Augustine and Poinsot: The Protosemiotic Development »

John Deely holds the Rudman Chair in Thomistic Studies at the University of St. Thomas, Houston. He is the author of Intentionality and Semiotics, also published by the University of Scranton Press.

While Saint Augustine has been a household name for centuries, the same cannot be said of long-overlooked philosopher John Poinsot (1589–1644). But in Augustine and Poinsot, John Deely contends that the history of semiotics cannot be conceived of without Poinsot’s landmark contribution. According to Deely, even though Augustine was the first to describe what the sign does, Poinsot was the first to show how the sign mediates between nature and culture. This revolutionary volume demonstrates how Poinsot’s account of semiotics allows us to produce human knowledge and experience. 

1. Intersemioticity

Augsutine: The Initiation of Protosemiotics

2. Protosemiotics

3. Augustine’s Immediate Aim and Success

4. Long-term Obstacles to the Philosophical Project

5. The Opening to Semiotics

6. Semiotics in the De Doctrina Christiana Text

7. Augustine and Semiotics in the 21st Century

Poinsot: The Culmination of Protosemiotics

8. Poinsot and the 20th Century Development of Semiotics

9. Tractatus de Signis, 1632: From Description to Explanation

10. Poinsot’s Double Miscalculation

11. The Protosemiotic Challenge Backward

12. The Protosemiotic Challenge Forward

13. Poinsot and Semiotics in the 21st Century

14. Protosemiotic Epilogue: The Citadel of Language

Afterword: The Time of the Sign

15. The Time of the Sign

Appendices

References

Index