ABSTRACT
I. Between Heidegger and Peirce My task is to give a short account of the Italian philosopher Carlo Sini's theoretical work, which is still little known to American au diences. Sini's thinking, essentially devoted to a hermeneutics of the sign, engages in a constant dialogue with semiotics and phe nomenology. The opening quotation here is from the Chinese philosopher Kong Souen Long-Tseu's treatise On Finger and Object, written between the fourth and third centuries B.C. Sini cites it in one of his most recent books1 in the chapter entitled "Pointing Out" (L'indicare). The effect of the quotation of an Eastern philoso pher in Sini's work is quite surprising, but it should not suggest that Sini is avoiding the Western tradition, looking elsewhere for the solution to problems that Western thought has left unresolved. On the contrary, Sini is deeply rooted in the main trend of Euro pean continental philosophy: Husserl, Peirce, Nietzsche, and Hei degger are his authors. Yet the quotation shows that Sini-a
"conventional" philosopher using "conventional" methods-often achieves unconventional results.
