Tarasti
Even about those phenomena of which a subject may have "inner" knowledge, he/she must first pretend to be ignorant, to be placed outside of them, thereby to "prove" or legitimize the correctness of what one knows. This is a phenomenon that endlessly recurs in arts studies, among other places. One imagines that the Firstness of phenomena would constitute such an objective zero-point for interpretation. After all, the concepts inner/outer cannot be separated from the classical distinction objective/subjective, to which Kierkegaard dedicated so many pages in his philosophical output. The prevailing scientific paradigm determines the re-lationship between objective and sUbjective as follows: The objective conditions of physics and its laws set limits upon our subjective emotions and choices. How-ever, the Kierkegaardian thesis is even more radical: The subjective and the ob-jective never meet. They are not like separate spheres, such that where the "objective" finishes is where the subjective starts. Rather, they are two different approaches to the same world of Dasein.s.5
What I am searching for is perhaps the most important thing in semiotics; namely, the states before the formation of signs, accordingly "pre-signs" (in Finn-ish "esi-merkkejii"). When the sign has crystallized, there remains almost noth-ing to be done-on the level of signs themselves. Peirce tried to classify signs in relationship with themselves and made some interesting findings, like the rela-tionships of legisign/sinsign/qualisign or type/token, etc. Nevertheless, the most interesting, existential moment of signs is in the moment before or after them, since the life of signs does not stop, of course, with their fixation into objects. In any case, if there are existential signs, they are always in a state of becoming. s. 7
Situations are always concrete and particular, most often non-recurrent. In existential semiotics, one is simply looking for the individuality and particularity of phenomena, their "soul." Existential semiotics is opposed to a science that only strives for constants. What is the "semiotic" constitution of the world? s.9
The phenomena of an existential semiotical nature open themselves to a subject only through his/her presence. What does this mean? A critic writes a report about a theater performance or concert. He attended the occasion, but was not really there. He was perhaps physically present and described what hap-pened objectively speaking. But he was absent in the existential sense. In that case, his portrayal is nothing but a reification of the phenomenon and proves to be of a more or less serious degree of alienation. He might be over-present or under-present; that is, he is either in an overexcited, over-participative state of mind, losing his ability to judge; or he might be absent-minded and unreceptive. s.10
How can we be sure that our interpretation, our analysis, does not violate the object? The analysis must not damage the phenomenon or change it by force. The interpretation is only possible by being inside the world of Dasein-but at the same time transcending it. The new essential concept in semiotics is transcendence. It creates the dia-lectics between 'being' and 'not-being' (or Nothingness), which is so essential in everything existential. A subject becomes an existential being that creates significations through two acts. First, he finds himself amidst the objective signs. Let it be simply called Dasein. There all the laws, grammars, and generative courses of the objective se-miotics hold true. But then the subject recognizes the emptiness and Nothing-ness surrounding the existence from which he has come, that is, which precedes him and comes after him. The subject makes a leap into Nothingness, to the realm of Ie Neant, described by Sartre. In its light, the whole earlier Dasein seems to have lost its ground; it appears to be senseless. This constitutes the first act of transcendence, or the negation. In the theories of existentialist philosophers, the movement of a subject stops here; Sartre remains in his Nausee, Camus in his The Fall. The experience of Nothingness is anguishing. But it can become a creative experience if the movement of a subject goes forth.s.11
When the subject returns from his negation, the transcendence of his Da-sein, he sees it from a new point of view. Many of its objects have lost their mean-ing and have proven to be only seemingly significant. However, those which preserve their meanings are provided with a new content enriched by the new existential experience. s.11
Accordingly, what are the existential signs? First of all, they are signs that are detached from the world of Dasein, and that start floating in the gravity-less space of Nothingness. This represents a kind of levitation of signs, as in the painting of Marc Chagall where things can hover in the air-or, rather, not things but their signs or signifiers. Or then they are signs that have been moved to the state of Fullness. The signs can be split into two: They can leave their sig-nifieds in the objectal world of Dasein, that is to say, be emptied, and start mov-ing as mere signifiers without any content. However, also the contrary can hap-pen: The surface cover, the materiality of signs can stay in the world of Dasein, whereas the content is transferred to the environment of Nothingness. s.12
It is essential that a theory of semiotics brings to light entirely new types of signs for investigation. Among them, one can conceive of signs that detach them-selves from the world of Dasein and float in a gravity-less, transcendental space, only so as to become reconnected with it. It is precisely in such a process of de-parting and returning that signs come into continuous motion; they are no longer fixed, ready-made objects, but are free to take shape in many completely new ways (as in Sartre's philosophy one is not satisfied with the mere principle of 'being-in-oneselJ', but is constantly changing, choosing oneself). On this view, what is interesting in semiotics are the states that both precede and follow the formation of signs. On this basis, I have thus far been able to distinguish six new species of signs: (1) pre-signs, signs in the process of forming and shaping themselves; (2) trans-signs, which are signs in transcendence; (3) act-signs, those signs actualized in the world of Dasein; (4) endo-and exo-signs, which are signs in the dialectics of presence/absence; (5) internal/external signs; (6), and finally, as-if-signs-in German, als ob Zeichen (as Vaihinger calls them)-these are signs that should be read as if they were true.s.19
Even the most common everyday experience can suddenly (or even gradually) change into a transcendental one when it is compared to a transcendental idea. It occurs as a new illumination of a sign, object, or text of Dasein. Through ne-gation or affirmation, such an experience is either reduced to the essentials, while behind it shimmers the transcendental essence, or a more profound mean-ing is added to it, which the everyday sign unexpectedly starts to convey.s.21
