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In which the nature of the absolutely necessary signs speaks for itself. ”36 Just as puzzle pieces only fit together in the one way that produces a picture, so appropriate signs could only combine in ways that make possible pictures of the world. Nonsense would not arise since mismatched pieces would 18 Chapter 1 conspicuously clash. 38 The book retro-engineers language, logic, and the nature of reality from the linguistic prototype we use every day. In such a project, the nature of the phenomenon in question guides the inquiry into its conditions: what the phenomenon does governs the investigation into how it does it.

Ontologies define reality as present-at-hand things because these are what show up to the cerebral stare. ”98 Whereas readiness-to-hand inconspicuously eludes study, presence-athand has the opposite vice of being too conspicuous: it presses itself on us as the one and only form of reality. ’”100 I will call this way of explaining phenomena afterward, according to the demands of particular theories one is committed to, a Retrospective Rational Reconstruction (RRR). 103 The owl of Minerva does indeed spread its wings at dusk, but it kicks up a heck of a lot of dust in the process.

What aspect of us could exist without our bodies? Is a God who exists more perfect than one who does not? Do chairs exist when no one is looking at them? Baffled, we stop and, brow furrowed, think intensely at the words: if we could just understand what existence really meant, we could figure out whether it’s a perfection or not. When detached contemplation fails to yield a clear answer we are astonished, both at our present ignorance and at our former competent use, suddenly rendered mysterious.