sort of lawgiving which constitutes authority. The constant corrections in all theoretical disciplines echo the original double tendency in all corrections understood as a pendulous movement between dissolution and consolidation as described above. Corrections thus violate a previously authoritative signification by setting a new authoritative signification. It is important to understand this tendency as inherent to theoretical disciplines as such and thus not the materialization of some moral value, although it subsequently may materialize as a specific moral institution. The argumentation is in other words: not because of an ethical strive in man do we establish an idea of truth, but rather conversely: we establish the search for truth as an ethical strive, because an idea of truth is inherent to theoretical disciplines as such. Truthfulness and truth are inherent to language as communicative discipline. Only on this foundation moral institutions can be developed as a sort of superstructure. In the same way, it is not necessary to impose coherence into language as language, as communicative discipline, already expresses coherence; or in other words: coherence is only necessary to impose within or internal to some specific language or sign-system.³⁹¹ So, truth is an idea which is a consequence of an on-going correcting process. Accordingly, truth has only to do with connections of signs not the signs themselves, which is why it does not make sense to ask whether a sign is true or false in relation to some external reality, but only whether a sign is true or false in relation to other signs or complexes of signs. Since language is itself a certain signo-interpretational discipline in which a certain line is set between facticity and interpretation, it becomes futile to ask how language “hooks on to reality” and thus whether the linguistic significations truly correspond some reality. Truth is only meaningful as signifying a relation between signs consequent of a correction. Truth is thus an abstract idea developed from the initial truthfulness in language as communicative discipline and therefore nothing in itself. Yet, as idea it may (or may not) become the guiding principle within cer-

 See: Abel 1999, p. 98 ff. Cf: “As coherence-claims, respectively rationality-assumptions, only such aspects come into question, which result internally from what it means to move aorund within a language or within a non-linguistic sign-system, to understand this language and the signs of the fundamental interpretation-praxis, and to be wihtin relations of understanding, object relations and a world-opening.” Abel, Zeichen der Wirklichkeit. 2004, p. 314, [my translation].

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tain theoretical disciplines (science) and as such it concretizes as a “will to truth” (Nietzsche) understood as an intention to create a discipline under the rule of absolute certainty.³⁹² Now, absolute certainty is only possible as a specific interpretation withstanding all oppositional interpretations of some sign which is why the will to truth materializes as the intention to uphold or consolidate a specific interpretation as absolute interpretation. As such, the will to truth is an intention to counter the unlimited semiosis of all signo-interpretational processes and therefore materializes as a fixation of the otherwise on-going process; or in Nietzsche’s words: “The will to truth is a making-firm, a truth-lasting-making, a getting-out-of-sight of every illusory character, a rewriting of the same into being. Truth is thus not anything, which is there, possible to find, – but something, which is to be made, and which is the name for a process, or even more for a will to seizure, which as such has no end: to put in truth, as a process in infinitum, an active determination, not a becoming conscious about “something”, “which” “in itself” is fixed and determinate. It is a word for the “will to power”.³⁹³ Nietzsche’s account of how truth is constituted is similar to how truth-signs within the signo-interpretational approach may be explained. Firstly, we may point at the similarity between Nietzsche’s description of truth as a fixation and how truth-signs are results of an intention to consolidate a specific interpretation within the on-going theoretical corrections. As consolidation of interpretation it can be said that truth-signs make claims for eternity. Truth-signs are the attempt to let one correction exclude all other possible and actual corrections and thus the attempt to consolidate one specific sign-world. Truth-signs are in other words absolute settings of a line between facticity and interpretation. Secondly Nietzsche’s account of the fixation of truth as an infinite process bears a similarity to how truth-signs constantly prove inadequate, wherefore it becomes a never-ending quest to establish an absolute certain truth. The crucial aspect here is that all search for truth only shows itself negatively, which is why a skeptical attitude towards the truth-signs as such is required. Thirdly, Nietzsche’s account equals the signo-interpretational approach as the will to truth can be explained as an anthropological trait, yet as such not a primary and necessary tendency in man but rather a secondary tendency in

 Also, Abel understands truth as something which is created not found. Cf. “In line with Nietzsche one can make the attempt, not to understand truth as something which is given independently from its signs and interpretations. Rather “truth” can, in the already outlined way, be understood as a name for a creation within sign- and interpretation-processes.” Abel, Zeichen der Wahrheit – Wahrheit der Zeichen. 2011, p. 24, [my translation].  Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente, 1887 9 [91], KSA 12, 1999, p. 384, [my translation].

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man which could be different. Nietzsche’s anthropological explanation of the will to truth as a certain “drive for truth”³⁹⁴ does not establish anthropology as a new prima philosophia, but rather sees anthropological properties as secondary to interpretation understood as “will to power”. This becomes clear if we take a closer look at Nietzsche’s explanation of the will to truth as subordinate to a will to power. The will to truth is limited under the condition that it serves life.³⁹⁵ Truth is in this way itself merely a fiction and must be valued as all other fictions only with regard to whether it serves life or not.³⁹⁶ The crucial point is now that the will to truth as a special case of the will to power only refers to certain kinds of life not life as such and consequently to types of man, not man as such. This becomes clear as the search for truth according to Nietzsche is a morally instituted drive,³⁹⁷ which is valuable for certain types of man, but harmful to other types. The will to truth is thus subordinate to more original interpretational processes conceived as will to power and all determinations of specific anthropological traits are thus subordinate to a more fundamental interpretational process. In other words: anthropological tendencies are founded on, and are outcomes of, original signo-interpretational processes, not the other way around. Hence the will to truth is itself only possible within an already established theoretical discipline, i. e. within language as communicative discipline; yet theoretical disciplines are nothing but certain signo-interpretational processes and cannot be reduced to anthropological qualities. Instead any anthropological explanation of truth-signs (life-sustaining tool or moral institution) is itself founded in a more original signo-interpretational process. Fourthly, Nietzsche’s conception of truth as necessary to a certain kind of life or type of man and his enduring philosophical endeavour to overcome this will to truth and spell out a kind of life and type of man beyond such a strive (because it is ultimately a nihilistic strive) is within a signo-interpretational approach expressed with the point that not all theoretical disciplines necessarily proceed as a will to truth. Truth-signs are neither the most original tendency nor a necessary trait within theoretical disciplines. Theoretical disciplines con-

 Nietzsche, On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense. 2009, p. 254.  Cf. “Only in a similarly restricted sense does man want the truth. He desires the pleasant, life-preserving consequences of truth; he is indifferent to pure knowledge without consequences, and even hostile to harmful and destructive truths.” Nietzsche, On Truth and Lie in an Extra-Moral Sense. 2009, p. 255.  Cf. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil. #4. 2002, p. 7.  “It is no more than a moral prejudice that the truth is worth more than appearance; in fact, it is the world’s most poorly proven assumption.” Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil. #34, 2002, p. 35.

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cretize in countless different forms with the overall common quality that corrections are carried out within a theoretical framework, i. e. as rational settings of follow-signs as explained above. Truth-signs are exemplary signs in the way that they reveal world as signworld by setting an absolute line between facticity and interpretation. It was mentioned above that truth-signs show themselves negatively as never fully attained. Negatively, the truth-signs show that world is a certain signo-interpretational setting of a line between facticity and interpretation as they constantly prove to be inadequate. As truth-signs only express a relation between signs and as such settings of an absolute interpretation of how different signs relate to one another, truth-signs are constantly violated as the signo-interpretational process continues regardless. The truth-signs thus show the perpetual setting of facticity and interpretation; yet because the truth-signs only show themselves negatively and because truth-signs as absolute settings of a line between facticity and interpretation constitutes especially intruding sign-worlds, a positive disclosure is required in order to achieve interpretational autonomy. This positive disclosure of truth-signs is only possible by way of a skeptical attitude.

9.2.3 Worlds and Versions As significant other every specific sign-world holds its own identity and appears expressive, solid, excluding and indicating. That each particular sign-world in fact is a set line between facticity and interpretation, which could have been different, is automatically concealed, either practically since the signo-interpretational process at the ontological level is completely blind, or theoretically by way of a certain interpretational discipline, namely the setting of true signs. In consequence, we may say that there are as many different realities as there are signo-interpretational processes, yet through theoretical corrections the different realities become shared – they become versions. Realities are momentarily set sign-worlds and versions are sign-worlds existing over time. In this sense, we may ontologically speak of worlds which are reciprocally exclusive and we may epistemologically speak of versions of worlds which are more or less compatible with each other. Practically we all live in different worlds, i. e. different momentary and shifting realities. Theoretically we live in more or less common versions of worlds, when namely the practical realities are interpreted theoretically. Practical corrections are apparent in any action as such; actions which are signs of reality express some particular sign-world. A plurality of independently set sign-worlds exists and is constantly evident in the plurality of actions contin-

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uously carried out. Every particular action reveals which particular sign-world is set and the multiple different sign-worlds existing are laid bare as concretely set lines between facticity and interpretation in every specific action. As different actions are mutually excluding at the same time, we may talk about mutually excluding different worlds. Every action is unique and momentary and therefore every world is unique. A particular action might be repeated but is never the same and consequently there is a plurality of unique worlds, which as such may never occur again as the exact same world. The difference between two or more worlds is directly apparent in the different actions carried out. Any world shows itself directly in the concrete action; any concrete action reveals a specific world. Theoretical corrections happen within the course of thinking and are apparent mainly in doubt as explained above. Yet, because of the automatic setting of new consistent signs any doubt fades away unnoticed whereby in turn the set line between facticity and interpretation is covered and concealed anew. Within the theoretical corrections, the truth-signs, as intentionally constituted solid and absolute interpretations, most explicitly show every theoretical sign-world as a set line between facticity and interpretation, yet as absolute set signs the truth-signs intrude and drive back any emerging doubt and therefore disrupt the chance to reveal the theoretically set signs as a set line between facticity and interpretation. Truth-signs only negatively reveal some certain sign-world as a set line between facticity and interpretation, when the truth eventually over time is negated. Positively, the truthsigns will be revealed as set lines between facticity and interpretation when challenged intentionally through a skeptical attitude, which will disclose the theoretical sign-worlds as mere versions of worlds. When the different individual practical realities, i. e. when different worlds are corrected theoretically they cease to be strictly individual and become communal. In this way, strictly individual worlds (practical realities) are transformed into versions of worlds. A version of world is a theoretical correction which subsumes the specific individual and mutually exclusive signs under a common rule. Such a rule is nothing but a certain discipline followed and invented as we go along. Since versions of worlds are disciplines followed and invented as we go along a plurality of different versions are in play simultaneously. It does not make sense to ask whether a version is true or false, because true and false are conceptions only between different theoretical signs not between theoretical versions and practical realities as mentioned above. We cannot distinguish sharply between which version is truer, but we may determine which version is most significant, i. e. most intrusive: such a version is what commonly is referred to as a specific dominating “world-view”. Instead we may speak of 1) how

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different signs within a specific version are compatible or incompatible and further 2) how different versions are compatible or incompatible. Regarding the first, signs are either compatible or incompatible with one another within a specific version. A version may in this way adopt ever more compatible signs, which does not oppose the rule which the signs within that specific version comply with. Now, this rule may change as some signs may be compatible in one way but not in another, wherefore versions of worlds per definition are dynamic. Versions are certain compositions of signs. The composition itself is dynamic and fluctuating, yet in all compositions the significant and the insignificant are compatible signs and a sign which does not fit within a specific composition is incompatible. When a specific version is confronted with an incompatible sign, either of two things may happen: a) the version adapts and the composition changes by way of a rearranging the inner order; or b) the sign is not taken in and thus remains incompatible and is excluded. Regarding the second, it can be said that all versions express a specific order or hierarchy between signs and follow-signs. In a similar vein, it is possible to distinguish between different versions of worlds by looking at which principle of ordering a version follows. In this way, different versions are either compatible or incompatible as different signs are either compatible or incompatible within the specific version. As a result, we may speak of compositions of signs (versions) and compositions of compositions, i.e. the compatibility or incompatibility of particular versions. In this way, a sort of higher order is at work. Instead of a plurality of versions we must speak of overlapping versions dependent on which rule the different versions must comply with. Any rule however is again nothing but a discipline followed and invented as we go along. We thus speak of and regard ourselves as participating in different versions which we move in and out of without further difficulty. We speak naturally of an art-world as being different from a science-world or a world of politics. This is only possible because these worlds are not set apart with a clear line but rather overlapping versions. The signo-interpretational conception of the relation between world and man is accordingly disclosed as a relation between man and both practical and theoretical sign-worlds, i. e. individual worlds (signs of reality) and common versions (truth-signs) at the same time given and in the making. Any such signworld, whether practical or theoretical, express a certain order between significant and insignificant. The strictly individual and practical worlds are constantly revealed as signs of reality in our on-going actions. The common and theoretical versions of worlds stand out and intrude with an overwhelming suggesting force. Only by means of a skeptical attitude which constantly dissolves the already instituted versions of worlds these can be revealed as what they are, namely set lines between facticity and interpretation which could have been different.

10 Interpretations of Others World is as significant other present as a complex of more or less significant signs. Within any sign-world the other understood as the other person stands out in an exemplary way as that which most explicitly intrudes and suggests. The other attracts attention like no other sign; the other is significant par excellence and in the encounter with the other person, the always already set difference between what is interpreted (signs) and how the signs are interpreted (interpretation), i. e. the always set fine line between facticity and interpretation become most clearly evident. Or in other words: in the encounter with the other the always set line between facticity and interpretation is most overt and obvious. This is directly seen as the other appears both as the most intrusive and solid sign, and as the most plastic and changeable sign. The always set line between facticity and interpretation is in turn equally overt, namely as it stands out directly as a dynamic or fluctuant line. Accordingly, the other materializes now as this now as another. In other words: the other concretizes a set line between facticity and interpretation, yet this line is dynamic and fluctuant which is why also the other as a sign appears explicitly dynamic and fluctuant, namely within some certain patterns, which are both persistent and changeable. These patterns are concurrently sign and interpretation, concurrently given and in the making, i. e. followed and invented as we go along. We cannot, as we go along, but interpret the other as the manifestation of certain patterns, by which the other appears as type, character and person. Again, the initial augmented skeptical challenge is instantly mitigated, as the other necessarily and always appears within a certain pattern as sign. The augmented skeptical challenge, of estrangement, isolation and the impossibility of ever knowing the other, does not occur altogether. Now, with regard to the other as type-, character- and persons-patterns the inherent skeptical disposition in all signo-interpretational processes manifest in concrete and ongoing corrections, take form mainly as an established pattern being disrupted either practically or theoretically, i. e. by way of actions which disturb or thoughts which disagree with a certain pattern already in play. In these corrections, the fixed patterns in which the other appears are disclosed as “misinterpretations” and the patterns in which the other appear as a fixed sign is – also when only for a moment – exposed as signs of the other. Yet, as every correction concurrently dissolves an existing pattern and consolidates a new, the challenge is not to alleviate the “misinterpretations” of the other, but rather to thrive forward the acknowledgement of any interpretation of the other within some pattern, as necessarily nothing but “misinterpretation”. The https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110592078-012

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actual task is in consequence not to establish the other as some certain type, character or person, but by way of a skeptical attitude towards the other to break the always already established patterns as which the other appears. This skeptical attitude thereby has the sole goal of setting the other free by avoiding any absolute determinations of the other. The signo-interpretational skeptical attitude sets the other free from the confinement of the interpretational patterns of type-, character-, person-designations and show the signs of the other as what they are, namely settings of a fine line between facticity and interpretation. By way of this skeptical attitude the focus is moved away from the other as fixed sign-complexes (type, character, person) to the signs of the other. The signo-interpretational processes are thus laid bare in an exemplary way; and both the instant mitigation of the initial skeptical challenge and the signo-interpretational skeptical attitude as a genuine ethical approach become clearly evident within the relation to the other. I shall elaborate this in the two following steps, namely: 10.1 Type, Character, Person; 10.2 Signs of the Other.

