Abstract

Alfred Schutz elaborated Edmund Husserl’s term of appresentation to a particular theory of appresentational relations comprising “marks”, “signs”, “symbols” and “indications”. Even though Schutz implied the existence of other such relations, it was Husserl who drew a line between appresentation and proof. Following this differentiation, this paper aims to constitutionally analyse the everyday life phenomenon of proof and to describe its structure by consulting William James’ term of “knowledge about” as well as by discussing Schutz’ theory of relevance. With reference to Husserl’s Logical Investigation and by contrasting proof with indication it is shown that proof is appresentationally constituted through reflectively bringing the polythetical elements of clear, distinctive and consistent knowledge about, functioning as interpretational relevance, into the centre of topical awareness.