  (2) The ontological homogeneity of the physical and the psychic becomes even more clear if we turn our attention to a completely different ontological sphere, which taken together heterologically with sensible being completes the concept of the world of experience (Erfahrungswelt). The second kind of being in Rickert’s ontology is what he calls non-sensible being. In order to introduce non-sensible being Rickert recommends that we turn our attention to word-meanings (Rickert 1934b, 79). While having a conversation, we do not only perceive the physical body of our interlocutor and the psychic reality attached to it. We also ‘receive’ in the same direct, immediate way the meanings of the words that he or she is uttering. These meanings are not psychic realities. They do not coincide with the thoughts of the speaker or with the acoustic stimuli of the listener. The very same meanings could be conveyed by a completely different sensible ‘support’ such as ink scribbles on paper. We can even recognize the same meaning as being instantiated by different words in different languages, such as the identical meaning of ‘red’, ‘rot’, ‘rosso’ and ‘rouge’. While the meaning of words must be carried by some sensible support, it is itself not sensible. It is not sensed or perceived but rather understood. This is why Rickert proposes to call the second ontological domain the non-sensible sphere of understandable meaning-configurations (verstehbare Sinngebilde) (Rickert 1934b, 81). Word-meanings, however, are only a tiny fraction of the meaning-configurations that we can experience. The arrangement of the musical notes in a symphony is likewise understood as a meaning-configuration possibly carried by different sensible supports—the same melody can be played in a different key, with a different instrument, it can be sung, etc. Looking at the works of a great artist we can understand one and the same non-sensible meaning-configuration (say, the same ‘style’) realized sensibly in different media. The universe of meaning-configurations constitutes for Rickert an authentic mundus intelligibilis experienced in concomitance with but as different from the mundus sensibilis of perceivable being. However, he takes pains to remind us that we should not repeat the old Platonic mistake of taking the world of non-sensible being to be a metaphysically separate reality. Understandable meaning-configurations are an ingredient of our everyday experience and so they have to be counted among the ontological ingredients of the experiential world. In exploring the world of meaning-configurations we must take into account the principles that allow for meaning-configurations to be intelligible. Not every string of words is intelligible and, most importantly, not every intelligible string of words is true. The same holds for every meaning-configuration. It is intelligible only if its constitutive non-sensible elements are held together by the reference to a specific value. True sentences, for instance, are unified by their reference to the theoretical value of truth. In this way, Rickert clarifies the ontological status of values as non-sensible beings. The real dualism pertaining to the world of experience, then, is not the one between body and mind but the one between the sensible world of perceivable entities and the non-sensible world of understandable meaning-configurations (Rickert 1934b, 92–97). This insight defeats a view Rickert calls “hyletic sensualism” (Rickert 1934b, 93) that he attributes to both Kant and Husserl. Hyletic sensualists assume that the content of our experience can only be sensible, and that whatever is non-sensible and intelligible must be ascribed to the form of our experience instead. However, based on the above analyses, Rickert emphasizes that the very content of our experience is both sensible (perceivable) and non-sensible (intelligible). Accordingly, in order to generate knowledge of sensible entities and intelligible meaning-configurations the conceptual forms of our cognition must apply to both domains.