10.1 Type, Character, Person The other appears within some certain patterns; patterns which are manifestations of the ongoing signo-interpretational process as such, namely as materializations of a fine line between facticity and interpretation, continuously constituted as we go along. The patterns of the other may be divided into type, character and person and are each equally solid and fluctuating as the other is both solidly intrusive and variable in its appearance. The patterns of type, character and person thus comprise the other as simultaneously given and in the making. The patterns are unevenly dynamic. Type-patterns are the most universal and person-patterns the most specific. In between these two extremes lie character-patterns. The degree of universality or specificity of the patterns is proportionate to how dynamic it is, in the sense that type-patterns are the least dynamic and person-patterns the most dynamic. Accordingly, the type-patterns have fewer nuances, person-patterns more nuances and internal distinctions. In turn, the advancement from type-patterns, over character-patterns to person-patterns is advancement from the more empirical to the more conceptual. Type-patterns are, because they are more universal and less dynamic, empirically founded, i. e. categories which are directly and empirically perceivable. Person-patterns on the other hand are less universal and more dynamic, and essentially conceptual categories and therefore not immediately empirically perceivable, but only perceivable subsequently to some conceptualization. Again, character-patterns constitute a middle category.

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Historically the concepts of type, character and person have all undergone extensive changes with regard to meaning, use and application within the sciences, in philosophy and theology. In the following, the mere historiographical tracking of the inner conceptual modifications is abandoned in favour of a philosophical attempt to determine how the other appears as type, character and person exclusively within the signo-interpretational approach. Consequently, the historical origins and the different philosophical uses of the concepts of type, character and person are only brought into the discussion in so far as they serve to explain how the concepts of type, character and person may be used to express the other within the signo-interpretational approach. A historical tracing is therefore highly selective without any pretence of a complete overview. This method is further justified since the concepts of type, character and person all represent such varieties in meaning and use that any attempt to spell out one authoritative definition and use becomes futile.³⁹⁸ Before I continue with the more general traits of these patterns, I shall give a more detailed description and characterization of each one. 1) Type-Patterns: The most universal signo-interpretational determination of the other is carried out within type-patterns. Any type-pattern is the materialization of a fine line between facticity and interpretation, wherefore a type-pattern is concurrently given and in the making; type-patterns are, in other words, sign and interpretation simultaneously. A type-pattern may be defined as the selection of some common distinguishing traits within several different phenomena, which are neither given fully in each of the phenomena themselves, nor possible to reach by induction.³⁹⁹ A signo-interpretational type-pattern is therefore, the interpretation of some given signs into certain overall and empirically perceivable categories. This signo-interpretational process of establishing certain typepatterns is indicated even in the Greek word typos (blow, impression, model), from typtein (to strike, beat). Typos here means the imprint of a pattern onto the empirically given, whereby the empirically given is modelled in a certain way. In this way, type-patterns are immediately perceivable, i. e. empirically explicit, albeit models or imprints of general concepts. In other words, the type-patterns are conceptualizations of something empirically given. This given is naturally always already interpreted, as everything given falls under the same

 Cf. Ritter/Gründer/Gabriel, “Typos; Typologie”, Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, vol. 10, 1999, p. 1587; Cf. Ritter/Gründer/Gabriel, “Charakter”, Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, vol. 1, 1971, p. 984 ff.; Cf. Ritter/Gründer/Gabriel, “Person”, Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, vol. 7, 1989, p. 269 ff.  This definition is commonly known as the “comparative” meaning of “type”. Cf. Prechtl/ Burkard, “Typus”, Metzler Philosophie Lexikon, 2008, p. 532.

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fundamental signo-interpretational conditions described above, viz. the complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation. The conceptualization of the empirically given into type-patterns is in this sense a sort of subsequent interpretation, albeit such a distinction between primary and subsequent interpretations is made only in hindsight and is strictly speaking not possible to make, as every attempt to distinguish sharply between given and interpretation becomes futile because of the complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation. As such, we may simply say that the other as a specific individual appears as an example of some certain type and thus as an individual exemplifies immediately and empirically perceivable some proto-type which is not itself empirically given.⁴⁰⁰ Type is traditionally used as fundamental notion within a wide range of philosophical, theological, sociological, psychological and anthropological theories.⁴⁰¹ Nonetheless, I shall focus solely on how the other appears within certain type-patterns given and in the making as we go along whereby we may distinguish heuristically between two general (typical) type-categorizations, viz. type as life-form and type as think-form, i. e. ways of life and ways of thinking, whereby a sharp distinction would be impossible to carry out, again because of the concurrency of facticity and interpretation. Type-patterns understood as life-form cover how different life-forms are understood as the materialization of a disposition, i. e. how different ways of life develop from some disposition in a more or less fulfilling way. This disposition may be understood mainly as either natural or cultural disposition. We may count e. g. biological and physical traits as natural dispositions and we may count the various religious, political and social traits within specific individuals as cultural dispositions. Type-patterns understood as think-form consist in different life-organizations of practical and theoretical character concerning either groups or individuals. Practically the think-forms materialize in certain ways of existing and thus concretize ethically as more or less specific life-rules by which individuals live. As such the other is categorized within types of life-organizations such as religious, philosophical and social organizations. Theoretically think-forms are expressed in certain ways of understanding and thus represent different abstract approaches to world, other, and self. Traditionally a difference is set between doxastic and epistemic thinking which are further ordered within some sort of

 Cf. Ritter/Gründer/Gabriel, “Typos; Typologie”, Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, vol. 10, 1999, p. 1594– 1607.  Cf. Ritter/Gründer/Gabriel, “Typos; Typologie”, Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, vol. 10, 1999, p. 1594– 1607.

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hierarchy such as Kant’s triadic distinction of “Opining, believing, and knowing”.⁴⁰² Different think-forms are in this way analysed as more or less basic forms of knowledge, and in the end a point of meta-philosophical reflection is reached, in which numerous disciplines of “philosophy of-” and ultimately a “philosophy of philosophy” is defined. As think-forms are certain life-organizations there is an intimate connection between life-forms and think-forms. The life-forms may as natural or cultural dispositions be said to materialize automatically, i. e. without autonomous decision from the individual itself. In contrast to the life-form patterns, the think-form patterns are seen as explicitly intended. Whether, and to which degree, certain lifeand think-forms interact and may be distinguished sharply from each other is here of less importance – and would in the end lead back to the complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation. The point is in a signo-interpretational perspective that the other continuously appears within certain type-patterns given and made up as we go along; and situated in the immediate empirical presence of some individual other. 2) Character-Patterns: while type-patterns are immediately and empirically perceivable in individual representations, the character-patterns are empirically given yet not immediately present because the conceptual weighs – so to speak – more than the empirical. The forming of a certain character-pattern is in this way diametrically opposed to the forming of type-patterns: the former is the identification of a character with some arbitrary and empirical given; the latter is the immediate recognition of the typical within the empirical. Character-patterns are thus not represented in the empirical as type-patterns, but are ascribed or applied to some empirically given individual. The empirical does as such not make out the essential distinguishing traits, but are merely arbitrary attributes. Similar empirical appearances may thus be ascribed dissimilar character-patterns; something which is not possible to do with type-patterns which essence is in the empirically given. In Kant’s anthropology, we find a distinction of two general meanings of the idea of character, namely a physical character and moral character. This is both a directly meaningful and for our purpose very useful distinction, which is why I shall quote Kant’s text in full “From a pragmatic consideration, the universal, natural (not civil) doctrine of signs (semiotica universalis) uses the word character in two senses: because on the one hand it is said that a certain human being has this or that (physical) character; on the other hand that he simply has a character (a moral character), which can only be one, or nothing at all. The first is the

 Kant, Lectures on Logic. 1992, p. 571.

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distinguishing mark of the human being as a sensible or natural being; the second is the distinguishing mark of the human being as a rational being endowed with freedom. The man of principles, from whom one knows what to expect, not from his instinct, for example, but from his will, has a character.– Therefore in the Characteristic one can, without tautology, divide what belongs to a human being’s faculty of desire (what is practical) into what is characteristic in a) his natural aptitude or natural predisposition, b) his temperament or sensibility, and c) his character purely and simply, or way of thinking. The first two predispositions indicate what can be made of the human being; the last (moral) predisposition indicates what he is prepared to make of himself.”⁴⁰³ As Kant’s quote reveals, character is a distinguishing mark either concerning the physical or the moral. As physical distinguishing mark character is either one’s natural aptitude or natural predispositions (a), and one’s temperament and sensisbility (b). As such the other appears as some specific character based on physical/natural distinguishing marks, which indicate specific aptitudes, predispositions, temperametal attributes, and qualities of sensibility. The physical character is what one is labelled as on the basis of physical appearance and traits (aptitude and predisposition), indicated in e. g. adroitness and dexterity, and on the basis of one’s general behavioural attitude and way of being (temperament, sensibility), indicated e. g. in one’s activities and actions. As moral distinguishing mark character is an indication of “character purely and simply, or way of thinking”, and thus refers to someone understood as “rational being endoved with freedom”. The moral character thus refers to the general way of thinking and the will that someone possesses, whereby it indicates the general direction of one’s intellectual interests, and the grade of willpower evident in one’s general determination and tendency towards perseverance or, on the contrary, general weakness and tendency towards pliability; as well as how one’s actions are directed and apply to moral categories of good and evil. The ascribing of character-patterns to others happens instantly so that the other appears as that or that character. The other does not first exist as a blank sheet and then in a secondary step become ascribed a character. The other always appears as a specific character, although this character may be corrected, whereby a new character is ascribed. Where the type-patterns may be said to be situated or have their origin in the object, as they are recognized immediately in a specific and empirical individual, character-patterns may be said to be situated or have their origin in the subject, i. e. the ascribing process, as they are

 Kant, Anthroology from a Pragmatic Point of View. 2006, p. 185.

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merely identifications of arbitrary empirical traits with a certain pattern. Which character is ascribed and why, would thus be a question for an empirical psychology. The point is here that the other, within a signo-interpretational perspective, always appears within a certain character-pattern given and made up as we go along. 3) Person-patterns: Whereas the type-patterns are the most stable and immediately empirical perceivable, the person-patters are the least stable and the least empirical. Person-patterns are extremely dynamic and decidedly conceptual, i. e. only when established as a conception it becomes possible to identify some empirical individual as that or that person. Traditionally the concept “person” refers to a specific individual (he or she) who is represented directly through actions or words. Now, these actions or words may be considered to be either one’s own or those of another, wherefore it is useful to distinguish between what is commonly known as a natural person and an artificial person. This notion of “person” is concisely expressed by Hobbes in a short excerpt from Leviathan: “A Person, is he, whose words or actions are considered, either as his own, or as representing the words or actions of an other man, or of any other thing to whom they are attributed, whether Truly or by Fiction. When they are considered as his owne, then is he called a Naturall Person: And when they are considered as representing the words and actions of an other, then is he a feigned or Artificiall Person.” ⁴⁰⁴ In our signo-interpretational perspective a first point following this distinction would of course be, that the determination of either a natural or artificial person would at first result in a radical skeptical challenge because of the complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation. Yet such an augmented skeptical challenge is immediately mitigated since it is not about distinguishing between true and fictitious personhood, but that the other always appears as a person, either natural or artificial. In other words: the crucial point within our signo-interpretational perspective is not the distinction between a natural and artificial person, but rather that the other appears as person altogether. We may therefore ask more intently: what does it mean to be a person as represented through actions and words? Again we may make use of a particularly precise piece from Hobbes’ Leviathan to encircle our overall point: “The word Person is latine: instead whereof the Greeks have πϱόσωπον, which signifies a Face, as Persona in latine signifies the disguise, or outword appearance of a man, counterfeited on the stage; and sometimes more particularly that part of it, which disguiseth the face, as a Mask or Visard; And from the Stage, hath been translated to any Representer of speech and action, as well in Tribunalls, as Theaters. So

 Hobbes, Leviathan, 1996, p. 111.

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that a Person, is the same that an Actor is, both on the Stage and in common Conversation; and to Personate, is to Act, or Represent himself, or an other; and he that acteth another, is said to beare his Person, or act in his name; […]”⁴⁰⁵ Now, the essential point is here that a person is understood as an actor, and to personate is to act, whether this impersonation represents “himself, or an other” as Hobbes writes, i. e. regardless whether it is a representation of a natural or an artificial person. As such the crucial aspect of being a person, understood as “to act”, is that it comprises a split or a doubling of the other. The other is as person acting and as actor he represents something, whether this is “himself” or “another”. What Hobbes merely ascribes to the artificial persons, we must ascribe to being a person altogether, namely that appearing as a person involves a difference between “Author” and “Actor”: “Of Persons Artificiall, some have their words and actions Owned by those whom they represent. And then the Person is the Actor; and he that owneth his words and actions, is the Author: In which case the Actor acteth by Authority.”⁴⁰⁶ The interesting thing with regard to this split is that when the other is seen as person, then the other is seen as a specific representation (person) to which some author belongs. This is, within a signo-interpretational perspective the actual decisive point. When the other is seen within person-patterns then a doubling is involved as a difference between act and author is set. And it is exactly this doubling which is the reason why person-patterns are the most dynamic, namely as any person may be said to represent an infinite number of possible authors, as any determinations of an author is nothing but interpretation. Further we may say, that exactly because there may always be ascribed yet another author to a person, the other person always remains nothing but another mask, which we are only able to remove by replacing it with yet another mask; and Schopenhauer’s insight is unavoidable: “we look at one another and interact with one another like masks with masks, we do not know who we are, […]”.⁴⁰⁷ When the other appears within person-patterns every person necessarily appears differently depending on the spectator. Person as a specific sign-complex is relative to an interpreter in the specific way that every person is a duality of “acts” and “author”. That we are not the same “person” to different people is not primarily because we act differently

 Hobbes, Leviathan, 1996, p. 112.  Hobbes, Leviathan, 1996, p. 112. This interpretation of Hobbes is justified in the piece quoted above, namely: “and to Personate, is to Act, or Represent himself, or an other”. The fact that Hobbes only ascribes a split between author and actor to artificial persons can only be taken as result of a moment’s inaccuracy.  Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena. Chapter 3, §39, 2015, p. 53.

