118 Agnes Petocz
cries, blushing); (4) "experiential" or "existential" meaning or significance (e.g., the meaning
of life, the value to the person of some object or event); (5) perceptually constituted or
constructed meaning of the Kantian or Wittgensteinian ―seeing as‖ kind (e.g., I see this four-
legged block of wood as a table, or as a four-legged block of wood); (6) experiencer-
independent meaning, such as Husserlian intrinsic essence (i.e., every object is "meaningful"
by virtue of being what it is and not something else); and, finally (7) mixed semiotic/meaning
phenomena (e.g., an alarm cry used conventionally in an artificial setting to indicate a
warning, an obsessive hand-washing which is simultaneously indicative and symptomatic of a
particular state of mind, has perhaps conscious "experiential" significance, and symbolises for
that mind some other situation).
Now, within this taxonomy, semiotics traditionally and relatively uncontroversially^12
deals with phenomena belonging to categories (1), (2), (3) and (7). This leaves categories (4),
(5) and (6) as types of meaning that appear to muddy the semiotic waters. But critical scrutiny
suggests that they need not do so. In the case of category (4) the notion of "existential" or
"experiential" meanings imports unnecessary mystification. For, to ask, for example, what is
the "meaning" to me of an event such as my mother's death is to ask about my beliefs and
feelings regarding that event and its consequences for me, and to ask about its emotional and
"motivational salience" (Mackay, 2003). Hence, this apparently obscure and elusive notion of
"meaning" can be replaced by a set of statements using the standard psychological categories
of beliefs and desires which are everywhere used as data in psychological research.
Categories (5) and (6), in contrast, face logical problems. Category (5) may be understood as
a simple case of a person knowing that the label "table" applies to a particular object (this
piece of wood), in which case it belongs in category (1). Alternatively, it can be understood as
a person taking something (a piece of wood) to be usable as something (a table), in which
case it belongs in category (2). If, alternatively, it is a case of a person seeing an object for
what it is, then that is simply veridical perception. But, in none of these cases can the person's
perceiving the object create that object; in the case of the table, there must be a pre-existing
block of wood, complete with its table-like properties, for me to perceive it in the first place,
either as a mere block of wood or as a table. So, there is no sensible way to understand this
example as anything other than one which belongs to either category (1) or category (2).
Finally, in the case of category (6), there again is unnecessary obfuscation and mystification;
if meaningfulness resides in a thing's being what it is, then nothing can be without meaning,
and meaning becomes co-extensive with whatever exists. Such a usage becomes, ironically,
meaningless. So, category (6) is not a case of meaning at all.
It seems, then, that wherever we have coherent categories of meaning, meaning does
involve what is traditionally dealt with within semiotics. Just as is implied on a realist
understanding of the Peircean triadic conception of the sign, meaning involves a three-term
relation (X means Y to P - the signifier means the signified to the person). Furthermore, if any
one of these terms is excluded, we do not have meaning. The word "table" does not signify
the object without there being someone (an English speaker) for whom it does so. And the
word "table" cannot be intrinsically meaningful to someone; it must mean something other
than itself. Footsteps in the sand may well have been caused by someone walking on the
beach, but they do not indicate that without indicating it to someone. And so on. We can
(^12) As will emerge in the discussion later, there is some controversy concerning unconscious nonconventional
symbolism (such as dream symbols) in category (2).