Phenomenon and Sign

Berkeley's reduction of all qualities to Secondary eliminates the existence of an 'external world', thereby transforming all the Empiricist foundations of experience from Sense-Data to Phenomena.  However, Phenomenalism is not the final destination of his divergence from Locke's theory.  For, when fully developed by the Bishop, a Phenomenon is becomes a Sign, from his deity, to a specific Mind, and, so, is not to be taken at face value.  Accordingly, his successors in this respect are not Hume, Smith, Kant, Hegel, and Husserl, but Peirce and Jaspers.  Now, the thesis that the events of experience are the manifestations of the will of a deity is hardly new.  But, what is distinctive in Berkeley's theory is their essential linguistic character--they are not effects of a cause, like thunder is an effect of a god's anger, but expressions of a communication, to be interpreted, not merely cognized.  The theory thus fully reflects the means of communication in which it appears.