John Poinsot and John Deely

Frank Nuessel

► To cite this version:

Frank Nuessel. John Poinsot and John Deely. Studia Poinsotiana, 2024, 3, 10.5281/zenodo.13963684 .
hal-04912793

HAL Id: hal-04912793

https://hal.science/hal-04912793v1

Submitted on 12 Feb 2025

**HAL** is a multi-disciplinary open access
archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-
entific research documents, whether they are pub-
lished or not. The documents may come from
teaching and research institutions in France or
abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est
destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents
scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,
émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de
recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires
publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>
John Poinsot and John Deely

Frank Nuessel

University of Louisville, Kentucky (USA)

First published in 2024

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13963684

Studia Poinsotiana

https://www.uc.pt/fluc/ief/publica/poinsotiana

IEF — INSTITUTE FOR PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES UNIVERSITY OF COIMBRA

The Institute for Philosophical Studies is sponsored by
Portuguese funds via the FCT- Foundation for Science and
Technology, I.P., under the UID/FIL/00010/2020 project.

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

CONTRA ERRORES
PUBLISHING HOUSE

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>

MEDIEVAL
PUBLISHING HOUSE
## Studia Poinsotiana

https://www.uc.pt/fluc/ief/publica/poinsotiana

IEF — INSTITUTE FOR PHILOSOPICAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES UNIVERSITY OF COIMBRA

<figure><img src="image_4.png" /></figure>

1290
FACuldade de letrAS
UNIVERSIDADE d
COIMBRA

FCT
Fundação
para a Ciência
e a Tecnologia

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /></figure>

The Institute for Philosophical Studies is sponsored by
Portuguese funds via the FCT- Foundation for Science and
Technology, I.P., under the UID/FIL/00010/2020 project.

<figure><img src="image_6.png" /></figure>

CONTRA ERRORES PUBLISHING HOUSE

<figure><img src="image_7.png" /></figure>

MEDIEVAL PUBLISHING HOUSE

Graphic Design Project by Lucas Daniel Tomáz de Aquino

John Poinsot and John Deely

by Frank Nuessel

University of Louisville, Kentucky (USA)

First published in 2024

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13963684

## INSTITUTIONAL CIRCLES

https://www.uc.pt/fluc/ief/publica/poinsotiana/editorial/directories/circles/

<figure><img src="image_8.png" /></figure>

Angelicum – Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas

https://www.angelicum.it/

<figure><img src="image_9.png" /></figure>

Hugh of Saint Victor Cultural Institute

https://www.hugodesaovitor.org.br/

<figure><img src="image_10.png" /></figure>

International Society for Biosemiotič Studies

https://www.biosemiotics.org/

<figure><img src="image_11.png" /></figure>

Lyceum Institute

https://lyceum.institute/

<figure><img src="image_12.png" /></figure>

Portuguese Province of the Order of Saint Dominic

https://www.dominicanos.pt
# John Poinsot and John Deely

Frank Nuessel

*University of Louisville, Kentucky (USA)*

## Abstract

This essay addresses two preeminent figures in the study of the doctrine of signs. The first is John Poinsot (9 July 1589 – 15 June 1644). The second is John Deely (26 April 1942 – 7 January 2017). In many ways, the academic lives of these two noteworthy scholars are forever intertwined because of their scholarly contributions to the doctrine of signs. On the one hand, John Poinsot authored a very significant, but long-neglected document, *Tractatus de Signis*, which articulated a comprehensive analysis of the doctrine of signs. Moreover, his work constituted a significant link between Christian theology, philosophical Latinity, and modern and postmodern scholarly matters. In this regard, John Deely resurrected Poinsot’s neglected text by providing a detailed, annotated translation of the original Latin version together with a meticulous account of its implications for the doctrine of signs. As a result, we now possess the “missing link” between these philosophical and intellectual epochs. Deely further addressed the role that Charles Sanders Peirce played in the study of the doctrine of signs. Finally, there is a discussion of the “International Open Seminar on Semiotics: A Tribute to John Deely on the Fifth Anniversary of His Passing” available at the University of Coimbra website.

