Saussure, Derrida, Husserl

The Saussurian approach to the sign concept led afterwards to different kinds of 'structuralism' (cf. [230]:45), which in turn caused again 're-actions' like e.g. 'post-structuralism' and 'post-modernism'. While structuralism got it's 'inspiration' from the 'systemic' view of language as a network of elements where each element 'influences' the others by 'differences', became post-structuralism it's 'intuition' from the further assumption that the Saussurian sign concept includes besides the systems aspects also a 'decoupling' of language from the 'real world', a decoupling of the system of signs from 'real meaning'.

Derrida is one of those thinkers who used this combination of 'language as a system' combined with 'decoupling' of the 'meaning' (cf. [230]:53ff, [57], [58]). Another author in this context is Lyotard (cf. [50]:chapt.7, [201]). It is interesting that Derrida became his own 'critic' discussing the possibility to 'de-entangle' the sign material from it's meaning by still using the concept of 'sign'. He states clearly that this is - strictly speaking - not possible because the sign concept as such implies a relationship to a signified something (cf. [57]:412f).

This tendency of Derrida - in a certain sense this is as well true for Lyotard - to 'weaken' the relationship between a sign system with a 'real' meaning can perhaps be influenced from their critical discussion of Husserl and his phenomenological method which tried to get in touch with some 'general structures' - finally declared as 'transcendental' structures - as inevitable points of reference for the human thinking (cf. [200], [56]).

Because Husserl developed during his whole life time a steady continuing model of his kind of a phenomenological philosophy it is difficult to make a short classification of his position. Here the focus is laid on his late publication of the 'Cartesian Meditations: An Introduction to Phenomenology' (first as lectures at the Sorbonne 1929, then published in French 1931 (cf. French [140], German and English []).

Trying to avoid 'psychologism' and 'empiricism' Husserl started his Cartesian Meditations with the 'Meditationes' from Descartes (cf. [59]) and identified - while applying the method of the $\epsilon\pi\o\chi\eta$ - the transcendental ego as some non-contingent point of reference in his thinking.

Seen from today one can ask whether this strategy is the only possible and - much more stronger - whether it is still adequate. Without discussing this point here explicitly it shall be stated here that within the experience of 'thinking' the 'difference' between the 'about of thinking' and the 'thinking as such' (for Husserl the 'transcendental ego') both are 'given' within this experience. While the 'thinking as such' seems to be 'non-contingent' is the 'about of thinking' classified as a compound of changing and non-changing compounds.

The general problem of a philosophical discourse about these topics is that such a discourse presupposes a language which as such presupposes a complex network of meanings and interrelationships which especially with regard to the 'about of thinking' are not 'empirically' given. An analysis of the conditions of discourse shows further that there are massive structures needed to enable a minimal amount of similarity between the discourse agents. From the point of view of an epoche-based phenomenology are such insights 'outside of the scope', but they are not 'impossible' and to some degree inevitable because the phenomenon of language forces the thinking to use contingent phenomena to 'illuminate' the 'machinery of signs' as the medium in which thinking 'happens'.

Thus structures are only possible by an 'inductive' process evaluating contingent phenomena with regard to less contingent 'structures' 'controlling' these phenomena. Whether one likes to call such 'general structures' 'metaphysical' or not does not matter; this is 'playing a game with words'. But what does matter is the 'knowledge', that these structures, which are the necessary preconditions of sign usage - and knowledge in general - are biological determined structures evolved through the last 3.5 Billion years. To classify such a thinking as 'psychologism' would lead into astray because these structures are not 'contingent as such' but represent a 'summary' of 'experiments' extracting those structures out of the space of possible structures which are compatible to the 'world as a given' relative to the acting systems. Thus with regard to the 'given' empirical world as 'context' to the acting systems we have to classify the knowledge and sign usage enabling structures 'relative-to-the-given-world' as true' structures. That there is a remaining 'openness' does not 'weaken' these earth-true-structures completely, but only with regard to the next 'bigger' context.

And here one has to ask whether the concept of a 'transcendental knowledge' connected to a certain moment of thinking is a good strategy. All the facts tell us that we have to look to 'true knowledge' as an open set of structures enabled through a process of experience constantly 'interpreted' by a sign process which is 'grounded' in 'local meanings' which are structurally shared' by every sign user.