Sign Systems - Reference Systems Rodica Amel 1. The Call of Principium If one could imagine a starting point to the extended semiosis, within which man lives, then the question that philosophy should answer would be: on which premise can the whole semiotic covering of life be conceived of as being ‘naturally’ rooted in cognitive need? A valid premise would be that of the deep fusion between perception and semiosis, constitutive for consciousness development. Focused on Polanyi’s, Dewey’s, Peirce’s, Bühler’s and Cassirer’s philosophy, R.Innis’s book (1994) enlightened this idea by a comprehensive and nuanced commentary, displayed in contrastive terms. Another option could be that of admitting a transcendental premise, which is the choice of the present study. The ontological condition of being-in-the-world, understood as a global relation of togetherness, a whole “où tout se tient”, is consubstantial with man’s own possibility of being part of the whole. The implicit law of the world is originally projected in the being of consciousness, and this interactive virtuality, because it is ontological, constitutes the basis of cognitive inherence. Nevertheless, being-in-the-world is a condition that obscures its original cause 1 and so each intelligible representation engenders a fundamental why? By resuming the intelligible position of being-in-the-world on the capacity of rendering the world explicit and meaningful, we have reached the starting moment of language. In this quality, language is a ‘way of being’, of being rationally involved in what-it-is. We are still at the beginning, when ‘rational’ means the human capacity to discover world coherence in sensible forms. By speculating on the deeper movement of cognition, one notices the power language has to approach the obscure. The infinity of the original indetermination is handled and ‘translated’ into equivalents of finiteness. These special kinds of meaning activators are called signs. In traditional semiotics, that sustains the conventional nature of signs, sign definition says that something present and perceivable re-presents something absent and unperceivable. This is a definition that perpetuates the Scholastic formula, aliquid stat pro aliquo, which now seems to give less emphasis to the idea that the intelligible function of sign was originally more like a call, the call of principium, coming from infinity towards finiteness. “Die Sprache spricht als das Geläut der Stille.” (Heidegger, Sprache, 1985: 27) Our concern about the ‘final cause of signs’ compels us to choose a definition adequate for the ‘hearer’s’ intention of associating a sense to the respective call, and, therefore: each sign signifies more than the object it represents. Such a definition of a sign, as an original signal, performs a shift from semiotics of representation to semiotics of imagination. In conformity with the respective approach, a sign implies the ‘cause’ of the object it represents as an object and, because of this, it implies its own cause of being a sign. Here we shall bring two parallel K O D I K A S / C O D E Ars Semeiotica Volume 31 (2008) No. 1 - 2 Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen Rodica Amel 60 signs, with the intention that the second one could enforce in the former the perception of this ‘more than itself’. The ‘sign-clock’ signifies the human idea of time, which is the cause of the clock. The clock, in Dali’s painting The persistence of memory, does not measure time; it is no more the ‘sign’ of our usual idea of time, but re-presents the duration of time. By an allusion to Bergson, the idea of time is anamorphotically extended - in the doughy form of clocks - and ironically suspended. By emphasizing that a sign is ‘more than itself’, our definition points at the interpretative dimension of semiosis, not exactly as Peirce did it, but more precisely in a transcendental sense. 2 The intelligible ground of signs is constituted through an originally interpretative semiosis. What a sign re-presents, while standing for a ‘piece’ of reality, is the original experience (interpretation) of Being of the respective reality. In progressive steps of transcendence, signs intermediate between contingent and principium in an imaginative way. That which originally was a world-call is now instituted in a sign, the meaning of which can be perceived due to an a priori projection of the world-design in man’s mental space. During the effort of re-presenting this design, man uncovers the transcendent reality through signs. This is the call. It seems very important to put the entire sign-institution, and respectively the signfunction, under