Only Mean Something To One Person

significance

interpretation

meaning

meaninglessness

vagueness

is at work in even the smallest things. Even an ant casts a shadow.

is at work in the smallest things. Little things are big.

is knowable in any specific behavior only against the background of the motives and emotions and values that are institutionalized in that culture.

If we are interested in cultural processes, the only way in which we can know the significance of the selected detail of behavior is against the background of the motives and emotions and values that are institutionalized in that culture' (Benedict 1934:49... my emphasis).

is not just about having a large external effect. Things don't have to change the world to be important.

Things don't have to change the world to be important. Steve Jobs

is Dasein-related, but it is not the product of Dasein's subjectivity, precisely because significance is so important to our Being: it is so fundamental that we cannot do or make anything unless a system of significance is already in place.

But Heidegger insists that readiness-to-hand is how things of use are in themselves (101/71). Presumably he would grant that without Dasein, there can be no things of use (there may be a surface with outpouchings, but it is not a glove anymore). However, as long as Dasein does exist, the thing really is a glove. This is a fact about the thing, and the fact is not a creation of my will. Significance is Dasein-related, but it is not the product of Dasein's subjectivity, precisely because significance is so important to our Being: it is so fundamental that we cannot do or make anything unless a system of significance is already in place.

significance, n.Memes

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significance