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(which we also do), but rather because the author of the acts is seen differently. Accordingly, the so-called problems of personal identity directly result from the fact that persons are seen as acts and author, and that the author interpreted as the cause of the acts appears in potentially unlimited different ways depending on the different acts performed. As person, the other is ascribed an author and it is this author, not its different acts, which establishes identity. Identity is thus given as the unchangeable background (author) causing a changeable surface (acts). The problem of personal identity is not that there is no author, but rather that there are too many acts in order to combine them and ascribe them to the same author. The challenge thus lies in establishing an author, who is able to include the actual manifold of acts identified, and as such the problem of personal identity manifests differently practically and theoretically. In practice the designation of an author is always already carried out. The designation becomes directly evident in actions as some identity immediately is established as a “reality” to which is re-acted. In this way, we may say that a specific action always reveals a specific “personal identity” as “who” the other instantly is taken as. Yet this merely “practical identity” is simply a mere registration of different persons appearing in succession and as long as no theoretical perspective is added, the practical actions are but a continuous registration of independent “acts” showing a certain “author” behind this. As such the different practical actions register different acts and different authors. Yet, the “problem” of personal identity does not occur until the different “practical identities” are sought combined in a theoretical perspective. In theory, the designation of an author is an unlimited process of synthesizing acts to one author and accordingly the theoretical process of establishing “personal identity” becomes more difficult, the more “acts” appear. Theoretically this problem remains insolvable as it is always possible to think some particular act, which does not fit with the other acts ascribed to a certain author. Yet, in practice it is “solved” all the time and ultimately the theoretical problem is also “solved” practically. In the end the otherwise on-going theoretical interpretation is halted by intention in order to “function” practically. This can be illustrated by examples from border-examples in law and psychology. When e. g. an author acts out too many persons and therefore theoretically cannot be ascribed an author, the disparate acts are still interpreted as representations of the same author: the author is then “unreliable” and thus not possible of being a legal person (law); or the author is “insane” and thus not reliable as such (psychology). The theoretical problem is thus constantly solved practically and in the end any “personal identity” is set with the sole purpose of being useful in practice. Consequently, we may say that the problem of personal identity occurs different within a theoretical and a practical perspective. Theoretically it is a problem of too many persons to be com-

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posed and attributed one author; practically it is a problem of ending the otherwise unlimited semiosis and thus a problem of limiting the potential acts attributed to the same author. Yet, as useful and necessary this practical fixation of a personal identity may be, it also reveals how the initial augmented skeptical challenge immediately is mitigated and transformed into its contrast, namely a challenge for every individual to oppose that to too few acts are attributed to one as author. The problem of personal identity is in this sense not a problem of not having an identity but a problem of being inhibited in one’s potential acts so that they for the most part remain mere potential, and the concrete personpattern ascribed is in turn rather a prison than a stabilizing anchor as also Nietzsche reminds us: “every person is a prison and a corner”.⁴⁰⁸ In practice, some type-, character- and/or person-patterns are already assumed and in play, hence not to be installed and fixed as such. The radical skeptical challenge regarding the other is thus immediately mitigated in practice and only appears subsequent to some already established type-, character- and/or person-pattern. That the type-, character- and person-patterns are already assumed and in play, in practice means that they are ways the other appears. In the immediate encounter the other already appears within a pattern, i. e. one meets the other immediately as type, character and/or person. Practically, this is evident in all actions, as here the other shows himself as the “reality” which provokes certain actions. Theoretically, this is evident as all actions are attributed to someone who acts. Now, in all type-, character and person-patterns a practical and theoretical aspect is concurrently manifest in the sense that the practical and theoretical aspects converge completely and cannot be sharply distinguished. The other always appears as some sign and the challenge is accordingly to alleviate the constraining effects of the ever-present type-, characterand/or person-patterns by focusing not on the other as sign but rather on the signs of the other which show themselves as a set fine line between facticity and interpretation in the continuing course of signo-interpretational corrections.

10.2 Signs of Others The difference between type-, character-, and person-patterns is, as mentioned above, a difference in universality and plasticity which becomes directly manifest in the relation between the empirical and the conceptual aspect of each pattern. Type-patterns are immediately and directly derived from the empirically

 Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil. #41, 2002, p. 39.

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given and the concept here represents the empirical; character-patterns are conceptions which are applied to arbitrary empirically appearances and the empirical thus become representations of the conceptual; person-patterns are pure abstract conceptual patterns which prescribe the empirical a certain arbitrarily chosen form, e. g. uniforms as empirical signs of a certain person. Further, the different patterns show different degrees of plasticity. The type-patterns are, because they are directly derived from the empirical, the least dynamic, which is evident as the empirical make out a signo-interpretational domain only changeable in minor degrees. The type-patterns are inflexible as such and when changed, then the conceptual content of the type-patterns accordingly loses its immediate meaning. Character-patterns are extensively dynamic as the conceptual content may be changed and applied to some empirical at will, in the sense that the empirical content is only an arbitrary complement to the conceptual content. Person-patterns are the most dynamic patterns due to the inherent split between actor and author as the problem of personal identity also revealed. The person-patterns let the other appear simultaneously as a manifold of actors and authors either compatible or incompatible and as such a manifold at the same time fixed and extremely dynamic. That the other as type, character and person-pattern is a set line between facticity and interpretation is most obviously revealed within the person-patterns, since the person-patterns are the most dynamic. In other words, we may say that the person-patterns are the least solid, and therefore they are the point of departure when it comes to setting the other free: on the basis of seeing the other as person, the other is given the highest degree of freedom because as person the other becomes immediately present as a manifold of signs directly manifest in the split or duality between actor and author. As person-pattern the other thus appears incomplete and in movement. As person-pattern the other concretizes a split between sign and interpretation and therefore directly shows the other as a set line between facticity and interpretation. In type- and character-patterns this set line does not directly show itself, which is why these patterns in turn directly reduce the freedom of the other. That the other appears within the patterns of type, character and person, and as such always and already is “real” and “known” does not exclude that one can harbour doubt about “who” the other is, both practically and theoretically. As type, character and/or person the other appears as an exceptionally intruding and suggesting significant other and as such as a fixed sign. Yet at the same time, the other reveals an exceptional degree of plasticity, as namely every type-, character-, and person-pattern constantly is confronted and challenged both practically and theoretically, whereby the other is disclosed as a set line between facticity and interpretation. The argument is as follows: the

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other is revealed as what and how he is interpreted, i. e. the other is revealed as a specific set line between facticity and interpretation when a disturbance occurs to the immediate appearance of the other. Such a disturbance materializes in either of three ways or as a combination, viz. i) as incongruity between singular actions ascribed to the same other; ii) as incongruity between singular understandings of the same other; iii) as an incongruity between an immediate practical appearance (actions) and the immediate theoretical understanding (conceptions) of the same other. The point is here again, that the correcting process only occurs auxiliary to some already established type-, character- and/or person-pattern, wherefore any doubt about “who” the other is appears as a discrepancy or incongruity between an already fixed pattern and some correction of this within a new interpretation. Consequently, the on-going process of correcting interpretations exposes the other as nothing but “misinterpretation”; or in other words: the incongruity reveals the other as a set line between facticity and interpretation which could have been different. The continuously occurring incongruities appear as signs of “misinterpretations” which directly exposes the signs of the other as set lines between facticity and interpretation. Yet, as any signo-interpretational process proceeds as a pendulous movement between dissolution and consolidation, the corrections will immediately establish new type-, characterand/or person-patterns wherefore the other only can be set free by way of a skeptical attitude which persistently exposes the type-, character- and person-patterns as “misinterpretations” and as such lay bare the signs of the other. I shall elaborate this in detail in two steps: 10.2.1 “Misinterpretations”; 10.2.2 Freedom of the Other.

10.2.1 “Misinterpretations” “Misinterpretation” names a negative relation between two or more interpretations which are opposites or otherwise incompatible. The occurrence of “misinterpretations” is thus not about stating whether interpretations are “right” or “wrong”, “true” or “false”, “adequate” or “inadequate”. Rather the phenomenon of “misinterpretation” makes the corrective practice of the signo-interpretational processes visible as a concrete setting of a difference between facticity and interpretation. The different disturbances of the immediate appearance of the other concretize in the three ways mentioned above namely: i) as incongruity between singular actions ascribed to the same other; ii) as incongruity between singular understandings of the same other; iii) as an incongruity between an immediate practical appearance (actions) and the immediate theoretical understanding (conceptions) of the same other. Now, these three ways of disturbance all

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show the very signo-interpretational setting in an exclusive and direct manner although to different degrees as the “misinterpretations” appear differently. The first way of disturbance happens within a pure objective sphere, as it is an incongruity between two or more actions of the same other, i. e. the disturbance is solely attributed to “the other”. Obviously, any particular “action” carried out by a particular other is itself concurrently facticity and interpretation, yet the crucial point is here that the disturbance is between actions of the other and therefore remains something which is distant or external. In other words, the disturbance does not directly affect me, as it is not me who is the immediate subject of the disturbance, since the incongruent actions are attributed to the other. In this sense, the disturbance happens within an “objective sphere” and the “misinterpretation” is seen as concerning the diversity of actions applicable to the same other. The “misinterpretation” is here “misinterpretation by approximation” as it is mainly a problem of adding and embracing more and more diverse singular actions possible of being attributed to the same other. Yet, hereby these “misinterpretations by approximation” only vaguely show the signo-interpretational process itself, because the signo-interpretational process proceeds regardless or even thrives further, when faced with such “misinterpretations by approximation”. The second way of disturbance happens within a pure “subjective sphere” as it is an incongruity between two or more understandings of the same other, i. e. the disturbance is solely an incongruity of two or more of my understandings of the same other. Contrary to the case of incongruent actions, the disturbance now directly affects me as I am the immediate subject of the disturbance. In this sense, the disturbance happens within a pure “subjective sphere” and the “misinterpretation” is seen as concerning the diversity of understandings applicable to the same other. Again, the “misinterpretation” is “misinterpretation by approximation” as it is now a problem of adding and embracing more and more diverse singular understandings possible of being attributed to the same other. And similar to the case with incongruity between actions, the signo-interpretational process itself is only vaguely disclosed as it proceeds irrespectively. Yet, exactly because the disturbances affect me directly, the “misinterpretations” within a pure “subjective sphere” are more intrusive and disturbing than the “misinterpretations” which happen within a pure “objective sphere” and accordingly become harder to disregard and neglect. In this sense the “misinterpretations by approximation” appear at different degrees depending on whether they occur within an objective or subjective sphere and in both spheres the signo-interpretational process itself is only vaguely exposed. The third way of disturbance happens as a direct confrontation between the “objective sphere” and the “subjective sphere” as incongruities between the ac-

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tions of the other and my understanding of the same other. As these disturbances involve the “objective sphere” and the “subjective sphere”, they are exceptionally intruding in the way that my immediate understanding of the other is confronted with some external fact which does not fit with this understanding. These “misinterpretations” are not “misinterpretations by approximation” but rather “absolute misinterpretations” as it is not about adding and encompassing yet more singular actions and singular understandings as applicable to the same other, but rather about the impossibility of joining some certain action of the other with some certain understanding of the same. In this way, the disturbances occur as “absolute misinterpretations” as they, contrary to “misinterpretations by approximation,” momentarily halt the signo-interpretational process itself and therefore momentarily show the set fine line between facticity and interpretation as what it is, namely as a set line which could be different. The “misinterpretations” all concretize as confrontations between a certain pattern and an incongruent interpretation and thus result in corrections. The two first ways in which the incongruity occurs may be said to be theoretical corrections as they concern only the conceptions of either the actions attributed to the same other or the understandings of the same other. The third way may be said to be genuinely practical corrections as they occur when the actions of the other constitute a reality enforcing an immediate correction of the understanding of the other. Within theoretical corrections the other-signs reveal themselves only reluctantly as set lines between facticity and interpretation; within practical corrections the other-signs are violently revealed as set lines between facticity and interpretation which could be different. Through the constant theoretical and practical occurring “misunderstandings” we encounter the augmented skeptical challenge in a direct manner as we are forced to acknowledge that the other – as ourselves – remain unknown, because we – and they – are constantly changing. The ways the other appears within type-, character- and person-patterns are because of the constantly occurring “misinterpretations” persistently shifting; and exactly the persistent shifting or movement reveals momentarily the signo-interpretational process itself. Yet any correction involves a new setting the skeptical challenge only appears as in a flash immediately covered by a new pattern. The signo-interpretational process itself momentarily disclosed in the phenomena of “misinterpretations” and showing the signs of the other as what they are, namely settings of a fine line between facticity and interpretation, must be exposed by way of a skeptical attitude if not to be perpetually concealed. This skeptical attitude intentionally exposes the “misinterpretations” and thus lets the other escape the overwhelming power of the type-, characterand person-patterns, if only for a moment.

