Signs and Standpoints

This chapter examines a phenomenological methodology built around the experience of signs—equipment that, unlike most equipment, remains conspicuous in use and draws explicit attention to certain relations within the environment. I present the methodology of sign that Heidegger develops (although not clearly) in Being and Time by connecting it to his earlier explicit methodology of formal indication. I then show how Sara Ahmed uses this methodology to uncover something new about signs themselves and how they situate us within the world. Although Ahmed uncovers something that is a feature common for all, I show that her discovery is rooted in her particular standpoint. It is her identity as a lesbian that enabled this phenomenological discovery—affecting her interests, access to, and interpretation of her experience. It developed out of an achievement, and it constitutes a privileged insight into the phenomena. Her work thus provides a key illustration of how Heidegger’s methodology of signs can be deployed in a standpoint approach to phenomenology.