Augustine and Poinsot: The Protosemiotic Development

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 v…