Existence and meaning: the matter of semiosis

The question of existence is a classical ontological and metaphysical question. Rational criteria of existence are formulated in accordance with the object and the subject. Something exists if 1) it can be seen, 2) it can be the value of a variable, 3) it can be taken into consideration by means of the interpre-tant. Somebody exists if he/she 1) fixates the objects while observing, 2) is able to negate, 3) is able to recognize interpretants. Something exists as an object , as a means of system determining of this object, as a skill of determining and, finally, as materially presented substance in which this skill is realized. Matter or substance of semiosis (that create the sign) is the least developed category within the frame of semiotic approach. On the one hand, semiotics has an idealistic character ascribing the feature of substance to specific rationally stated functions but not to the abstract essence. On the other hand, classical semiotics is receptive or structural, i.e. it investigates objects, rules and possibility conditions in the variant of their realization for a subject who perceives them (e.g. the reader of fiction or observer of natural phenomena) or for the systems constituted by observing structures. The question about sign matter is important because it deals with the conception of projective semiosis, i.e. with the account by semiotic means not only of quasipassive fixation of objects by subjects but also the processes of their active imagination, projecting and technical embodiment. If we agree with the hypothesis that to exist means to “be the sign”, we must understand the “meaning” as realization of the semantic rule defined by syntax and the skill of signifying which determines a certain material substance of the sign. Therefore, “existence” presupposes the necessity of interpretant for any pragmatically determined type of a sign (perception, psychic experience, communication, ethic norms) as well as syntactic rules and substance, but it doesn’t presuppose the necessity of “meaning”. From the point of view of semiotic justification of pluralism philosophers need to deal with the tasks of analysis of history of projective semiosis within the frame of ontology, analysis and contrast of methods of constituting and contemplation in mythopoetic consciousness, literary, scientific and engineer-technological activities; analysis of human problems in pluralistic ontology, demonstration of the evolution of contrast skills and consideration skills which constitute different types of essence; revelation of the possibilities of rational reflection as an ability to constitute or reveal new interpretants defining new types of essence.

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