Now that we have established that the body is involved in a rudimentary meaning-constitution, the question becomes, what is "meaning"? The chapter begins with a brief look at the traditional view of meaning, moving quickly into the texts of Merleau-Ponty that have to do with language and expression (Signs, Prose of the World, Consciousness and the Acquisition of Language) in order to explicate an entirely new way of understanding "meaning", not simply as a way of designating thoughts and things, but rather, as the very bringing of thoughts and things into presence. The relationship between perception and language and the origin of meaning is in focus in these texts. Finally, the notion of "expression" finds its ultimate form in the ontology of the late Merleau-Ponty in his description of the meeting between man and world as "flesh" which will be the subject matter of the following chapter (4).