the headline of a ‘reasonable determination of the principium’. In this way we come closer to logos itself. By raising this aspect, we proceed to an enquiry into the ‘possibility condition of a cultural sign’. A cultural sign, in contradistinction to a pragmatic sign, is the result of a second-degree semiosis, which has justificative power. All signs are pragmatic, namely life-oriented, and all signs are culturally marked. Our thesis regarding the justificative finality of signs does not exclude the thesis of semiotic perception, but implies it. Therefore, we oppose a powerful concept of cultural sign, ontologically founded, to a common one. From this perspective, contingent perception and cultural sign establish two different levels of intelligibility. Given the premise that the generative cause of language is established on the transcendental level of consciousness, the subjective origin of signs troubles us less because of its relativity. Consequently, at this level, the principle of intelligibility, which governs human semiosis, is less organic than it seems. Even if through semiosis man’s expressive need is spontaneously delivered, ‘ohne warum’ 3 , in his speech speaks already a divine voice 4 which man tries to make explicit. The innate knowledge of principium is the divine voice that gives access to the sense of the obscure. Language (=signs) exists in order to permit this access. In what follows, we shall explain the inherence of signs; after that, we shall try to argue that signs constitution cannot be dissociated from Being. During signs constitution the noumenal (=intelligible) reality of Being institutes its own transcendence in the form of a relational substance. The ‘relational substance’ supports the world-design, and “is” the virtual condition that makes from the world we are living in a whole “où tout se tient”. 2. Intelligible Inherence Through an original extension of language, we are involved in an uninterrupted semiosis. “Die Sprache ist das Haus des Sein. In ihrer Behausung wohnt der Mensch. Die Denkenden und Dichtenden sind die Wächter dieser Behausung.” (Heidegger, Humanismus, 1957: 24) When Heidegger says “Language is the house of Being” 5 , he means that Being is intelligible in organic solidarity with what-it-is. The contingent thing brings Being into full disclosure Sign Systems - Reference Systems 61 ( ). Heidegger speaks about Being comprehension under the guidance of language, and this philosophical approach determined him to perform the ontological turn of hermeneutics. 6 From a philosophical point of view, the “linguisticality of understanding” 7 is not a discursive attitude, but rather a pure semiotic one, closer to the presocratic source of , than to our sense of language. The semiotic constitution has the value of a creative act. Comprehension is a semiotic act, if we may say so, in an attempt to translate Heidegger’s idea of an original speech. Heidegger’s deconstruction of classical metaphysics 8 with its Scholastic roots influences our semiotic approach. Four of Heidegger’s ideas are fundamental to our topic: 1. The solidarity between Sein and Seiendes is constitutive for our definition of a sign. Infinity is experienced during semiosis (in Dali’s clock one ‘feels’ the duration of time). 2. Comprehension, as well as language, is a way-of-being-in-the-world; due to the transcendental inherence of language, the principle of intelligibility 9 is connected to consciousness and not to ratio. 3. Comprehension is a way of being-in-a-dialog with the world: Thinking is a listening to the grant. “Denken ist ein Hören der Zusage” (Sprache, 1985: 170). 10 4. Heidegger’s idea concerning the ontological dialog emphasizes the interaction between the language of Being ( ) and cultural semiosis. The principle of intelligibility, homogeneous in both cases, supports our hermeneutical approach to semiotics. The main hermeneutical problem regards the original relationship between comprehension and interpretation. For Heidegger, understanding projects its own possibilities through interpretation, an approach that does not contradict our transcendental premise. Because Heidegger considers interpretation an ‘adequate’ modality of being, intelligibility becomes a saturated condition of the ontological dialog. In this moment, we step aside from the Heideggerian frame. Even if we transpose the transcendental dimension of comprehension in an ontological ‘dialogical scheme’, we argue that comprehension, although it is re-constitutive, needs interpretation, 11 and interpretation needs explicit forms. We do not want to restore classical metaphysics, but the metaphysics of the dominant relationships that govern the sensible world. Semiotic acts are ‘performed’ in/ by consciousness, in the same way that flowers bloom “ohne warum”. Once signs are instituted, the principle of intelligibility leads consciousness beyond immanence. This principle demands proof to ground the meaning of signs. Logic is invoked not only as an original experience, but also as a justificative procedure. Why do we speak instead of remaining silent? Heidegger would answer: because speaking means dwelling within the house of Being in an intelligible way. However, our answer will sound differently: because we are not sure that we are within this house. 