Abstract
The title of this paper may suggest that its author makes assumptions concerning the existence of meanings as relatively stable empirical entities. Such an impression is in need of speedy correction. 'Meaning' here is merely a shorthand expression for 'processes of meaning making.' This shift from item to process has been a characteristic of the history of phenomenology from its early Husserlian noematic and mathematical bias towards an emphasis on noetic modifications. Though the latter are already present in Husserl's 'Ideas' they were not permitted to play the role in his texts which, as Derrida points out in 'Speech and Phenomenon', they should have. Conversely, one could say about Derrida's work so far, that it has 'merely' replaced Husserl's noematic presence by his own noetic, or rhetorical, variety.