The order that our mind imagines is like a net, or like a ladder, built to attain something. But afterward you must throw the ladder away, because yo… - Umberto Eco

Every specific semiotics (as every science) is concerned with general epistemological problems. It has to posit its own theoretical object, according to criteria of pertinence, in order to account for an otherwise disordered field of empirical data; and the researcher must be aware of the underlying philosophical assumptions that influence its choice and its criteria for relevance. Like every science, even a specific semiotics ought to take into account a sort of 'uncertainty principle' (as anthropologists must be aware of the fact that their presence as observers can disturb the normal course of the behavioral phenomena they observe). Notwithstanding, a specific semiotics can aspire to a 'scientific' status. Specific semiotics study phenomena that are reasonably independent of their observations.

Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say. In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view—one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. To have a good instance of qualitative populism we no longer need the Piazza Venezia in Rome or the Nuremberg Stadium. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.

يرى البعض أن مصطلح التسامح هو مصطلح مبهم وهو مصطلح لامتسامح: حيث إنه يفترض، بالفعل، وفقاً لرافضيه، بأنه يمكن لنا الاعتقاد بأن شخصا ما غير مقبول بشكل أساسي، أو أنه أدنى منا مرتبة (وخلاصة القول فإنه من الأفضل تحاشيه)، بيد أننا نتسامح معه من مبدأ الأدب أو إيثاراً لمبدأ السلامة.