3. Original Proof How can we prove that we are within the house of Being or at least that we are on the way to this house? Is language a ‘phenomenon”, the showing-itself-in-itself, or an ‘appearance’ of a hidden referent? Why, actually, does human intelligible power demand such a proof? Rodica Amel 62 3.1 Heidegger’s claim concerning the original universality of language extends the intelligible function of signs without needing such proof. Comprehension is a state of grace of consciousness. is undoubted (“fraglos”). Our thesis, which sustains the justificative finality of signs, on the contrary, demands proof that the relational meaning is posed on the original level of consciousness, otherwise meaning has no ontological support. When meaning - whatever its nature may be: textual, conversational or original - is under question, there is a generalized requirement: it must be proved by pertinence. Pertinence 12 is the means by which interpretation, in our case that of consciousness, becomes a determinant procedure. Here interpretation, which has neither a semantic nor a pragmatic sense, but represents the original experience of dominant relationships, points towards the formative principle, on which the cultural experience is grounded. 13 From a phenomenological point of view, consciousness is the ‘space’ of the ontological immediateness. The dominant position of Being is experienced as relational meaning, by sense-giving acts. 14 Concomitantly, the original experience of consciousness can be considered a ‘probatory device’. Sense-giving acts follow the transcendental logic, which by its nature supplies original proof: the transcendental logic, semiotically framed, underlines the ontological acquisition of meaning. a. The transcendental ego introduces a horizon of transcendence, and b. The transcendent horizon is experienced by consciousness through sense-giving acts. The explanation regarding the two features of consciousness, intentional and reductive, needs extension. 1. While consciousness is intentionally oriented towards reality, it is oriented towards the structure of reality in itself; during the absolute perception, things are objectified only when the abstract image of dominant relationships is uncovered and classes, categories and principles are constituted. The meaning of transcendence is experienced as categorical proof. A 90-year-old woman, pursuing the elaboration of an essay about “The tree of Jesse”, is not only the sign of a sensible reality, but the sign of a supersensible reality: for instance, it could be the sign of intellectual devotion, etc. 2. Regarding the phenomenological reduction, it can be considered a valorizing procedure. This is the moment when reference systems are (re)constituted from the a priori (virtual) scheme that validates the reduction. Through synthetic operations, the transcendence is conceptually instituted in categories of value. In contrast to Heidegger, for whom the intelligibility of “fraglos”, we argue that consciousness is problematically oriented towards transcendence. Causa prima, the ontological sense of this ‘being-there’ is obscure. 15 While the sense is posed in consciousness, it has both justificative and formative power. Therefore, we advance the thesis about the interpretative intentionality of consciousness. Instead of being interested in the ontological turn of hermeneutics, we shall speak about the hermeneutical turn of semiotics. 3.2 Reference-systems represent the axiological modality of determination. It is not wrong to say that a reference system represents the transcendent principle of determination under the form of supersensible relationships of any order. The reference system is reducible to a category of value. Due to reference systems, meanings of particular signs are coordinated, they can be defined and founded. 