## Key words:

Augustine, doctrine of signs, John Deely, Charles Sanders Peirce, John Poinsot, semiotics, University of Coimbra.
## Introduction

The birthdates of these two principle figures in semiotic and the doctrine of signs are separated by slightly more than three-and-one half centuries: John Poinsot (9 July 1589 – 15 June 1644) and John Deely (26 April 1942 – 7 January 2017). Both scholars of the doctrine of signs would make their own distinctive and significant contributions to our knowledge of this topic. Poinsot, on the one hand, is the scholar who authored the *Tractatus de Signis* (1632), which sets forth a comprehensive doctrine of the sign. John Deely, on the other hand, translated Poinsot's original Latin text into English, while also providing an insightful and in-depth critical, interpretive analysis of the original seventeenth century text. Both researchers would add significantly to our knowledge of the doctrine of signs. John Poinsot, a Portuguese Dominican friar, a Thomist scholar and theologian, and a professor of philosophy and theology, received his formal education in Coimbra, Portugal and Louvain, Belgium. He joined the Dominican Friars in Madrid in 1610, whence the name, John of St. Thomas, by which he is known to many (Deely 2013: 434). He is considered a major theoretician of the doctrine of signs. He taught and carried out research at the University of Alcalá in Spain from 1625 to 1643 (Deely 2013: 437-443). In his lifetime, he was considered to be the most erudite scholar of his generation. As a result, his copious published writings continue to be consulted today, even though his work on the doctrine of the sign, as John Deely had frequently pointed out in his own scholarship, was ignored for centuries.

John Deely, an American philosopher, semiotician, and a Dominican brother, received his formal education at the Pontifical Faculty of Philosophy of the Aquinas Institute of Theology in River Forest, Illinois with a Ph.D. in 1967 (Aquinas Institute of Theology 2023). He served as a senior research fellow under the guidance of Mortimer J. Adler (1902-2001) at the Institute for Philosophical Research in Chicago. His interest in the work of Jacques Maritain (1882-1973; See Sweet 2022) and
John Poinsot ultimately put him in contact with the renowned semiotician and linguist, Thomas A. Sebeok (1920-2001), who was a professor at Indiana University, Bloomington, where they forged a lifelong friendship and dedication to semiotics. Deely published his first translation of Poinsot's *Tractatus de Signis* with interpretive notes in 1985. Subsequently, he produced a corrected second edition in 2013. In the foreword to the second edition (Deely 2013: xiv-xl), Deely provides, a historical account of the genesis of the first edition. He specified that his translation and *explication de texte* owes much to Thomas A. Sebeok's interest and encouragement.

## The Conimbricenses

The University of Coimbra has a long and storied history since its initial establishment in Lisbon in 1290. Subsequent relocations would ultimately see its current site in Coimbra in 1537. It is among the oldest universities in the world, and the oldest in Portugal. The University of Coimbra is the repository of a major collection of Jesuit studies on Aristotle (384-322 BC).

The Conimbricenses.org Project (2023) provides an overview of the years 1542 to 1772 when the University of Coimbra was a prominent center of European Aristotelian research (Casalini 2017). The exceptional online peer-reviewed Conimbricenses Encyclopedia (2023) provides a comprehensive academic resource on the Coimbra Commentaries, a group of eleven books on Aristotle. The "Conimbricenses," or the *Cursus Conimbricensis* (Santiago de Carvalho 2019b), or the "Coimbra Course" was the work of four Jesuit priests, namely, Baltasar Álvares (1560-1630), Sebastião do Couto (1567-1639), Manuel de Góis (1543-1597), and Cosme de Magalhães (1551-1624). The published works were disseminated and translated widely in Latin, the common scholarly language of that epoch.

