The semiotic muddle of contemporary culture
The semiotic muddle of contemporary culture

Summary/Abstract: Recently, a call for the “return of the subject” has gained increasing influence. This article argues that today’s search for cultural identity, in the context of the rise of new forms of the spirituality derived from a new metaphysical faith, is a risky enterprise for us, the contemporaries. This is the crucial moment of our present time that experience of the world is divided and subordinated to two modes of intentionality: intentio recta and intentio obliqua. The paper clarifies the distinction between intentio recta and intentio obliqua as the modes of the organization of consciousness and searches for the most privileged form of experience of the reality in the context of each. The conclusion is that neither hermeneutics, even the most radical, nor other modern philosophy can bring this experience to justice and tell us which is the common place of our common sense. The point is that the experience of the world subordinated to intentio recta has no common place with the common sense mediated by intentio obliqua. There is a kind of mixture or peculiar coil in the modern “words” and “things”. As the result participation in culture show no preferences to the centrality of a subject and discourse. Rather, we are producers of symptoms and symbols as the media of desynchronized communication.

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