16 Reference systems are not given, but synthesized through reflective judgments, which follow the transcendental logic. In the hermeneutical field of Being, reference systems establish the ‘possibility conditions’ of the ontological meaning of Sign Systems - Reference Systems 63 a contingent sign. The respective particular sign is projected within its own transcendence and its meaning becomes pertinent under the dominance of the categorical meaning. Because a reference system introduces the transcendent principle of a sign, it becomes the justificative basis for the respective sign. Intuitively, any cultural exegesis appeals to reference systems. Both a renewed interest in the question of the sign’s meaning and the hermeneutical turn of semiotics require an explicitly semiotic approach to reference systems. The transcendental logic is a possible option. But when the reference system is defined as a ‘condition of possibility’ of the onto-logical meaning, some arguments become problematical: Is a reference system exclusively (re)constituted by original synthesis, or the historical experience of cultural signs cannot be avoided? How can the determinative function of a reference system be established in opposition with the same function of a sign system? 3.2.1 The categorical position of reference systems is conceptually constituted and hierarchically disposed. The transcendence that is experienced in a sensible object is posited in consciousness as a meaning. This supersensible reality, assumed and conceived in its supersensible nature, is experienced through sensible features, which are separately considered, until the cause being such and such is reached. When the sign is more than the sign of a contingent object, and opens itself to the IDEA of its own being, the infinity displays the amplitude of the categorical profusion. The relational/ categorical meaning, posited in consciousness, equates an ontological certitude, a belief, a PROTODOXA (see Husserl, 1931: 301). For instance, in Van Gogh’s painting, The chair, we contemplate the image of a contingent object, a chair, and we see in it ‘the mystery of being an object’, and “more than that’: the stern and inevitably rude solitude of an individuality. In this hypostasis, the chair becomes a sign that uncovers the ‘condition’ of individuality. Consciousness can assume the IDEA that a particular thing discloses. In our example, consciousness assumes the sense of individuality, as stubbornness and solitude. Sign constitution goes concomitantly with the institution of their structuring (reference) meaning. Until this point, our argument seems essentially not different from the morphological thesis that emphasizes the formative power of expressiveness. At a better look, one can judge that our hermeneutical issue is concentrated on the semiotic constitution of the transcendent IDEA, and is less oriented towards the subject’s expressive will. What makes the meaning of a sign ontologically pertinent is the categorical meaning, which can be posited in consciousness and experienced as an autonomous Being due to an a priori scheme of transcendence. When reason tries to consolidate in a concept the IDEA’s re-constituted identity, the cultural memory interferes and opens a horizon of time for the original experience. The disputed problem of conceptualization (“Begrifflichkeit”) cannot be avoided and hermeneutics raises this topic at several opportunities. The Platonism of our point of view does not disconnect the reference systems from the traditionally acquired entities referred to them. Our argument emphasizes the logic through which the reference systems are constituted: on one hand, original belief, on other hand, mental abstraction, which is possible through historical impact. The finality of culture is to establish the noumenal autonomy of reference systems within a tradition. 3.2.2 The first reference system of a sign is the sign system itself. For instance, the sign of an ‘axe’ can be referred to the paradigm of edged-objects. A sign system is constituted based on Rodica Amel 64 sensible properties of signs, the systemic relevance of which is proved by alleging theoretical premises or conventional codes. Any reference to sign systems assures the epistemic determination of individual signs. Axe, sword, scythe, knife, scissors, etc. compose the paradigm of edged objects, within which ‘an axe’ versus ‘a lot of axes’ is an opposition determined by the rational category of quantity. Alternatively, an ‘axe’ and a ‘knife’ establish a functional opposition: ‘to split’ versus ‘to cut’, etc. On a higher level, a reference system assures ontological determination of value meanings. In our opinion, reference systems emphasize a particular value, a category of quality, and the meaning of the