Hermeneutics is the systematic exploration of the structure of cultural meaning mediated through the experience of the sign. At its foundations there is language. But language is more than a catalogue of forms of signification; it is radically the experience of the sign in those relations with others which constituteintersubjectivity. What is the experience of the sign or the experience of signifying? At the level of structural linguistics, the sign signifies in virtue of its form.The sign is to that extent a relational concept; it is diacritical — formed by the systematic relations which give it value as a linguistic element. Yet while fundamentally true, the diacritical description of the sign presupposes the experience of the sign. The diacritical description of the sign which has become the hallmark of linguistic studies of meaning since Saussure assumes the intersubjective nature of the sign and that the recognition of meaning in language is perceptual in character. There is then a deeper dimension of the sign upon which its understanding rests: the exploration of the intersubjective and perceptual structure of the moment of signifying.To firmly come to grips with the nature of interpretation and the nature of the questions which form the problematic of hermeneutics, it is necessary, therefore,to go beneath the formal structure of the sign to the material experience of the sign where that formal structure becomes the modality of linguistic meaning. The foundations of hermeneutics rest upon the most concrete experience of the sign which is the experience of the sign within the folds of the flesh and in thelanguage of desire. The reflections which follow are an interrogation of those two dimensions. They form, in the manner of phenomenology, constitutionalstudies for they raise the question of the primitive experience within which the sign is constituted as a signifying experience.

Whatever the current philosophic fashion, you always know that Descartes is still alive and well and living in France. The perennial presence of French reflectivephilosophy since the early decades of this cntury is witness to this. Louis Lavelle belongs to this tradition known as French spiritualism. The following article is an excellent summary of his thought and of some of the basic characteristics of the whole tradition. Edouard Morot-Sir in a recent book has characterized the present form of this tradition as "a critical consciousness in search of an anthropodicy" (La Pensee francaise d'aujourd'hui, p. 57. Presses Universitaires de France 1971). Jean Nabert could just as well have been speaking for Louis Lavelle as for himself when he wrote, "the more clear the perception of finitenessbecomes, the sharper becomes the need for a justification which includes a demand for the unconditional. This reciprocal relationship is the very stuff ofself-consciousness" (Desir de Dieu p. 40). Louis Lavelle's importance for today is that with his philosophy of "consent to being," "freedom," "primary affirmation"and "total presence" he shows us how to avoid the contemporary trap of being caught in the antinomy of transcendence and immanence. An overall presentationof his thought by Wesley Piersol, together with some selections and a bibliography, can be found in the Fall 1965 issue of Philosophy Today. Gilbert Hardy has more recently contributed two studies of Lavelle's philosophy: "Louis Lavelle on Freedom and Participation" (Philosophy Today, Spring 1969) and "Louis Lavelle on the Mystery of Freedom" (Philosophy Today, Winter 1969). (R. Lechner, editor)