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10.2.2 Freedom of the Other The skeptical attitude towards the other takes its point of departure in the continuously occurring theoretical and practical “misinterpretations”. As all signointerpretational disciplines are certain mnemo-techniques, the corrections made on the base of “misinterpretations” not only establishes certain patterns as we go along but further let the patterns themselves stand out as “misinterpretations” through time. The perpetual disturbances to the type-, character- and person-patterns in play may in this sense be said to accumulate through time and imprint a trace within the signo-interpretational disciplines. The skeptical attitude intensifies this merely historical experience – and therefore easily overpowered by the intruding and suggesting patterns – by i) actively dissolving the established patterns; ii) by being open towards different interpretations; iii) by halting any definite interpretation of the other. Through this skeptical attitude which constantly focuses on the other-signs as “misinterpretations”, the other is set free. Yet, how is it done and what does it mean to set the other free? Setting the other free through a skeptical attitude is only possible through a double perspective: firstly, it is not about seeing the other as he really is but rather ex negativo to notice that any pattern as which the other occur is a set line between facticity and interpretation; secondly, the other must be attributed autonomy which is the only way the other in the end may evade being reduced to a pattern. In the first, the other is exclusively seen from without and therefore merely described; in the second, the other is seen per analogy to oneself and ascribed authorship as such. With regard to the first, the skeptical attitude takes its point of departure in the already occurring “misinterpretations” and intensifies these by directly contesting any set pattern as which the other appears through an active dissolving, an intended openness and a careful halting of definite interpretations altogether. Now, the skeptical attitude, and be it the most suspicious, will never avoid the other appearing within some pattern as it itself proceeds as following and creating a discipline as it goes along. Consequently, it is not about evading patterns altogether, but rather about encouraging and promoting patterns with the greatest degree of plasticity, hence promoting seeing the other within person-patterns, rather than type- and character-patterns. The person-patterns inherently allow dissolution, openness and halting back one’s interpretations because of the inbuilt split between author and actor. The other is, when seen as person, in theory granted an indefinite number of reinterpretations of i) the relation between author and actor as well as of ii) the possible authors and iii) the possible actors; although in practice this is not so. Through a skeptical attitude the multiple “misinterpretations” provoked make the other as fixed sign fade away. The more different signs of the other stands out, the more overtly the other appears

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as a set line between facticity and interpretation which could have been different. With regard to the second, the focus is exclusively on the author element within the author-actor dualism in order to attribute autonomy to the other. That the other can appear as flux or as constant change is only possible when the other appears within person-patterns. The other, when appearing as a specific type or character is on the contrary inflexible. Now, the flux or change itself is nothing but a constant shift of actors attributed to an author. The constant change, which in this sense makes out the essence of person-patterns altogether, reveals or points at some activity and it is fundamentally this attribution of activity which distinguishes the person-patterns in relation to type- and characterpatterns. Further, we may say that only when the other as person is attributed activity as the cause for the occurrence of shifting actors, the other becomes a genuine person. When the other appears as a genuine person, we see the other as a duality of authorship and acts. This authorship is only understandable as an autonomous activity and as such a signo-interpretational process in itself. Only in this way the other is definitively set free in the sense of being attributed autonomy. As autonomous activity the other further remains unknown as every personhood is attributed something inscrutable left-over which withstands any attempt of a definite interpretation into some pattern; as also Simon underlines when he says: “In his freedom, one human being is to another human being an impenetrable person, who as such does not get exhausted by that as “which” she is comprehended in each case. She always remains, like all nature that is understood, also an uninterpreted Sign, an “atomic” subjectivity, as a remainder vis-avis all possible attempts at division into parts that are understandable.”⁴⁰⁹ This inscrutable residuum is not to be confused with some “free will” or “personal substance” but rather that which as constant activity withstands any classification altogether and therefore ex negativo something which remain autonomous, i. e. that which is free from external determination. The question remains how autonomous authorship can be ascribed to some other who is essentially only known through his signs? The other is an explicitly intrusive and suggesting significant other. In the encounter with the other as person we experience a difference between own and other which is revealed in certain examples of what I above named “absolute misinterpretations” in which I experience the other as someone who interprets differently. Kant gives an outstanding example of such an “absolute misinterpretation” namely when we apparently agree with some other in our concepts yet are proven wrong when we

 Simon, Philosophy of the Sign. 1995, p. 208.

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act; or as Kant clarifies: “that, especially in matters of reason, human beings who are united in language are as distant as heaven from earth in concepts. This becomes obvious only by chance, when each acts according to his own concepts.”⁴¹⁰ In the experience of such an “absolute misinterpretation” the other can (but must not) be attributed autonomy per analogy to oneself. The “absolute misinterpretations” which are disclosed when actions oppose understanding, exposes a fundamental difference between the other and me. I experience the other as I experience myself only through signs. Yet, there is an immediate difference between the signs of the other and the signs given directly to me. This difference is exactly exposed through the “absolute misinterpretations” which is why the experience of the other is not to know the other, but merely to come upon such difference.⁴¹¹ The “absolute misinterpretations” expose a difference between own and other in the way that they directly show that the other interpret differently than I do so that when I meet the other, I experience other interpretation. The signs of the other thus appear as not mine, yet they may, within a person-pattern, be attributed to the other as author, i. e. the other as interpreting being who has its own signs given and in the making. The other remains unknown, in the sense that I cannot ever have the same signs and interpretations as the other, but I can experience that the other has signs- and interpretations which are different from mine and thus per analogy interpret the other as signo-interpretational being, as myself. In such a perspective, the other not only appear as intruding sign, but directly appear as interpreting being, as a genuine person, i.e an author performing acts. Thus, concentrating on the other as autonomous author the skeptical attitude is able to see the signs of the other. The signo-interpretational perspective on the other therefore incorporate a genuine ethical stand by which the other is not only continuously set free by way of evading any definite interpretations but further attributed autonomy which, as inscrutable left-over, constitutes the other as a genuine person having value in itself. Seeing the other as author and in this way, as genuine person by analogy to oneself derived from the experience of an “absolute misinterpretation”, not only states that there is a mutually determining relation between own and other, but further that it is possible to determine what in this argumentation per analogy is presupposed as “myself”. A proper elucidation of the signo-interpretational ap-

 Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. 2006, p. 86.  Cf. “I would like to add: also ones own is only experienced through signs, because I experience other as a difference to my own. I do not experience “intersubjectivity”, but rather difference in understanding.” Simon, Bemerkungen zu den Beiträgen zur Philosophie des Zeichens. 1992, p. 212, [my translation].

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proach to the signs of the other hence leads to a clarification of what I shall call signs of self, which are to be elaborated in the next chapter.

11 Interpretations of Self The other as other person stands out as explicitly intruding and suggesting significant other within a sign-world and appears immediately through type-, character- and person-patterns. The other is thus always already “known” as a certain type, character and/or person and the actual challenge is accordingly not to alleviate some estrangement but rather to free the other from definite and constraining interpretations by attributing autonomy to the other by way of analogy to oneself. In this encounter with the other as explicitly intruding and suggestive significant other and through the ethical imperative to attribute the other autonomy, we are led to an immediate difference between own and other, i. e. to a difference between a third-person-perspective and a first-person-perspective in so far as such a distinction is asserted when arguing to attribute autonomy to the other by way of analogy to oneself. The question remains: what is this “myself” and how is it to be thought of within a signo-interpretational approach? To begin with, the question about this first-person-perspective seems to reintroduce the initial question in our pursuit to elucidate the signo-interpretational approach to world, other, and self, namely the question which led our enquiry in the first part: “who interprets”. Yet, there is a significant difference between how the question “who interprets” was clarified in part one and how we may elaborate it now. This difference is first of all given with the overall perspective in the first part as a merely negative or critical perspective with regard to the possibility of establishing a “who” as origin for the different interpretations. As a consequence of the elaborations in the foregoing chapters, we now have an advanced conceptual framework in order to address the question about “who interprets” anew and thus to undertake a decidedly positive elaboration of the same. With the elaboration in the present chapter, the overall pursuit to spell out a signo-interpretational philosophy as a skeptical disposition towards world, other, and self thus reaches its final stage and at the same time returns to the initial point of departure, albeit in a transformed perspective. Hence, based on the clarified inner elements of the signo-interpretational processes as a skeptical disposition, and by applying the inherent particular elements of this, namely the complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation; the sign as consistency; and finally, interpretation as a pendulous movement between dissolution and consolidation proceeding as a series of continuous corrections leading to an overall requirement of a skeptical attitude; the question “who interprets” can be answered once more. The first-person-perspective introduced with regard to attributing the other autonomy may be said to be a concrete manifestation of a certain “who” in https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110592078-013

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“who interprets”. The first-person-perspective thus instantiates a certain self-sign which more precisely is the signo-interpretational process interpreting itself. As outcomes of such a self-referential signo-interpretational process self-signs may be said to take a central position although still both straightforward simple and endlessly perplexing at the same time; straightforward simple because immediately recognized as the most directly given signs and coherent with the overall perspective that everything is sign and interpretation; endlessly perplexing because most elusive and inscrutable of all signs as they express an unavoidable circularity of always presupposing that which is first to be found. In this way, the following exposition of the self-signs stands in close relation to the long tradition within philosophy, which in various perspectives has scrutinized the selfreferential character of thinking whether as “consciousness”, “self-consciousness”, “I”, “subject” or “self”. The following exceeds these traditional answers and scopes in a crucial way as the signo-interpretational approach introduces an augmented skeptic stand to begin with. Consequently, all self-signs, as all other signs, are but concrete materializations of some signo-interpretational process which sets a fine line between facticity and interpretation and accordingly introduces the radical skeptic point of view: we do not and cannot ever know ourselves. All self-signs are but temporary endings of the otherwise unlimited semiosis – concurrently given and in the making as we go along. The here and now first-person-perspective is the most immediate self-sign, yet how does this phenomenon occur within a signo-interpretational perspective? As already mentioned above, I experience the other through an immediate difference which occurs as “misinterpretation”. The crux is now, that as I experience the other through the experience of a difference, I also only experience myself through such a difference. What is experienced in the so-called first-person-perspective is thus nothing but signs which stand out qua a difference, more precisely a difference to signs which are not mine. The first-person-perspective thus operates with two main categories of signs, namely signs attributed to myself and signs attributed to some other. The immediate experience of what we here call my signs is in turn nothing but the experience of a certain way of interpretation as different to another way of interpretation; a difference which occurs through “misinterpretations”. Now, this experience of a difference through “misinterpretations” constitutes an own-other dualism in the way that “own” and “other” are established concurrently. The crux is that this attribution of signs to myself is only possible to carry out negatively in relation to signs which are not attributed myself, but to some other. As such I only experience or have a first-person-perspective through or within an own-other dualism. Yet, the questions inevitably arise: what is first? And is there not rather either a “self” or an “other” before a difference can be detected? Yet, questions posed in this

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way are misleading. There is not first a “self” which then in a second step “meets” another. Rather, “self” and “other” are established in the moment a “difference” occurs. “Self” and “other” are thus not prerequisites for the establishment of an own-other dualism, but it is rather the other way around that qua a difference, an own-other dualism of “self” and “other” is established. The difference is in this way origin not product; and the most fundamental difference is the difference between sign and interpretation as also elaborated above. “Self” and “other” are signs derivative of a set difference and thus constitutes a border, which we cannot go beyond. In any signo-interpretational process a difference between sign and interpretation is given and in the making as we go along. Any difference thus materializes as a set line between facticity and interpretation and becomes immediately apparent as practical and theoretical corrections. Now, this point discloses a crucial aspect about self-signs, namely that without self-signs no signo-interpretational processes are possible at all. This is because signo-interpretational processes are materializations of own-other dualisms, i. e. concrete materializations of selfsigns altogether. Consequently, we must say that within any signo-interpretational process some own-other dualism is in play and accordingly self-signs occur in various forms, both practical and theoretical; or in other words: self-signs are not necessarily conceptual but appear also as “practical” constitutions of a difference in e. g.: “chemical”, “physical”, “bodily” or “emotional” corrections. However, the “theoretical” or “conscious” self-signs take a predominant place, as they are the only self-signs which do not merely constitute a difference between own and other, but further reflect this own-other dualism itself. In this sense, only the theoretical or conceptual self-signs are genuine self-signs as only here the self-referentiality of the signo-interpretational process becomes explicitly evident. On the contrary, a practical self-sign marks the one aspect within an own-other dualism but without any self-awareness and is therefore only a non-conscious and instantaneous establishment of a difference between own and other. In this way, practical self-signs merely express the necessary ownother dualism or set difference between sign and interpretation within all signo-interpretational processes. Theoretical self-signs on the other hand are self-signs which in addition are self-interpreting and are in this sense genuine self-signs which disclose the constituting and underlying own-other dualism as such. As is the case with all self-signs, the theoretical self-signs materialize as a specific own-other dualism by which a difference is constituted. The specific own-other dualism in which theoretical self-signs materialize is a specific signointerpretational discipline, namely language, depicted by Kant as “the greatest

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instrument for understanding ourselves and others.”⁴¹² Now, language is expressed in many different ways, from non-verbal signaling to abstract conceptual language. Yet, all language is, in one way or another, communication and as communication it materializes a certain own-other dualism. Self-signs are in other words embedded in language understood as a signo-interpretational discipline and thus emerge at once with language. Again, the complete concurrency of facticity and interpretation disallows any genesis theory about what is first – language or self-signs – as the two elements logically presuppose each other. All we can say is that conceptual language and self-signs are simultaneous and therefore that conceptual language occurs as self-signs occur and vice versa. Kant’s observation: “Thinking is speaking with oneself.”⁴¹³ expresses an intimate and inescapable interdependency of thinking and language, where the latter is understood as communication. We may therefore say that self-signs appear only as a consequence of or secondary to communication in a similar vein to Nietzsche’s insight that: “The sign-inventing person is also the one who becomes ever more acutely conscious of himself; for only as a social animal did man learn to become conscious of himself – he is still doing it, and he is doing it more and more.”⁴¹⁴, and further: “Consciousness is really just a net connecting one person with another”,⁴¹⁵ albeit without the naturalist assumptions directing Nietzsche’s view.⁴¹⁶ A crucial point is here that all self-signs are both “private” and inevitably

 Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. 2006, p. 86.  Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. 2006, p. 86.  Nietzsche, The Gay Science. # 354, 2001, p. 213. An important note to the English translation is here, that Nietzsche in the German original, does not speak of a “person”, who invents signs, but of the man, who invents signs. Cf. “Der zeichen-erfindende Mensch ist zugleich der immer schärfer seiner selbst bewusste Mensch; erst als sociales Thier lernte der Mensch seiner selbst bewusst werden, – er thut es noch, er thut es immer mehr.” (Nietzsche, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, #354, 1999, p. 592.) This is important to notice in so far as the concept “person” in the English translation must not be confused with the concept of “person” used throughout the present.  Nietzsche, The Gay Science. # 354, 2001, p. 212. Again, the English translation misses an important nuance. Nietzsche speaks not of “persons”, but of a connecting net between “man and man”. Cf. “Bewusstsein ist eigentlich nur ein Verbindungsnetz zwischen Mensch und Mensch […]”, (Nietzsche, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, #354, 1999, p. 591.)  Nietzsche remains within a decidedly naturalist perspective when he explains the development of consciousness as consequence of a need to communicate oneself to others: “To what end does consciousness exist at all when it is basically superfluous? If one is willing to hear my answer and its possibly extravagant conjecture, it seems to me that the subtlety and strenght of consciousness is always related to a person’s (or animal’s) ability to communicate. The latter should not be taken to mean that precisely that individual who is master at expressing his needs and at making them understood must also be the most dependent on others in his