respective value is ontologically relevant. In F.Arman’s sculpture, ‘a lot of axes’ means a fall of edges, many in one edge. The ontological value of the contingent ‘fall of edges’ might be that of destiny, etc. What matters is that the stroke of a movement in decline and the sharpness should be perceptible. Being is originally assumed by consciousness in hierarchical stages of abstraction, and it is, respectively, objectified in a hierarchical disposition of reference systems. Bollnow’s extended commentary about human organization of space in architecture (Mensch und Raum, 1963) makes explicit man’s own relationship with himself and with society, as a pragmatic being. However, when a door opens to openness of transcendence, as in Magritt’s painting Poison, a cloud, still belonging to the sky, penetrates inside, casting its shadow on the wall. We reach a higher understanding of the sign ‘home’. ‘Home’ considered in itself, makes us think about the soul’s own spatiality. 3.2.3 The justification power of reference systems can be demonstrated by hermeneutical logic, which, in our interpretation, is a kind of transcendental logic. Hermeneutical logic is not an ad-hoc term, used to emphasize the reasonableness of meaning constitution. After Bollnow’s evaluation of Misch and Lipps’s contribution to hermeneutics (1983, vol. II), the term gets philosophical legitimating. In this respect, our argument concerning reference systems can be considered a contribution to hermeneutical logic. We consider transcendental logic suitable for the interpretation of Being. We want to formulate here three axioms on which our approach to transcendental logic is based: a. The original experience is a valorizing act. The meaning of a particular sign is constituted within the category of quality, which has ontological support. “Value” here means the vectoriality of Being. b. In contrast to Husserl, we consider that transcendental consciousness is not a tabula rasa. The IDEAS of value are virtually registered in consciousness as non-thematic categories of togetherness. c. Original experience is not valid in itself. It is permanently challenged by the historically constituted cultural memory. Because the categorical meaning of reference systems is experienced through a particular thing and is not a priori legitimated, it demands validation. The validation is dialectically confirmed. The transcendental logic, while supplying original proof, is questioning the cultural tradition. In this way, one can interpret Nietzsche’s reversal of values (“Umwertung aller Werte”) as an inquiry into tradition and appeal to original proof. Although the subject’s self-reference proof is original, it is the relative way of validation that logic could offer. Therefore, reference systems are de-constructed by reduction and reconstructed by transcendental synthesis. The validation of reference systems belongs to the Sign Systems - Reference Systems 65 doxastic field and its specific dialectic. Through reference systems, cultural signs can be both transcendentally and socially grounded. By reflective thinking, reference systems are progressively structured, proved and reproved. As that demands a special argumentative space (developed by us in 1999), we emphasize here only the importance of discursive ways to reach the “house of Being”. 4. Conclusion: Hermeneutical Circle The goal of our argumentation was to refer semiotics to axiology and to establish, in semiosis, the dominance of supersensible perception on the sensible sign (which translates the idea that ‘a sign is more than itself’). The supersensible perception (Being experience) grounds the meaning of the sign-function. By starting with a transcendental premise, the intention was to introduce an objective basis within categorical reference and to make logically acceptable the role of the formative principle, during the ontological interpretation, on the axiological and not on the expressive level of semiotics. Consequently, our argument differs from both that of Heidegger and Cassirer. Two features of hermeneutical logic engender a fallacy of determination: a) Hermeneutical paradox: Signs institute the categorical meaning through which they are defined. One comprehends the transcendent IDEA that governs a particular thing by experiencing its particularity in an absolute sense. In spite of the absolute value of the original proof, the hermeneutical procedure leads to errors of categorization. For instance, consider the example of the 90-year-old woman, the respective sign could be interpreted with reference to several IDEAs: that of stubbornness, of intellectual devotion, or