Unlimited Semiosis and the Self
In learning a foreign language, there comes a weird point where you find that you haven't been translating your new language into your old one, and you may find yourself thinking, "How, then, do I understand what is being said?" Good question, and one that applies just as much to your first language. It is very strange that anyone ever seriously forwarded the idea that all thinking is in words, because it is obvious that the words themselves must be understood, and one can only do that with other words to a limit, without entering into Peirce's "unlimited semiosis." At some point what one needs is not another word but Frege's Sinn , or the idea behind the word. And at that point we get a little glimpse at the mystery of what we really are.