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bound to some “common”, namely language as a signo-interpretational discipline which constitutes the own-other dualism altogether. “Private” signs are thus only possible as versions of common signs, within a specific language. Here again we arrive at a limit to what can be thought, yet this limit gives emphasis to the fundamental signo-interpretational approach, namely that everything is sign and interpretation – at the same time given and in the making, and that we are unable to go beyond this signo-interpretational point of view altogether. Self-signs occur as already embedded in an own-other dualism, yet how do they appear more concretely as signs? In order to elaborate this point, I shall make use of another quote from Kant in which the Kantian self-sign “I” is explained by means of a concept which I used earlier, namely the concept “person”: “The fact that the human being can have the “I” in his representations raises him infinitely above all other living beings on earth. Because of this he is a person, and by virtue of the unity of consciousness through all changes that happen to him, one and the same person”.⁴¹⁷ Here, Kant makes a direct connection between the capability of having the representation of an “I” – or a self-sign or the “own”-element within the own-other dualism – and the notion of “person”. In our signo-interpretational perspective the connection between “self-signs” such as the Kantian transcendental “I” may from this point of departure be explained as an inverted person-pattern. Self-signs are thus embedded in communicative signo-interpretational disciplines and constitute an own-other dualism in the way that a person-pattern, so far explained as ascribed to some other, is ascribed to oneself. In turn also the split between actor-signs and authorsigns is introduced with regard to oneself. A self-sign is thus fundamentally a person-pattern by which a doubling of the signo-interpretational process materializes; a doubling concretely manifest as the signo-interpretational process

needs. But for entire races and lineages, this seems to me to hold: where need and distress have for a long time forced people to communicate, to understand each other swiftly and subtly, there finally exists a surplus of this power and art of expression, a faculty, so to speak, which has slowly acummulated and now waits for an heir to spend it lavishly (the so-called artists are the heirs, as well as the orators, preachers, writers – all of them people who come at the end of a long chain, each of them “born late” in the best sense of the term, and each of them, again, squanderers by nature). Assuming this observation is correct, I may go on to conjecture that consciousness in general has developed only under the pressure of the need to communicate; that at the outset, consciousness was necessary, was useful, only between persons (particularly between those who commanded and those who obeyed); and that it has developed only in proportion to that usefulness.” Nietzsche, The Gay Science. # 354, 2001, p. 212. Once again, the words “person” and “people” are in the German original “Mensch”, i. e. “man”. Cf. Nietzsche, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, #354, 1999, p. 590.  Kant, Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. 2006, p. 15.

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takes form as a split between actor-sign and author-sign. In other words: the selfreferentiality of any signo-interpretational process constitutes an inner difference between “act” and “author”. This perspective gives a signo-interpretational explanation of the initial irreconcilable difference yet reciprocal dependency of “agent” and “process” in any endeavour to grasp the “who” in “who interprets” A self-sign conceived as “agent” thus materializes as an actor-sign and a selfsign conceived as process materializes as an author-sign. As directly derivative of an own-other dualism, self-signs as other-signs are always already there in so far as there are signo-interpretational processes. Selfsigns are – so to speak – before they become a philosophical problem. Consequently, the radical skeptical challenge of not “knowing” myself is mitigated as some self-signs always already are in play; practically in so far as a difference between own and other is set, between interpretation and sign, and theoretically in so far as the setting of this difference takes place within conceptual language. All self-signs materialize as some own-other dualism and concretize within theoretical disciplines as inverted person-patterns, i. e. as either actor-sign or author-sign – as either agent or process. As every signo-interpretational process sets a difference between own and other, self-signs will always exist, either practically or theoretically. The actual challenge is thus not to alleviate self-alienation and secure one’s identity or understanding of oneself, but rather to break free from the overwhelming self-signs already established. More concretely, some self-sign is always already in play as a way of interpretation ascribed to either some actor-sign or some author-sign – as predicate to subject. The skeptical attitude is in turn the attempt to break free from these ways of interpretation by means of an active dissolution, an intended openness and halting back one’s interpretations altogether. By way of such a skeptical attitude, the self-signs always in play are laid bare as what they are, namely signo-interpretational settings of a fine line between facticity and interpretation and the focus can accordingly change from the overwhelmingly intruding and suggestive self-signs to the signs of self and how these come about. I shall elaborate this in detail in two steps, viz.: 11.1 Actor-Signs and Author-Signs; 11.2 Signs of Self.

11.1 Actor-Signs and Author-Signs Self-Signs occur exclusively as part of an own-other dualism and more concretely as inverted person-patterns, hence materializing as either actor-sign or authorsign. The numerous signo-interpretational processes incessantly create a plurality of different self-signs all concretizing as a certain discipline as we go along. The decisive and distinguishing trait of all self-signs compared to all other signs

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is the self-referentiality of the signo-interpretational process itself. Self-signs address the signo-interpretational process itself, i. e. it interprets (in the making) some specific sign (as given). Accordingly, we may conceive self-signs – understood as either actor-signs or author-signs – as equivalent to either the aspect of following a rule or the aspect of inventing a rule, respectively. A self-sign as actor-sign is thus equivalent to following a rule in the way that the specific self-sign expresses an act ascribed to some external author, namely an existing rule that is followed. Conversely, a self-sign as author-sign is equivalent to inventing a rule in the way that the specific self-sign expresses the process of inventing itself. Hence actor-signs and author-signs concretize as “agent” and as “process”, respectively: actor-signs designate some “agent” which is seen as the “author” of itself as acts; conversely, author-signs designate the “process” itself. The crucial point is, however, that both actor-signs and author-signs occur as self-signs of some signo-interpretational process: actor-signs constitute a “self” which is merely an act of some external author understood as original “agent”; author-signs constitute a “self” which itself comprises both the author and the acts in one. It is here essential to understand that every self-sign, whether actor-sign or author-sign, as a certain inverted person-pattern includes both actor-sign and author-sign. The difference between the two kinds of self-signs is thus whether the inherent relation between actor and author includes an “agent” or whether the relation expresses pure “process”. I shall elaborate this in detail in two subsequent steps: 1) Actor-signs and 2) Author-Signs. 1) Actor-Signs: Self-signs concretizing as actor-signs reflect the signo-interpretational process by conceiving the perpetual flux of interpretations as acts of an external author. As acts of an author the continuous interpretations are so to speak acted out by an actor, yet belong or originate in an author different than this actor. In this way, the split between “author” and “actor” constitutes a split between two different “substances”, not a split within one “substance”. The self-sign understood as actor-sign is the self-referentiality of a certain way of interpretation, whereby this way of interpretation is ascribed to another author. A self-sign understood as actor-sign thus reflects a certain way of interpretation which is not its “own”. Now this does not mean that interpretations are not “mine” as in a first-person-perspective, but that the way I interpret is governed or controlled in the way of being directly caused by an author who is not “me”. The concrete and evident train of thoughts which some certain self-sign reflects is thus “mine”, but not mine of origin, i. e. this self is merely acting out some way of interpretation. Examples of self-signs concretizing as actor-signs are legion, yet all follow the same design: self is identified with acting out a way of interpretation, which in turn is identified with an external author. Further this author is identi-

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fied as something specific, hence constituting an underlying “agent”. It is not the crucial aspect here as “what” this agent is interpreted, but rather that some agent is seen as author of the acted out interpretations altogether. As such the general design is the same, whether the underlying agent of some specific acted out way of interpretation is identified as certain principles of knowledge (Descartes, Hume) or transcendental categories (Kant); a dialectical necessity (Hegel); a historic-materialistic occurrence (Marx); “drives”/“affects” (Nietzsche); an existential structure: “Dasein” (Heidegger); as “life-form” (Wittgenstein); as anthropological needs or psychological tendencies; or as some unavoidable metaphysical configuration of our thinking be it as some linguistic or grammatical structure or some happening or occurrence working through us: “history of being” (Heidegger), “historically effected consciousness” (Gadamer) “deconstruction” (Derrida) – just to mention some classical examples. Yet, also when the self-sign is identified with some external “fact”, which determines “who I am”, an actor-sign is introduced; e. g. when “who I am” in some way or the other is reduced to something more fundamental be it chemical processes, socio-economic structures or historical events. The crucial point is that the self-referentiality of the signo-interpretational processes establishes a self-sign in which “self” is understood as a concrete way of interpretation ascribed to an author different than me, namely some outside author working through me, so to speak. Furthermore, self-signs as actor-signs materialize as a circular movement as the specific way of interpretation which “I am” itself is recognized through the very same way of interpretation. In this way, it results in a self-inclusive statement simply affirming that the way “I” interpret is recognized through the way “I” interpret; whereby in turn the unavoidable and fundamental signointerpretational condition is confirmed, namely that everything is sign and interpretation. 2) Author-signs: self-signs understood as author-signs also operate with a split between actor and author, yet the split is here internal or within the same “self”. The concrete acts (interpretations) are ascribed to an author (interpreter) whom “I” myself am at the same time as I am the actor performing the acts; I am the author and the performed acts simultaneously. In self-signs understood as author-signs, actor and author are thus coincident in the way that they see the same self in two different ways concurrently; as two perspectives of the same thing. The crucial point is, however, that actor and author are inseparable in the way that the actor is at the same time author and vice versa. Since actorsign and author-sign in this way coincide, the author-sign cannot be substantialized as some specific “agent” because simply designating the continuous process materializing in the particular acts. The author-sign therefore expresses something which can never be object but rather remains the inscrutable source of ob-

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jects (signs and interpretations acted out). This authorship cannot itself be object because any attempt to grasp it immediately turns it into a definite sign and as such again becomes nothing but an acted out interpretation presupposing an author – lo, another infinite semiosis. Self-signs as author-signs also designate some way of interpretation, yet in a self-sign as author-sign something constantly resists the attempt of designation and thus makes out a sort of “blind spot” or inscrutable and unreachable residue. In this way, self-signs understood as author-signs are contrary to self-signs as actor-signs not self-inclusive as the author-signs which reflect some specific way of interpretation constantly and per definition are deficient because a blind spot remains inscrutable. The self-reflection is deficient in the way that it is always too “late” or cannot catch up with “itself” exactly because it is no determinable “agent”, which reflects itself through itself (as in actor-signs), but merely designates an ever-changing active process which stays active when reflecting itself. Hence, as author it is already another, when it reflects itself: or, the reflection is itself an active process not represented in what is reflected. Examples of self-signs concretizing as author-signs are many but all follow the same design, as they all in some way or another attempt to express the process of interpretation itself without substantializing it as agent, be it as “synthezising act” (Kant); “experience” (Hegel); “will” (Schopenhauer); “will to power” (Nietzsche); “interpretation” (Lenk, Abel); “understanding” through “openness” and “project” (Heidegger); “understanding” (Gadamer); “listening to” and “receiving” the happening of “Being” (Heidegger); “power of understanding” (Simon) – to mention some exemplary cases. To recapitulate: self-signs materialize either as actor-signs or as authorsigns. The point is that a self-sign always and already is in play and does therefore not have to be established and secured within chaotic and contingent processes of interpretation, but rather already functions as an inherent and unavoidable element within all signo-interpretational processes as such. As actor-signs, self-signs express some agent behind the process of thinking which becomes known by way of self-reflection; a self-reflection which itself is a direct “act” of the very “same” agent which is why actor-signs suggest self-inclusiveness or self-transparency. Further, the acted out interpretations are directly governed by the underlying agent, wherefore self-signs as actor-signs are heteronomous. In other words, the self-reflection within actor-signs expresses some kind of necessity. As author-signs, self-signs express the process of thinking itself, although only perceivable in the concrete acts of this author. As author-sign I am myself both author and acts concurrently and therefore unable to ever catch up with myself and thus “know” myself. Further, I am as author not governed from without.

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As author-sign I identify with the process itself and am therefore in this way “autonomous”; that which cannot be object is in other words freedom as such. Every self-sign, whether actor-sign or author-sign, includes a split between actor and author. This split may now be said to represent the initial signo-interpretational distinction between facticity and interpretation in the way that as actor-signs identify with some agent, they identify with something “given”, i. e. facticity; and conversely as author-signs identify with the process as such they identify with that which “makes”, i. e. interpretation. Self-signs are thus in general composed by either identifying with facticity (acts of some agent) or with interpretation (“authorship” itself). The crucial aspect is here double. Firstly 1): that a self-sign is always already in play either as actor-sign or as author-sign and further that any self-sign as either identifying with facticity or interpretation is a direct materialization of a specific setting of a fine line between facticity and interpretation. Secondly 2): that self-signs as actor-signs automatically lead to or involve some author-signs and vice-versa. This in turn is nothing else but the initially mentioned intimate relation between- and interdependency of- agent and process. Since self-signs are inverted person-patterns, the split between actor and author is inevitable and both actor and author are equally represented in all self-signs. The difference between actor-signs and author-signs is thus merely a question of which part is accentuated – acts or authorship, i. e. it is itself a setting of a line between facticity and interpretation. Now, acts are only comprehensible as acts of an author, and authorship is only comprehensible as a source or origin of acts. Hence actor and author are mutually dependent concepts and therefore form an inevitable circular pattern in the same way as the concepts of “agent” and “process” do. The shift from understanding oneself as actor to understanding oneself as author is thus not a shift which involves making a “new” concept” but merely a shift in “as what” I identify myself: actor or author. The point is that any actor may be seen as author; and that any author may be seen as actor. Why I identify with the one or the other would be a question for an empirical psychology; yet, that I can identify myself as actor or author is so to speak possible before any motivation or inclination for identifying with the one or the other is established. As there is always already a self-sign in play in any signo-interpretational process, the augmented skeptical challenge is instantly mitigated. The challenge is not to alleviate a radical skepticism with regard to “who” I am, but instead to break free of the specific self-signs by which I understand myself as either actor or author. This is done by means of a skeptical attitude which reveals that any self-sign is nothing but a set fine line between facticity and interpretation which could have been different. By means of a skeptical attitude any self-sign is thus exposed as a specific sign of self in which a line between facticity and

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interpretation is set. The skeptical attitude thus transforms the focus from the set self-signs to the signs of self; from as which signs we appear to the point that, when we think, then we ourselves appear as signs.

