 Propositions, in other words, can be related either to the objects to which they refer, or to the subjects who utter them, or to other propositions. But each of these relations, in turn, can be taken to be primary. (1) In the domain of speech, it is the “I” that begins: manifestation not only makes denotation possible (Hume), but is also prior to signification (Descartes’ cogito). (2) In the domain of language, however, it is signification that is primary, since one is always born into a preexisting language, and signified concepts are always primary in relation to the self as a manifested person or to things as designated objects. (3) Yet in the domain of logic we see the primacy of designation: as shown by the hypothetical mode of implications, the logical value of demonstration is not the truth, but rather the conditions of truth (the conditions of possibility under which the proposition would be true); the premises must thus be posited as effectively true, which forces one to leave the pure order of implication in order to relate the premises to a denoted state of affairs. Logical designation, in other words, cannot fulfill its putative role as foundation, since it presupposes an irreducible denotation.