Heinrichs' Reflexive Semiotics as an Alternative
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume II, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
The Extension of Peirce
Johannes Heinrichs, whose reflection-systems theory we presented at length in Chapter 17a, also develops a theory of signs. His thesis: Peirce’s three sign types (index, icon, symbol) are incomplete. They capture only three of the four levels of reflection.
The index corresponds to object-reference (level 1): physical trace, causal connection. The symbol corresponds to self-reference (level 2): the subject posits meaning through convention. But what about level 3, intersubjective reference?
Heinrichs adds the communicative sign: a sign whose meaning arises only in interaction. A smile is not an index (no physical causality) and not a symbol (no convention). It is communicative - it means something only if it is returned.
This is recognition at the semiotic level: I smile, you recognize my smile, I recognize that you recognize it - shared meaning arises. Without this reciprocity the smile would be meaningless.
The Critique of Habermas - Cast Semiotically
Habermas’ discourse ethics operates at the fourth level: metacommunication, argumentative discourse. But the most important meanings arise at the third level: immediate communication.
Music means in the joint performance of it, not in discussion about it. Erotic encounter means in the interaction, not in negotiation. Aesthetic experience means in the experiencing, not in interpretation.
If one tries to clarify everything discursively, one destroys living meanings. This is violence through rationalization - the dialectic of enlightenment at the semiotic level.
Against Baudrillard’s Nihilism
Heinrichs’ theory of reflection makes possible an alternative to Baudrillard’s nihilism of simulation. Yes, signs are constructed. Yes, meaning is socially produced. Yes, naive reference to a “reality out there” is problematic.
But: the four levels of reflection are not arbitrary. They have a structure that is not random. The first level (object-reference) is not simulation - labor really transforms material. The third level (recognition) is not simulation - mutual recognition is real, or it fails. The fourth level (norms) is not simulation - rules have real consequences.
Simulation is itself a level of reflection - it is the situation in which reflection loses itself within itself. But this is not a necessity. It is a historical possibility that can be corrected by other forms of reflection.