11.2 Signs of Self Every self-sign is a concrete manifestation of a set line between facticity and interpretation. Further, self-signs materialize as either actor-signs or author-signs depending on whether the self-reflecting interpretation identifies with facticity (agent) or interpretation (process). Now, the two points with regard to how the self-signs materialize as either actor-sign or author-sign as mentioned above – namely that 1) within any signo-interpretational process some self-sign is already in play either identifying with facticity (actor-sign) or interpretation (authorsign); and 2) that actor-signs and author-signs are interdepending and leads to one another – are here taken as point of departure. In every signo-interpretational process a self-sign is already in play as either actor-sign or author-sign. The interdependency of these two forms of self-signs constitutes a circular pattern. Now, the thesis is that the particular self-signs already in play in every signo-interpretational process are directly experienced as a distinct difference between own and other, and further concretely manifest in a pendulous shift between identifying oneself as either actor-sign (agent) or author-sign (process). This experience is thus an experience of the necessary circular dependency of actor-sign and author-sign, or the fact that actor-signs include and lead to author-signs; and author-signs include and lead to actor-signs. As an experience of an own-other dualism, it is most apparent and vivid in the encounter with the other and crystallizes further as a constant change between necessity (agent) and freedom (process) in concrete interpersonal situations. Now, the concrete experience of the self-signs as an unavoidable circularity of actor-sign and author-sign immediately mitigates any radical skepticism with regard to the “self” in the way that some “self” is always already established and “known” as me. Nonetheless, another problem occurs as the concrete character of any sign as consistent makes the experience of self-signs obsolete, because it is overpowered by the significance of the actor-sign or author-sign itself. The experience of a self-sign as self-sign is in other words only a passing, momentary experience. I experience only in a glimpse the very transition or change between an actor-sign and an author-sign and thus a self-sign as self-sign. Beyond this momentary experience self-signs remain insignificant and withdraw into anonymity. I thus only momentarily experience the self-signs as what they are, namely signs of self or set lines between facticity and interpretation, only to

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fall back into a fixed interpretation of myself as either actor-sign or author-sign. In order to break free of the already fixed and overwhelming concrete self-signs and see them as what they are, as set lines between facticity and interpretation which could have been different, a skeptical attitude is required. Only by means of employing a skeptical attitude it is possible to recall the momentary experience of the shift between actor-sign and author-sign; i. e. by way of an intended dissolution of a set sign of self, perpetual openness towards other signs of self and by halting back definite interpretations of self. I shall in the following elaborate this further in two steps, viz. 11.2.1 Experiences of Self; 11.2.2 Negations of Self.

11.2.1 Experiences of Self To experience a self-sign is to experience some self-sign which is already in play as either actor-sign or author-sign. The concrete self-signs are experienced foremost in the encounter with the other. Further, the experiences happen or take form as a circular pattern in which actor-signs lead to author-signs and author-signs lead to actor-signs. The experience of self-signs thus resembles the original unavoidable circularity of agent and process. The overall argument is as follows: i. Experiences of self-signs are experiences of a distinct difference between own and other; ii. Experiences of self-signs are experiences of a concrete shift between actor-sign and author-sign which takes place as a pendulous movement between actor-signs and author-signs; iii. The experience is an experience of necessity and freedom. I shall elaborate firstly the character of experience as the experience of a difference between own and other; secondly spell out how the experience takes form concretely as a circular pattern; and thirdly explain how the experience concretizes as experience of necessity and freedom, respectively. i. To experience here means “to notice” a difference between own and other and thus to notice oneself as self within a composition of own and other. Experience is here another word for the self-reflection or conscious self-interpretation only existent in theoretical self-signs. It is thus only in conscious and conceptual self-signs that the fundamental own-other dualism itself momentarily is experienced. An experience of an own-other dualism is in this way the distinguishing trait of a conscious self-sign altogether; contrary to practical self-signs which also expresses an underlying own-other dualism, yet does not reflect, i. e. experience this. What distinguishes conscious self-signs is that they are self-interpreting or self-conscious. This self-interpretation or self-consciousness is nothing but a direct noticing or experience of the own-other dualism which constitutes it.

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To notice or to experience one-self is basically to notice or experience oneself as part of an own-other dualism. Originally, there is in all signo-interpretational processes an own-other dualism, yet only in conscious self-signs this difference is experienced. Non-conscious, merely practical, self-signs are part of an own-other dualism, but this dualism is not itself noticed, but merely established in an instant and again instantly forgotten. It is thus the aspect of time that qualifies noticing or experiencing the own-other dualism. Experience happen in time understood in a sort of self-evident way, namely since experience is a concrete experience of time. Conversely, we may say that time concretizes as nothing but the experience of corrections through or over time. In other words: to experience is to notice how processes of corrections through time concretize as a difference between own and other. Experience is thus also another word for the conscious noticing of a certain signo-interpretational discipline, i. e. a certain mnemo-technique. Now, in a signo-interpretational perspective the establishing of a discipline or mnemo-technique happens both on a non-conscious merely practical level, i. e. as a process in which a sign so to speak is incorporated and serves as point of departure for future interpretations (as in non-conscious evolutionary processes where past signs so to speak are transferred or held on to and so functioning as point of departure for future interpretations); and on a conscious theoretical level understood as a process of conceptual identification and re-identification, i. e. as remembrance. Experience of the self is experience of interpretational corrections which in turn reveals the underlying own-other dualism. Any experience of a self is thus remembrance, as the different particular corrections only stand out when the particular corrected signs are remembered. Experience or remembrance is nothing but holding on to or keeping in mind some sign of the past in the present, whereby the difference is noticed. Experience as remembrance is the process by which a sign is incorporated as a specific given in the process of further interpretation. Experience as remembrance is thus a trace of the signs having been corrected. What is experienced is in other words some certain set line between facticity and interpretation itself and experience is basically experience of such a difference. Self-signs thus, like all other signs, express a specific signointerpretational process which is temporal or occurs through time or over time. Regardless whether the self-sign concretizes as actor-sign or as authorsign it expresses some relation between signs and interpretations over time and we may with Nietzsche’s words conclude that the “I” is nothing but a sign of memory or “a memory-sign”.⁴¹⁸ It is also in this way we should under-

 Nietzsche, Nachgelassene Fragmente, 1885/86, 2 [193], KSA 12, 1999, p. 162, [my translation].

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stand Peirce’s insight that the “I think” marks a consistency and therefore is a sign, or in Peirce’s own formulation: “Again, consciousness is sometimes used to signify the I think, or unity in thought; but the unity is nothing but consistency, or the recognition of it.”⁴¹⁹ In this sense the “I think”-interpretation is a certain discipline or mnemo-technique by which the signo-interpretational process itself is interpreted. To experience is to remember the signs which are corrected, whereby the difference between own and other is revealed and so the self-sign belonging hereto. Yet, experiences as remembrances are made in several ways and we may consequently speak of different forms of experience by which the underlying ownother dualism and thus a self is revealed. Overall we may distinguish between a plurality of experiences, both practical and theoretical, and distinguish between different experiences according to their individual force and clarity. For example, there is a distinct difference between the mere practical and bodily or sensual experience of an own-other dualism (e. g. to touch or be touched; to be limited in space in contact with things; to see an object; to hear a sound; taste, smell etc.) and purely theoretical and conceptual experience by which an own-other dualism becomes apparent as a difference of ideas and concepts (e. g. in a dispute; when reading a text; when conversing with others). The point is that the differences between the particular individual experiences are in themselves innumerable and are combined in innumerable ways, which is why it is impossible to distinguish clearly as well as to make an absolute account of each individual. Instead, we must conceive the experiences of self as multifaceted and a complex of various individual experiences conjoined with one predominant aspect. A certain bodily experience may thus presuppose some certain theoretical comprehension and vice versa; and further experiences can be said to transform gradually into each other depending on the signo-interpretational point of view. ii. Experiences are made, as concrete shifts between actor-sign and authorsign take place and take form as a pendulous movement between actor-signs and author-signs. Self-signs are experienced when a difference between own and other stands out and becomes explicit. In everyday encounters with the other such differences occur almost constantly and further offer an exceptionally strong experience of the own-other dualism, although such a difference may be experienced in the encounter with other phenomena as well. In the following, I will only focus on how the difference of own and other stand out in the relation to the other as the other also initially caused the question of self-signs altogether.

 Peirce, Some Consequences of Four Incapacities. 1960, p. 188.

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The experience of self as part of an own-other dualism concretizes in the encounter with the other as an experience of circular movement between interpreting oneself as actor-sign and as author-sign. The experience of self is made in the very moment the shift between an actor-sign and an author-sign takes place and is therefore, as said above – merely a momentary experience, although occurring repeatedly. More concretely, the experience is made when I in the encounter with the other am forced to give up my current self-sign and exchange it with another. Two kinds of exchange are here possible: firstly, an exchange of quality; secondly, an exchange of essence. The first, viz. exchange of quality, happens when I identify myself as some specific actor- or author-sign and then change the specifics of this. In an exchange of quality, I thus remain as either actor- or author-sign, but the specific content of this sign is changed. I may for example identify myself as actor-sign in the specific form of seeing myself as a combination of chemical processes and then exchange this with an interpretation of myself as a combination of cultural conditions. Both of these self-signs are actor-signs as an agent is presumed as author, and “I” am reduced to “acts” of this author. The exchange is thus merely an exchange of the specific quality of the self-sign, not the kind of self-sign as such. The same may happen if I identify as author-sign. The second kind of exchange, viz. exchange of essence, happens when I identify myself as some specific actor-sign and then exchange this with an author-sign or vice versa. This exchange is of a more groundbreaking nature since the exchange of quality, as here the difference of own and other, becomes explicitly exposed as a difference between agent and process, between necessity and freedom. Before I turn to this latter aspect, I shall elaborate how the exchange of essence proceeds as a pendulous movement between actor-signs and author-signs and thus form a circular movement between agent and process. In the momentary exchange of essence, we experience the always already set self-signs in an outstanding and fundamental way. The thesis is now, that the exchange of essence proceeds as a shift or interchange between actor-sign and author-sign, agent and a process, which materializes as a circular process. This circular change between actor-sign and author-sign takes place concretely as both practical and theoretical corrections, i. e. through both actions and thoughts. The point of departure for the change is the always already set self-signs in play. The process initiates both from actor-signs and from author-signs. This means that the circular process may begin with either an actor-sign or an author-sign; or in other words: the process may be described as beginning in both kinds of self-signs as the own-other dualism is already in play and working before any experience of a self-sign is made, and further because actor-sign and authorsign as concepts logically presuppose each other as two equal constituents of

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the inverted person-pattern. In this way, there is no problem of a “beginning” as we have already begun – we may start anywhere: by an actor-sign or an authorsign materializing as part of an own-other dualism. And thus, embedded in and part of an own-other dualism, the experiences of the shifts are foremost apparent in the engagement with, and relation to the other. The circular movement between actor-sign and author-sign happens concurrently practically and theoretically, i. e. through a certain interplay of actions and thoughts in the direct meeting with the other as sign. It is thus the concrete meeting with the other which initially and directly provokes a change in the way I interpret myself as either actor or author. The circular movement can be described as a series of steps by which the change gradually happens. These steps are here formulated in a manner which erases the complexity of the gradual change and are accordingly to be understood as outstanding stations on a path, which itself is not possible to describe entirely. The circular movement between actor-signs and author-signs thus proceeds in the following steps: #1 Designation: A self-sign is always and necessarily part of an own-other dualism. The interpretation I make of myself is directly connected to the interpretation the other makes of me in the way that I understand myself through designations of me made by the other. When meeting the other I am immediately interpreted into some type-, character and/or person-pattern and thus designated. My acts point back at an author who is expressed directly in the acts; an author defined by the way the other interprets my acts as direct signs of me as a certain type, character or person. As I am designated, I am interpreted definitively as this and this. In my self-interpretation I identify with the “given” signs immediately available (intruding and suggesting) from my direct encounter with the other; and so I identify myself with facticity. As this facticity is nothing but the way the other interprets me as a definite type, character and/or person, I identify with this definite interpretation. Hence I interpret myself as actor-sign. #2 Multiplication: As I interpret myself as actor-sign, I identify with the given signs available in the immediate encounter with the other. The other interprets me within some type-, character- and/or person-pattern, yet because I encounter not just one other but many different others and from each particular other find a plurality of designations of me over time, a discrepancy occurs between both the designations made by different others and different designations made by the same other. In other words: the immediately given signs of me multiply. This multiplication of given signs which I, as I interpret myself as actor-sign, may identify with, is shown concretely as I only reluctantly designate myself as type, character or some certain person, namely because I have direct memory if not of all, then of many of the numerous given signs of me. The other may have knowledge of me as a complex of different signs, yet the range and diversity

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of this complex will never reach the range and diversity I myself find immediately given and have recollection of. My “inner life” is in this way always more complex than any outward representation in the other will ever be able to imitate. Consequently, the given signs of the others that I identify with will eventually be experienced as an imprisonment and inhibiting restraint, regardless the complexity of the type-, character- and person-patterns designated. #3 Sublation: The multiple given signs with which I identify when interpreting myself as actor-sign become incongruent and reciprocally excluding. Theoretically, I may sublate each of the given signs by interpreting them as either author or acts and so create an internal order between the given signs in which some are more fundamental (author) than others (acts). Certain given signs that have occurred repeatedly over time are given a priority in relation to signs that have only occurred seldom. The rare signs are so to speak predicates to a subject or acts of an author, whom I really am. The multiple given signs, with which I identify as actor-sign, still exist but are sublated in a process where some sign is given priority serving as the “real” or “true” me. #4 Exchange: As a theoretical sublation is undertaken and a priority between the given signs is set, a split between author and act occurs in the way that I experience authorship. Sublations at first order the given signs by which I identify, yet the sublation may itself be sublated and the process of sublation thus proves self-enforcing. This experience of authorship is directly given as I order the given signs at will. In the freedom experienced when ordering the given signs and when “choosing” one sign to be more original than others I experience authorship as such. The given sign which before was attributed to an external author defined by the other, is now challenged by another author, namely myself as “orderer” of the given signs; or in other words: instead of identifying myself with the given signs (facticity) I may now identify with the ordering of these signs (interpretation). The given signs as acts of an author are now attributed the author I myself am, instead of the author I am not (the definition by the other). I identify with the given signs and the making of the signs as I, as author, become aware of how I may provoke the occurrence of signs “given” by the other; and so, I identify myself with “interpretation” – I interpret myself as author-sign: I am author and acts simultaneously. #5 Performance: When interpreting myself as author-sign I am concurrently author and acts in the way that I myself am the author of my acts and thus I am a performer. In my relation to the other, I perform in my awareness of my authorship of the given signs a certain style. As I interpret myself as author-sign, I become aware of style as an expression of what I am as author through the signs I produce. Style is the conscious attempt to create a certain impression in the other about “who” I am, i. e. the conscious attempt to provoke, create or produce

