ABSTRACT
Edmund Husserl's treatment of signs as derivative from the lived presence of human consciousness has evoked quite divergent critical comments. This chapter discusses the terminology of formal semantics to considerations that are doser to the European tradition. It introduces an illustrative simile and relating its discussion to the traditional distinction between first and second nature, and shows how the autonomy of intentional and semantical notions can be upheld even as attempts to ground them in some basic intuition or successful employment are conceived as perfectly legitimate. The chapter explains the course of the argument that only by abandoning the rhetoric of exdusiveness can a satisfactory account of the sign is given. Considering a sign as causal factor, bearer of meaning, and as a social construct is no more mysterious than regarding a sweater as protection against cold weather, as a gift, and as a symbol of a certain lifestyle.
