Anzeichen and Bezeichnen....(I.1.1-2)

* Since Brian suggested this, I'll just start a new post.

"Designate" and the English translator's "stand for" somehow both make sense to me. After reading the first two sections, I still understand Bezeichnen as a special case of signs (Zeichen) that can be indicators (Anzeige) which indicate (Anzeichen). So your remark about the fullest sense of signs seems to me not to require Bezeichnen in the sense as Husserl describes it. I take my bearings based on the last sentence in sec. 2, parag. 2. The keywords are "arbitrary (willkuerlich)," "constructed (gebildeten)," and "create (schafft)." I understand this to mean that, of all entities that are signs, there is a subclass that is artificially created by us and the link between the sign and the thing indicated is also arbitrary. Husserl seems intent on restricting Bezeichnen only to these artificially created symbols, thus the example of stigma, and his explanation that we use this word with regard to the "action that creates the marks." Before this, he mentioned examples where the signs are not created (but discovered?) by us, such as the canal is the sign of the existence of Martians. As I understand this, the canal is not constructed by us, we did not create the canal, and further, the connection between the existence of the canal and the existence of the Martians is not arbitrary. Thus in this case we do not speak of the canal as bezeichnen but only anzeichen the existence of Martians.

(Digression: Simmias sees a harp and thinks about Cebes. I see this somehow as an arbitrary connection - someone in love with someone else can come up with all sorts of wayward associations - but it is not specifically "created" for the sake of "indicating" something. It fits half of the description of Bezeichnen. Does Husserl have a word for this sort of thing, or does he just count it as a non-Bezeichnen example? Or this - I bump my head when I woke up this morning, and I believe it is a sign that I'm gonna have a rough day. I didn't create the bumping of my head but I did create the connection although from my own point of view I didn't create anything but saw it as a connection "out there." Does this count as designating? I would guess not: whether it is arbitrary or not is perhaps irrelevant in this case, but rather whether it is an association based on insight [analyzed in sec. 3 where he talks of Hinweis and Beweis]. I await for your thoughts about this.)

So, again, concerning what you said about the full sense of sign, I think that's right on: the relationship between the signifier and the signified requires context (although Husserl does not explicitly say so I think you're still right about this) and (at least one) thinking being to really make a sign a sign. But I don't understand "contexts" and "thinking being" as implying bezeichnen. In the Martian example, we do need to presuppose a bunch of background knowledge about life and the environmental conditions that could make it emerge, and also ourselves who are investigating - without these, the canal is just a canal and cannot be a sign of the existence of Martians. But these do not, as far as I can see, "designate" in Husserl's sense the canal as a sign of the existence of Martians; still, without any designating, the background knowledge and the thinking being seems to me to make the canal operate as a sign in the full sense. So turning back to Anya's question about that sentence in sec.1, I can only understand it in a simple way that means there are signs like the canal on Mars that don't bezeichnen at all.

This distinction seems relatively unimportant since Husserl is more interested in carving out the unity of Anzeichen as a whole (no mentioning of Bezeichnen in sec.2, parag. 3). However, thinking over this made me realize that a fundamental disagreement between him and Hume can be detected here - the latter would definitely reduce all signs to arbitrary connections in imagination. Even smoke as a sign of fire is "arbitrary" for Hume. Here I'm inclined to say that the onus probandi is on Hume, because his is the counter-commonsensical view, whereas Husserl's view, despite all our fusions and confusions in ordinary language, is more in tune with the way we think of these things (or so I think). The most interesting thing for me is: can Husserl succeed? It seems to me that he is always willing to concede to rival views somewhat, but these concessions always endangers his own account.

Apologies for my prolixity...:P