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certain signs which represent me as author and with which I can simultaneously identify as the author of. Expressing oneself as a certain style must here not be understood as some fundamental anthropological need, be it as cultural or psychological tendency in man. Rather, it must be seen beyond any anthropological schematism altogether as a signo-interpretational relation to self; namely as selfinterpretation through an author-sign. #6 Conflict: As I express myself through style, I am simultaneously author and acts. I regard myself as a free performer and am in control of how I express myself or how I act: I am what I act, i. e. I act out signs through some certain style, which directly expresses me as author. Yet, despite the fact that the signs I act out to me are a direct expression of me as author, they are for others nothing but signs possible to interpret in various ways. The signs produced and acted out by me are, as soon as they have been acted, irreversible in the way that they cannot be “un-acted”. The signs I have acted out are no longer in my control. This becomes distinctively clear as a direct conflict between the way I interpret the signs which I in my self-expression act out, and how these signs are interpreted by the other. I am so to speak in the hands of the spectator, completely exposed to the propensities of the other. The conflict materializes as the way I interpret the signs I act out as proof of free expression, the other interprets the same signs as acts of a certain type, character and/or person. This conflict only deepens in the case where a style is expressed successfully, i. e. when my expressed style and the interpretations of the other match, because over time this expressed style will itself become a restraint for me should I wish to express another, diverging style. As above, the person I am to others is a restraint to my “inner life” and so will every successfully expressed style eventually turn towards its own author, me, and become a self-invented restraining role. It will necessarily become such a restraining role because as author-sign I identify with the process of interpretation itself, yet the other inevitably interprets every one of my acts as expression of some certain type, character and/or person. In an attempt to avoid such “misinterpretations” and incongruence between how the other interprets my acts and how I interpret my acts, the attempts to express a style become more and more difficult in order to govern the interpretations of the others. Gradually, I am forced to use more and more significant, suggesting and intrusive signs, yet, it is in vain, as the other will inevitably interpret me into some type-, character and/or person-pattern. Similarly, it can be argued, that because of the ever-increasing number of signs and the nature of signs as designed to stand out, the acts become more and more extreme in order to be able to express a style altogether, as style is closely linked with originality if not to be just some fashion, i. e. something which does not represent original au-

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thorship in me but rather represents an author outside me which I merely act out. #7 Reduction: Since I as author-sign identify myself with both authorship and acts, the conflicts will eventually provoke a doubt with regard to my self-interpretation as author-sign. The experienced conflicts and the continual experience of being interpreted as some certain type, character and/or person will at first confirm my self-interpretation as free author, yet eventually lead me to doubt my authorship altogether. This happens via two closely related steps. Firstly, we may say that the variations of interpretations of me as some certain type, character and/or person – which at first seem to confirm my authorship – are countered by an experience of repetitiveness of definite interpretations of me into fixed type-, character- and/or person-patterns caused partly by a) the definite number of signs and interpretations available and b) the other’s lack of creative interpretations of my acted-out signs. Secondly, this experience of repetitiveness of definite interpretations into fixed type-, character- and/or personpatterns is followed and maintained by myself as I interpret the given signs of my acts, because of the same lack of creative interpretations in me. As such, instead of interpreting the various definite interpretations of me as a confirmation of my authorship, I will tend to reduce these various definite interpretations of me to some primary author, i. e. some primary version of myself as author. In a similar vein, as when an ordering of the different given signs by way of sublation as described above (#3), an ordering is now taking place again, yet not as sublation, but as reduction. I reduce, so to speak, the various experienced fixed interpretations by others to nothing but a variation of some primary author, as a result of which my authorship altogether begins to dissolve. When reducing my various authorships into one primary, I order the different interpretations of me. But doing so, I must necessarily identify with the given interpretation of my acts given by the other. I am thus primarily that which the other interprets me as, i. e. I am primarily the given signs designated by the other, which I cannot escape. The interpretations by the other define me, inhibit me and restrain me. I am nothing more than my acts, as they are to the other and so gradually my authorship dissolves. #8 Exchange: As the styles I perform are reduced to variations of a theme, the various acts I perform are reduced to a specific author behind these. In order to designate this primary author I identify with some certain interpretations of my act given by the other, and so I identify with “facticity”; I interpret myself as actor-sign and am no longer myself both author and actor, but instead now again acting out some specific author defined by the other. The stations here described make out the circular movement between actorsign and author-sign. Now, this circular movement is not to be understood as a

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necessary movement as it 1) may break off anytime and 2) is dependent on certain outer provocations (intrusive and suggesting signs) which 3) may be interpreted in numerable different ways without any inner rationality. Nonetheless, the circularity in the shifts between actor-sign and author-sign may be said to follow a certain logical necessity, yet not necessary in practice. In fact, each step may last and even be said to have an inner resilience to change as a consequence of the nature of signs as being consistent. I may in this way be exposed to one or more of the described conditions within one or more of the steps simultaneously, without necessarily moving onto the next logical step and without an exchange necessarily happening. Accordingly, a certain existing self-sign may persist despite the right conditions and provocations from without: one may stay within an actor-sign or within an author-sign without ever exchanging the essence, but merely the quality of the same. Yet, if an exchange of essence takes place, i. e. if an exchange from actor-sign into author-sign or from author-sign into actor-sign takes place, then the self-sign in play will momentarily be noticed and thus experienced, and only then. The mere exchange of quality will not reveal the self-sign as what it is, because it persists in its essence; the experience of self thus presupposes the exchange of essence to take place concretely. This experience happens concretely as an experience of necessity and freedom, which shall be elaborated further in the following. iii. The experience of an exchange of essence, as it happens when an exchange of an actor-sign and an author-sign takes place, concretizes as an experience of necessity and freedom. This becomes clear since the exchange of essence in fact is an experience of a difference between agency and process. As agent (actor-sign) I am something specific, which is directly expressed in my acts understood as both actions and thoughts. As process (author-sign) I am nothing specific, but rather the momentary expression of acts, understood as both actions and thoughts. When the self-interpretation identifies with facticity, it identifies as some certain agent whom I am. I interpret myself as this and this, as so and so, and in this self-interpretation I identify with the signs given by the other. As actorsign I therefore identify with some agent and my acts are expressions of an author different than me, and thus as expressions of some agent necessary; or in other words: I am necessary in my actions and in my thoughts. When the self-interpretation identifies with interpretation itself, it identifies as process which I am. I interpret myself as an ever-changing flux of acts, and in this self-interpretation I identify with the signs I act out as style. As author-sign I therefore identify with the very process itself and my acts are direct expressions of this process and so free expression or style.

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Now, the experience of myself as self, as either actor-sign or author-sign, occurs in the moment the necessity of agency or the freedom of process is contradicted by the other. Concretely, this takes place both practically and theoretically, i. e. through actions and in thought and accordingly happens in two ways as either the contradiction of necessity by freedom or the contradiction of freedom by necessity. When I interpret myself as necessary, I only momentarily experience this in the direct encounter with freedom, i. e. in the case where my necessity is challenged. This happens concretely when the interpretation of my acts by the other contradicts the interpretation I myself have hereof. I interpret myself as this and this when identifying directly with the signs given by the other, yet this self-interpretation is increasingly challenged as the interpretations of my acts by the other multiply and consequently start to disagree with one another as described above in #2. My alleged necessity is directly contradicted by the plurality of interpretations by the other and so the given signs with which I seek to identify. This is manifest when I carry out acts which I hitherto have interpreted as provoking certain re-actions in the other (practically and theoretically) and now experience an unforeseen re-action. This may not as mentioned necessarily provoke an exchange of essence, yet it will in any case start a theoretical process of sublation and ordering within me and so confront me with the freedom of interpretation, firstly in the other and consequently within me. When I interpret myself as free, I only momentarily experience this in the direct encounter with necessity, i. e. in the case where my freedom is challenged. This happens concretely when the interpretation of my acts by the other contradicts the interpretation I myself have hereof. I interpret myself as ever-changing flux, as free process when identifying directly with the signs I act out as free author, yet this self-interpretation is increasingly challenged as the expressed acts conflict with the definite interpretations of the same acts into type, characterand/or person-patterns by the other as described above in #6. My alleged freedom is directly contradicted by the conflicting interpretations of my acts and style by the other and so challenges the authorship with which I seek to identify with directly in my acts. This is manifest especially when I carry out acts with which I intend a certain re-action in the other, but now experience a completely different re-action which stand in direct opposition to my intention. This is first and foremost experienced in moral acts and moral interpretations. Again, this may not necessarily lead to an exchange of essence, yet it has planted a doubt in me with regard to my authorship, and thus sets of a process of reducing the conflicting re-actions to one primary authorship and thus confronts me with the necessity of interpretations, first within the other and consequently within me.

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The momentary experience of necessity and freedom, of agent and process, is a concrete experience of some certain self as either actor-sign or author-sign. It is an instant experience in which one notices oneself as self (either actor-sign or author-sign) in relation to some other. This experience thus momentarily reveals some own-other dualism which could have been different and thus exposes this own-other dualism as a set line between facticity and interpretation. As the ownother dualism is revealed, I simultaneously experience the concrete self-sign which I interpret myself as, as itself nothing but a sign of self, i. e. as what it is, namely a concrete setting of a line between facticity and interpretation. In the momentary experience of necessity and freedom, of agent and process, we thus get to “know” not only the other, but also ourselves; or in the words of Schopenhauer: “it is only a posteriori, through experience that we get to know ourselves, just as we get to know other people.”⁴²⁰ When, in a momentary experience, we get to know the other and ourselves, this experience is itself a sign, which, for a moment, halts the otherwise unlimited semiosis. The experience is first and foremost momentary, i. e. the experience is itself immediately covered and overshadowed by other signs and thus withdraws into anonymity. Despite the momentary experience of self as sign, and thus of an own-other dualism, a new self-sign is immediately set as either actor-sign or author-sign. In order to break free from the always set self-signs and reveal these as signs of self, the momentary experience must be intentionally repeated again and again. To do so, a skeptical attitude is required.

11.2.2 Negations of Self As in every signo-interpretational process, an inner skeptical tendency is at work when self-signs are constituted within some own-other dualism. Signs are given and in the making concurrently and the signo-interpretational process itself proceeds as the institutionalization of some certain mnemo-technique or interpretational discipline as we go along. Consequently, any momentary experience of some certain self-signs as a set fine line between facticity and interpretation is immediately “covered” by new set signs and the experience is as such an exception. Nonetheless, it is possible to A) repeat the experience by means of provoking a shift between actor-sign and author-sign by means of a skeptical attitude and B) to institutionalize this repetition itself and thus memorize the particular shifts between actor-signs and author-signs, whereby it becomes clear that I am

 Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation. Fourth Book, §55, 2010, p. 329.

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equally actor-sign and author-sign, i. e. concurrently both actor-sign and authorsign; this in turn will answer our initial question about how I may understand the other and set the other free per analogy to myself. A) The skeptical attitude provokes a shift between actor-sign and author-sign and thus provokes a repetition of the momentary experience of self as a setting of a line between facticity and interpretation. The skeptical attitude materializes as intended dissolution of a given self-sign an openness towards other possible self-signs and as an interpretational epoché with regard to the setting of new definite self-signs. In this way, the skeptical attitude towards the signs of self materializes the pursued emancipation from the overwhelming and intruding selfsigns already in play concretely as an on-going negation of these, whereby in turn, the same self-signs are experienced as settings of a line between facticity and interpretation. As on-going negation, the skeptical attitude take its point of departure in the given signs of self, i. e. in either actor-signs or author-signs and the negation therefore takes form depending on the particular self-sign in play. Consequently, the negation materializes respectively as a specific form of freedom since the overall end and inner drive of the skeptical attitude is the emancipation of the given signs of self. Accordingly, the skeptical attitude aims at either emancipation from actor-signs or emancipation from authorsigns. As every actor-sign expresses some sort of necessity, and every authorsign expresses freedom as such, the concrete negation takes form as emancipation from necessity and freedom respectively; the negations of self are thus either the attempt to break free from necessity of some actor-sign or the attempt to break free from the freedom of some author-sign. Negations of actor-signs are attempts to break free from the necessity which follows when identifying with some particular given sign (facticity), which is interpreted as the original and underlying author to the concrete acts which I am. More concretely, the negations of actor-signs are attempts to break free from the intrusiveness of being an actor, i. e. the interpretation of self by which I am necessary in my thoughts and in my actions. As actor-sign I identify with a given sign and am therefore instantly overwhelmed by the intrusiveness of the numerous available and ubiquitous signs in my direct surroundings. The negations of actor-signs are attempts to emancipate oneself from the given, i. e. from the weight of being something specific, of being this and this in the awareness of, that this and this could be different. In this skeptical attitude towards oneself as actor-sign we encounter the phenomenon of radical creativity understood as double negation, i. e. as negation of both the given signs and the already given possible negations of these. The intended negation as negation of the given is thus in it’s strive identical with radical creativity as a double negation, and as such equally difficult to achieve. When interpreting myself as actor-sign,

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necessity thus overpowers the perpetual attempts of being free; as actor-sign my freedom will always be insufficient and necessity guides not only my view of self, but also my interpretation of world and others. Negations of author-signs are attempts to break free from the freedom that follows when I identify with the process of interpretation itself, and whereby I am simultaneously author and acts, directly appearing in some particular expression of style. Concretely, the negations manifest themselves as attempts to break free from the responsibility of authorship, i. e. of being author of the acts expressed in style. This is provoked mainly by the encounter with constant misinterpretations of the style expressed and hence again an attempt to break free from some overwhelming and intruding given, namely the given interpretation of me by the other. As I experience the inadequacy of my intentions within some expressed style and the interpretations hereof by the other, the free authorship itself becomes a restraint mainly because I experience the limitations of this freedom directly in the encounter with the other. As I interpret myself as some author-sign, I am increasingly burdened by both the task to express some original style and the task to take the full responsibility of the expressed style in my acts, regardless of how the other interprets this and re-acts to these, my acts. The negations of author-signs are attempts to emancipate myself from the inherent restraints and unavoidable limitations to my freedom as author, which become as intruding and overwhelming as any given sign. Negations of author-signs are thus attempted emancipations from being an author altogether, i. e. emancipation from the freedom of authorship, which always materializes as something specific in the encounter with the other, and thus always turns into its own opposite namely necessity. In this the acute awareness is present, that how I am met by the other, as I myself am the author, could be different. Further a distinct awareness appears that I myself, as creative author, am the only one who is able to alter this. The negations of author-signs thus seek to break free from the intrusiveness of the burden of having to create a style, well aware that true radical creativity in expressing a style is, because it is dependent and limited by the interpretations of the other, not only difficult, but in the end impossible. The skeptical attitude towards self-signs materializes as two distinctively different ways of negations, yet again the circular movement between actor-sign and author-sign become apparent as namely the negation of an actor-sign is only fully achieved when the shift into an author-sign is carried out and vice versa. The circularity of agent and process, of actor-sign and author-sign, is repeated as a circular movement between negations of necessity and negations of freedom; and the skeptical attitude manifests itself as perpetual negation. B) By repeating the shifts between actor-signs and author-sign by way of the skeptical attitude, which intentionally negates the particular set self-sign, the

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shifts over time eventually themselves establish as an interpretational discipline and thus as a certain mnemo-technique. The repetitions of the experiences of self by way of provoking a shift through negation automatically make the experiences of self change character. In this way, they are no longer merely momentary but are experiences experienced over time. The on-going negations of selfsigns will in other words make not only a momentarily experienced self-sign appear as a particular set line between facticity and interpretation, but furthermore let the continuous shift between actor-signs and author-signs stand out as an ever-changing circular process in which a line between facticity and interpretation is set again and again as a temporary halt of the otherwise on-going semiosis. As this ever-changing process itself stands out I see myself as both actor-sign and author-sign simultaneously; or in other words: as the skeptical attitude itself is institutionalized as a specific signo-interpretational discipline I remember (mnemo-technique) the experiences of the shift, and thus realize that I am both actor-sign and author-sign concurrently. I am in turn always both actorsign and author-sign and the negation of the one happens through the setting of the other and thus constitutes a circular pattern, which I cannot escape. Instead this circular pattern expresses that I am sign and interpretation, simultaneously given and in the making as we go along. Seeing the other per analogy to myself thus means seeing the other as both actor and author, and thus freeing the other from both the necessity imposed through actor-signs and the freedom through author-signs; or in other words: setting the other free by allowing the other to be both a necessary agent and a free process at the same time.