of existential sublimity. The concurrence is between a psychological, a moral and a spiritual reference system. Another example, that evinces the vicious power of the hermeneutical uncertainty, is the theme of the sectioned objects in Arman’s sculpture: is the piano, sectioned by two motorcycles (La chute des courses), a sign of deconstruction or of construction? Are art and beauty demolished or affirmed, when consciousness is confronted with the destructive condition? In Dali’s painting, fundamentally ironical, judging the persistence of memory, on a higher level, we are not sure whether within the question: ‘What a clock is? ’ sounds the anamorphotic principle in its universality or not. b) Hermeneutical circle: “Alle Auslegung bewegt sich ferner in der gekennzeichneten Vorstruktur. Alle Auslegung, die Verständnis beistellen soll, muß schon das Auszulegende verstanden haben.” (Heidegger, 1960: 152). 17 Both from Heidegger’s and from our point of view, interpretation presupposes a priori structures. Heidegger calls them “potentialities-for-Being” (Vorhabe, Vorsicht, Vorgriff). We call them non-thematic categories of value, which, during interpretation, are thematized, proved by self-reflective acts and conceptualized. The transcendent IDEAs are partially disclosed by conceptualization. As far as SELF is an infinite object, self-reflective acts of consciousness are unable to consider that the ‘sense’ of SELF is disclosed, but in disclosure. That is the reason we are confronted with a hermeneutical paradox. The distance between original and discursive language is never completely covered, and the opposition between originally given and acquired language is never clear. Rodica Amel 66 During sense-giving acts, consciousness reaches moments of self-saturation and substitutes valorizing acts by normative ones. When language becomes ‘The Institution of Being’, the sense of an IDEA is substituted by an idea in a concept that does not have an ontological but a rhetorical charge. Inevitably, each act of reference to the IDEA of Being is a reference to a preconceived idea. All understanding is prejudicial. The ‘hermeneutical circle’ is ‘structurally’ susceptible to be distorted by the vicious movement of petitio principi. Trivial commentaries concerning the intelligible deadlock could be ignored, by raising arguments against the two vices of determination: a) Being as Knowing is a condition developed from inherence. Each act of conceptualization, even if it brings a provisional understanding, allows the intelligible participation in Being’s condition of transcendence. b) Being as Knowing is a condition of transgression. A prejudice can be eliminated and a vicious circle can be cut down not by alternative prejudices, but by transgression towards a higher level of reference. If we want to translate the noumenal dynamics of consciousness in semiotic terms, the subjective inherence of language is only a partial explanation. During self-reflective acts of consciousness, language, historically acquired, approaches the House of Being by implicit or explicit transgression, but the house is never reached. Notes 1 In ontology, ‘cause’ has the sense of ‘principle’, and not that of ‘reasonable explanation’. ‘Original cause’ means causa prima, a concept originated in Scholastic. Aristotle, in Metaphysics, speaks about a ‘science’ interested in the first principles and causes. He established four causes of a phenomenon: generative, formative, material and final. 2 With Peirce begins the interpretative orientation of semiotics that enabled semioticians to place semiosis at the center of perception. See R.Innis’s book (1994) and all the references he introduces. Here we ought to stress the distinction we make between contingent and original interpretation. The contingent experience of “being-in-theworld” is collected by cultural memory that the original interpretation inquires in its privileged moments. 3 This is an allusion to Heidegger’s quotation from Angelus Silesius’ poem “Das Ros ist ohn warum; sie blühet, weil sie blühet” (see Heidegger, Grund, 1957: 68-69) and to his commentary in Der Satz vom Grund: “Die Rose ist zwar ohne Warum, aber sie ist doch nicht ohne Grund. ‘Ohne Warum” und ‘ohne Grund’ sind nicht das Gleiche” (idem: 72). 4 ‘Divine’ means here ‘a priori’, and has no proper sense as in U. Eco’s inquiry into the divine origin of language (1999). 5 See also Heidegger’s Unterwegs zur Sprache. There is a great similarity between Heidegger’s formula and Antisthenes’s oikeios logos ( ). We commented the possible influence, in “Dreapta potrivire a numelor” (“The correctness of names, Plato, Cratylos”), 2007. 