John Deely Boeken

Focusing on the theory of signs, this work explores its pivotal role in the evolution of philosophical thought. By examining the interplay between signs and understanding, it offers a fresh perspective on the intellectual culture at the brink of globalization, encouraging readers to reevaluate historical developments through this lens.

This book is a coherent argument about the meaning of the term "postmodern" as it applies to philosophy at the opening of the twenty-first century. The author makes the case that the twentieth-century development of the doctrine of signs, commonly known as semiotics, represents the positive essential thrust giving birth to a postmodern era of philosophy, as clean a break with modern thought as modern thought was with Latin scholasticism in the time of Galileo, Poinsot, and Descartes - but with a difference. Contrary to what the author dismisses as false claims of postmodernity, the work shows that what is truly postmodern in philosophy both goes beyond modernity and recovers philosophy's past in a renewed understanding of the human condition. The "problem of the external world," which modern philosophy began by creating, postmodern philosophy begins by revealing as a quasi-error. The book concludes with a philosophical dialogue revealing the inadequacy to the postmodern situation of a simple return to any past form of "realism," and explaining why the postmodern situation calls for a new definition of human being as "the semiotic animal."

The book addresses unresolved issues in the subjectivity/objectivity debate, as highlighted by Heidegger, offering a thorough analysis that enhances both semiotics and philosophy. It distinguishes between common perceptions of objectivity and its true implications revealed through semiotic analysis. By exploring the ontology of signs and the nature of relational status, it argues that human experience is often shaped by a constructed notion of 'purely objective reality.' The author emphasizes the importance of recognizing signs and their relations in understanding human awareness and existence.

The last half century has produced an increasing interest in semiotics, the study of signs. As an interdisciplinary field, moreover, semiotics has produced a vast literature from many different points of view. As the discourse has expanded, clear definitions and goals become more elusive. Semioticians still lack a unified theory of the purposes of semiotics as a discipline as well as a comprehensive rationale for the4 linking of semiosis at the levels of culture, society, and nature. As Deely suggests in his preface, the image of the modern semiotic universe is the same as that of astronomy in 1611 as suggested by John "Tis all in pieces, all coherence gone; / All just supply, and all Relation." This short, cogent, philosophically oriented book outlines and analyzes the basic concepts of semiotics in a coherent, overall framework.

Originally published under title: Medieval philosophy redefined: Scranton [Pa.]: University of Scranton Press, 2010.