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Simon, Josef: Zeichenphilosophie und Transzendentalphilosophie. In: Zeichen und Interpretation. Edited by Josef Simon. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1994. Simon, Josef: Philosophy of the Sign. Translated by George Heffernan. State University of New York Press. 1995. Simon, Josef: Verstehen ohne Interpretation? Zeichen und verstehen bei Hegel und Nietzsche. In: Distanz im Verstehen. Zeichen und Interpretation Band II. Edited by Josef Simon. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1995. Simon, Josef: Orientierung in Zeichen. Zeichen und Interpretation, Band III. (ed.) Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1997. Simon, Josef: Philosophie als Verdeutlichung. Abhandlungen zu Erkennen, Sprache und Handeln. Edited by Thomas Sören Hoffmann. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/New York 2010. Stegmaier, Werner: Weltabkürzungskunst. Orientierung durch Zeichen. In: Zeichen und Interpretation. Edited by Josef Simon. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1994. Simon, Josef: Orientierung. Philosophische Perspektiven. Ed. By W. Stegmaier. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 2005. Simon, Josef: Philosophie der Orientierung. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin/New York 2008. Steltzer, Rainer: Interpretation und Wirklichkeit. Das Realitätsproblem unter den Bedingungen interpretationsphilosophischer Ansätze. Innsbruck University Press 2001. Wittgenstein, Ludwig: On Certainty. Edited by G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright. Translated by Denis Paul and G.E.M. Anscombe. Basil Blackwell. 1969. Wittgenstein, Ludwig: Philosophical Investigations. Translated by G.E.M. Anscombe. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1974. Wittgenstein, Ludwig: Philosophische Grammatik. Werkausgabe I. Suhrkamp. Frankfurt am Main, 1984. Wittgenstein, Ludwig: Philosophical Grammar. Edited by Rush Rhees. Translated by Anthony Kenny. University of California Press. Berkeley and Los Angeles. 2005.

Subject index Actor 27, 31, 154, 157, 161 f., 170 – 172, 174, 179 f., 183, 187, 189 – Actor-sign 169 – 181, 183 – 189 Agent 18 – 20, 31 f., 36 f., 46, 67, 70 f., 90, 170 – 176, 179, 184, 186, 188 f. Anthropocentric 11 f. Anthropology 4 f., 75, 88, 90, 112, 143, 151, 163, 168 f. Art 53, 69, 81 f., 129, 146, 169 Author 31 f., 154 – 157, 161 – 163, 170 – 174, 179 – 185, 187 – 189 – Author-sign 169 – 189 Autonomy 103, 106, 116 f., 119 f., 144, 161 – 163, 165 Being-in-the-world 68, 84, 118, 123 Belief 14 f., 18, 40, 45, 47 f., 56, 91, 106 f., 111 Better understanding 45, 52 f., 73, 79, 89, 91 f., 94, 105, 135 Cartesian 15, 107 Circle 16, 62 f., 115 Circular 20, 30, 36, 115, 172, 174 – 176, 179 f., 183, 188 f. Clarification 8, 27, 35, 41 – 45, 48 – 51, 57, 59, 72, 74, 83, 135, 164 Cogito 47 – Anti-cogito 30 Cognition 3, 10, 17, 19, 27, 29, 37, 51, 55, 59, 64, 72, 74, 84, 118, 133 Coherence 141 Communication 8, 55, 59, 84, 130, 139 f., 168 Compensation 7 Conflict 182 f., 185 Consistency 47, 86, 103, 108 f., 115, 117, 165, 178 Constructivism 27, 80 Contingency 7, 89 – 91, 124 Creativity 72 f., 77 – 84, 95, 116, 118 f., 131, 187 f.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110592078-015

Critique 14, 16 f., 20, 40, 54 f., 59, 63, 71 – 73, 76, 83, 89, 91, 133 Deconstruction 6, 172 Designation 17, 32, 46, 122, 140, 148, 155, 173, 180 Discourse 6, 51, 86, 88 Dissolution 20, 70, 103, 115, 121, 137, 141, 158, 161, 165, 170, 176, 187 Dogmatism 63 Doubt 3, 14 f., 41, 43 f., 47 f., 56, 78 f., 106 – 108, 114, 120 – 122, 145, 157 f., 183, 185 Epistemology 55, 133 Essentialism 55, 64 Evolution 7 Exchange 39, 179, 181, 183 – 185 Existential 10, 16, 104, 172 Experience 5, 43, 46, 57 f., 64, 69, 75, 91, 136, 161 – 163, 166, 173, 175 – 181, 183 – 189 Expression 8, 27, 50, 57, 61, 64, 68, 81, 85 – 87, 110, 128 f., 140, 169, 181 f., 184, 188 Finitude 7, 21, 63, 83, 85 – 89, 92 Fixation 19 f., 52, 86, 108, 111, 142, 156 Forms of knowledge 69, 151 Freedom 71, 79, 87, 93, 103, 116 – 120, 152, 157 f., 161 f., 174 – 176, 179, 181, 184 – 189 Genealogy

62, 70, 72 f., 75 – 77, 94, 113

Hermeneutics 4, 7, 20 f., 35 f., 56 f., 83 f., 86, 88, 121 Horizon of understanding 51 Idealism 21, 31, 33, 35, 55, 58, 62, 64, 78 Identity 16 f., 47, 52, 61, 79, 89, 93, 103 f., 109, 124, 132, 144, 155 f., 170 Indicative 127, 130, 132 Individuality 41, 44 – 47, 92, 94, 119

Subject index

Individuation 47, 61, 104, 114 Insignificant 57, 91, 128 – 132, 134, 138 f., 146, 175 Intrusive 125 – 127, 130 f., 145, 147 f., 159, 162, 182, 184 Kantian 6, 11, 16, 18 f., 32 f., 36, 62 f., 73 – 75, 83, 93, 117, 169 Language 3, 10 f., 17 f., 21, 28, 37, 39 – 43, 45 f., 55, 60, 63, 84 – 86, 112 f., 129, 136, 139 – 141, 143, 163, 167 – 170 Linguistic 3, 8, 10, 16, 28, 60, 84, 104, 128, 139, 141, 172 Materialism 7 Meliorism 50, 52, 73, 75, 83, 92 f. Methodological 10, 12, 22, 27, 29 – 34, 38, 72 f., 77 f., 83, 135 Mind 3 f., 11, 19, 42, 55, 70, 85 – 88, 111, 177 Misinterpretation 147, 158 – 163, 166, 182, 188 Naturalism 7 f., 37 f. Natural Science 4, 7, 27, 133 Necessity 34, 48, 53, 73, 172 f., 175 f., 179, 184 – 189 Negation 48, 72, 78, 81 f., 95, 115, 117 – 119, 121, 176, 186 – 189 Nietzschean 19, 32, 36, 76 f., 91 Ontology 10, 19, 21, 39 f., 58 – 61, 63 – 65, 67, 85, 91, 116 Orientation 8, 10, 50 – 54, 73, 75 f., 79, 89, 91 – 94, 108, 110, 129 Pattern 20, 28, 30, 36, 57 f., 66, 78, 110 f., 113, 147 – 154, 156 – 158, 160 – 163, 165, 169 – 171, 174 – 176, 180 – 183, 185, 189 Performance 181 Person 3, 16, 27, 34, 42, 47, 56, 74, 147 – 149, 153 – 158, 160 – 163, 165 f., 168 – 171, 174, 180 – 183, 185 Personal identity 155 – 157 Phenomenology 4, 7, 81, 94 Philosophical anthropology 5 f.

197

Pragmatic 5, 31, 33, 36 f., 48 – 50, 59 f., 72 – 74, 89, 91, 112, 151 f., 163, 168 f. – Pragmatic assurance 31 – 33 Prima philosophia 52 f., 143 Realism 33, 35 f., 55, 58, 62, 64 f., 78, 135 Reality 10, 16, 33, 36 – 39, 49 f., 58 f., 62 – 65, 80, 88, 90, 104, 121, 134 f., 137 – 139, 141, 155 f., 160 – Signs of reality 124, 134 f., 137 – 139, 144, 146 Reflection 42, 45 f., 64, 66 f., 75, 83, 85, 123, 151, 173, 176 Relativism 55, 60, 64, 94, 118 Science 3 f., 7, 17, 29, 69, 77, 87 f., 90, 106, 112 f., 130, 133, 142, 146, 149, 168 f. Scientific 3, 5 f., 10, 21, 27 f., 40, 56, 58, 81, 130, 133, 137 Self 1, 3 f., 6, 8 – 10, 12 – 16, 19, 21 f., 29, 32, 35, 46, 49, 51, 53, 61, 69 – 71, 75, 78, 87, 91 – 94, 103 – 107, 111 – 113, 120 – 123, 133, 150, 164 – 189 – Self-construct 30 – Self-inclusive 30, 35, 172 f. – Self-referentiality 6, 14, 16, 20, 29 f., 32, 53, 61, 167, 170 – 172 – Self-relation 16 Semiotics 8, 10, 21, 39, 56 f., 104, 130 Significant 72, 91, 126 – 133, 138 f., 145 – 147, 165, 182 Significant Other 123 – 128, 130 – 134, 137 f., 144, 147, 157, 162, 165 Skeptical disposition 1, 9, 12, 15, 21 f., 90, 95, 103, 116, 121, 123, 137, 147, 165 Skepticism 3, 8 f., 14 f., 103 f., 107 f., 123 f., 174 f. Spontaneity 16 Style 181 – 185, 188 Subjectivity 12, 16, 46, 51 f., 67, 70, 86, 104, 162 Symbol 37, 129 Text

4, 28, 35 f., 42, 76, 84 f., 106, 111, 139, 151, 178 Trace 4 f., 8, 21, 48, 118, 161, 177

198

Subject index

Transcendental 10, 16 f., 21, 33 f., 62, 64, 67, 73 – 76, 78, 86, 89, 104 f., 169, 172 – Transcendental I 17 Truth 3, 50, 61, 64 f., 83, 85 – 87, 89, 94, 111, 134 – 143, 145 – Signs of truth 124, 134, 136 – Truth-signs 124, 134, 137, 142 – 146

Type

10, 18 f., 29, 33 f., 51, 125, 143, 147 – 153, 156 – 158, 160 – 162, 165, 180 – 183, 185

Version 6, 28, 34, 41, 52, 64, 71, 83, 92, 124, 138, 144 – 146, 169, 183

Index of names Aristotle 18, 39 Augustine 8

Hume, D. 15, 172 Husserl, E. 8, 133

Blumenberg, H. 6, 38 Borsche, T. 13, 39 f., 117 f.

Kant, I. 5 f., 10 f., 14, 16 f., 19, 21, 33, 52, 55, 71, 74 f., 79, 83, 86 – 88, 112, 132, 151 f., 162 f., 167 – 169, 172 f.

Cassirer, E. 6 f., 37 f. Cicero 8 Conant, J. 14 Darwin, C. 5 Derrida, J. 4, 6, 8, 21 f., 172 Descartes, R. 47, 78, 172 Dilthey, W. 6 Eco, U.

Landmann, M. 5 Leibniz, G.W. 8 Lichtenberg, G. 30 Locke, J. 8 Lyotard, J-F. 21 Marquard, O. 6, 38 Meier-Oeser, S. 4, 8, 39

4, 8, 10, 21, 39

Feuerbach, L. 6 Fichte, J.G. 6, 31 Forget, P. 83 Foucault, M. 6 Frege, G. 8 Gadamer, H.G. 6, 20 f., 36, 83 – 88, 128, 172 f. Gehlen, A. 6, 8, 38 Gerhardt, V. 8 Goodman, N. 132 f. Graeser, A. 13, 20, 61 f. Gunnarson, L. 13 Hackenesch, C. 5 f., 8 Hegel, G.W.F. 10, 51, 55, 79, 81, 94, 100, 101, 172 f. Heidegger, M. 6, 8, 10, 16, 40, 133, 172 f. Herder J.G. 6 Hippocrates 8 Hobbes, T. 8, 153 f. Hogrebe, W. 79, 93 Hölderlin, F. 7

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Nietzsche, F. 6 f., 10, 17 – 19, 21, 30, 49, 51, 55, 61, 63, 76 f., 90, 101, 104, 112 f., 136 f., 140, 142 f., 156, 168 f., 172 f., 177 Parmenides 8 Peirce, Ch.S. 3 f., 7, 10 f., 14, 25, 55, 107 f., 111, 120, 134, 178 Plessner, H. 6, 8, 38 Putnam, H. 64, 104, 135 Quine, W.

58, 60

Saussure, F. 8 Scheler, M. 5 f., 8 Schelling, F.W.J. 21 Schönrich, G. 11, 13, 21 Schopenhauer, A. 6, 112, 154, 173, 186 Sloterdijk, P. 6 Stegmaier, W. 13, 52 – 54 Tugendhat, E.

6

Wittgenstein, L. 8, 10, 14, 21, 38, 41 – 43, 55, 68, 101, 110, 113