6 Founded by W.Dilthey, in Critique of Historical Reason (Kritik der historischen Vernunft), as an alternative to analytical and epistemic sciences, hermeneutics is now considered the field of humanistic sciences (“Geisteswissenschaften”, intentioned to constitute a “Lebensphilosophie”). Heidegger was the first who put hermeneutics under the claim of universality, by turning the hermeneutical interest towards the sense of Being: “Phänomenologie des Daseins ist Hermeneutik in der ursprünglichen Bedeutung des Wortes, wonach es das Geschäft der Auslegung bezeichnet.” (Heidegger, 1960: 37) Gadamer’s approach to hermeneutics is similar to that of Heidegger: “Par ‘herméneutique’ je comprends la théorie de cette expérience effective qui est la pensée” (1976: 19). 7 We use Bleicher’s English translation of Heidegger’s German syntagma: “die Sprachlichkeit des Verstehens” (1983). Sign Systems - Reference Systems 67 8 Heidegger’s question of Being: “Bleibt sie lediglich oder ist sie überhaupt nur das Geschäft einer freischwebenden Spekulation über allgemeinste Allgemeinheiten - oder ist sie die prinzipiellste und konkreteste Frage zugleich? ” (1960: 9) does, actually, not oppose metaphysics, but “aufhebt” it. See, also Pöggeler’s commentary: “Läßt Heideggers Denken sich etwa begreifen als Vollendung und Ende der Metaphysischen Tradition, vor allem der neuzeitlichen Metaphysik? Walter Schulz hat zu zeigen versucht, daß Heideggers Denken, dem Selbstverständnis Heideggers entgegen, nicht gegen die neuzeitliche Metaphysik steht, sondern aus ihr zu verstehen ist” (1983: 202). 9 From our point of view, the principle of intelligibility establishes, in the field of meaning, the grounding conditions, as the principle of reason does in epistemology. Both are universal principles of cognition, but they belong to different fields. Actually, our interpretation of the principle of intelligibility is ontologically conceived, in the way Heidegger approaches the philosophy of principium rationis. See Der Satz vom Grund: “Sein und Grund gehören zusammen. Grund und Sein (<sind>) das Selbe, und nicht das Gleiche, was schon die Verschiedenheit der Namen Sein und Grund anzeigt.” (1957: 93). The quoted words give a clear account of the note 3, here above: “Alles hat einen Grund, nur der Grund ist ohne Warum”, because “Der Satz vom Grund ist ohne Grund”; “Sein ist der Ab-Grund”, says Heidegger. 10 The ontological dialog, about which Heidegger speaks frequently (Was ist das - die Philosophie? , Unterwegs zur Sprache, Holzwege), means, in his interpretation, the ontological condition of “adaequatio”, that of harmonizing or tuning (Ent-sprechen; Stimmung, Be-stimmung, Über-einstimmung) oneself to the language of Being. 11 M.Dascal, in his pragmatic works, sustains the same dependence. 12 Pertinence, in structural linguistics, means the value of an entity within a system of oppositions. In pragmatics and dialog studies, pertinence (or relevance) is a maxim of dialogical adequateness. 13 See R.Innis’s commentary about the centrality of the formative principle in Cassirer’s philosophy, a theme that opposed Cassirer to Heidegger: “To Cassirer’s horizon of form Heidegger opposes the horizon of time”. (1994, note 16: 126) 14 “Prendre conscience ne signifie pas autre chose que tenter d’établir réellement le sens ‘lui-même”. (Husserl, 1957: 13) 15 “Das Leben ist unergründlich und unerschöpflich, das ist das immer wiederkehrende Thema aller Lebensphilosophie”. (Bollnow, 1983, II: 33) The impossibility of finding a ground for Being (“Being ist ohne warum”) is both a topic in Heidegger’s philosophy and a problem that concerns us. However, while in Heideggerian philosophy, this issue leads to hermeneutics: “Der Sinn von Sein kann nie in Gegensatz gebracht werden zum Sein oder als tragenden ‘Grund’ des Seienden, weil ‘Grund’ nur als Sinn zugänglich wird, und sei er selbst der Abgrund der Sinnlosigkeit” (1960: 152), in our approach, it motivates the justificative finality of semiosis. 16 Within the frame of the present study, there is no sufficient room to develop a debate neither about our conception of value, nor about the relationship between the determinative and justificative function of reference systems. 17 “Aber in diesem Zirkel ein vitiosum sehen und nach Wegen Ausschau halten, ihn zu vermeiden, ja ihn auch nur als unvermeidliche Unvollkommenheit ‘empfinden’, heißt das Verstehen von Grund aus mißverstehen” (Heidegger, 1960: 153). References Amel, Rodica, “Doxastic Dialectic: the Persuasive Truth”, in Revue Roumaine de Linguistique, XLIV, 1-4, 1999, pp. 3-12. 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