Beuchot and Deely (1995: 565; Deely 1981) note that Poinsot studied at the University of Coimbra, where he was a student of Pedro da Fonseca (1527-1599), known as the
Portuguese Aristotle, whose efforts led to the publication of the *Cursus Conimbricensis*. The Coimbra Course was published between 1592 and 1606 by presses in Coimbra (António Mariz's Press and Gomez Loureiro's Press) and Lisbon (Simão Lopes's Press), which became known as the Commentaries on Aristotle by the Coimbra Jesuit College (Santiago de Carvalho 2019b).

The *Cursus Conimbricensis* had as one of its contributors Sebastião do Couto, who wrote the first systematic account of what Locke (1632-1704) would label “semiotic” (Santiago de Carvalho 2019a; See Deely 1985, 1986). It would be John Poinsot, in his *Tractatus de Signis*, who would articulate a full-fledged account of the “doctrine of signs” even though he did not use the term semiotics. He articulated his profound observations on the doctrine of signs during his tenure (1630-1644) as a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Alcalá in Spain. Thus, Poinsot was educated in an environment that predisposed him to write what would ultimately be his *opus magnum, Tractatus de Signis*. Recognition for his significant contribution to the doctrine of signs is due, in large part, to the consistent and persistent scholarly efforts of John Deely in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Deely’s (1985, 2013) translation of the *Tractatus de Signis* from Latin into English and his articulate scholarly annotation and interpretation of Poinsot’s masterpiece resulted in the global recognition of Poinsot’s major contribution to the doctrine of signs.

## John Poinsot

The interconnection of John Poinsot’s *opus magnum, Tractatus de Signis*, and John Deely’s prolific and always insightful academic research on that work through his English translation (1985, 2013) as well as his astute and discerning commentary inextricably couple these two academic giants even though their respective work on the doctrine of signs is separated by more than three centuries.
## The Name John Poinsot

Deely (2013: 421-424) provides a discerning onomastic and philological explanation of why he chose to use the name John Poinsot to refer to the author of *Tractatus de Signis*. Poinsot's father was Viennese and French, and his mother was Portuguese. Poinsot received his formal education in Portugal and Belgium prior to moving to Spain where he spent the remainder of his life. As Deely (2013: 422) points out, Poinsot lived in a period prior to the development of nation-states, and thus he lacks a national identity. Deely (2013: 422-423, Note 32) further explains that:

> ...I think that, Portuguese less than Spanish – fits this extraordinary case: By birth and upbringing he was identified with Portugal; by education and family ties with larger Europe; by vocation and personal choice with Spain; by his writing with the Latin world of an earlier, universal Christendom.

> "Joannes a Sancto Thoma" ('John of Saint Thomas') was the name that Poinsot used for the first three volumes of the *Cursus Theologicus* that he edited. As Deely (2013: 422) further notes, his three posthumous volumes employ the name "Joannes de Thoma". In fact, "Joannes a Sancto Thoma" was Poinsot's religious name. Deely (2013: 423-424, Note 33) refers to the various names given to Poinsot as a "baker's dozen". Deely (2013: 423-424, Note 33) likewise observes that the variations in the given names for John Poinsot range from insignificant to quite important. However, for the sake of consistency in scholarly research, it is necessary to have single nominal referent to avoid confusion when publishing academic articles about him (Nuessel 1992: 1-7, 9).

> Deely (2013: 424) thus concludes that "...John is the English version of our author's first name. That his family surname was *Poinsot* is equally certain. Hence, for our English edition of his semiotic, the first such in any language, we
thus nominally identify our author.” Deely’s excursus into
the given name of John Poinsot exemplifies his meticulous
and scrupulous attention to every detail of an academic topic
that he pursues.

*John Poinsot's Contributions to the Doctrine of Signs*

In an essay included in Sebeok and Danesi's *Encyclopedic Dictionary of Semiotics* (2010), Deely (2010b: 765; See Deely 1981: 240) succinctly elucidates Poinsot's essential contribution to the doctrine of signs when he notes that Poinsot considers that signs are both natural and social phenomena. In this sense, signs and what they signify may be independent of cognition “*(ens reale, ‘mind-independent being’) and what exists dependently upon cognition *(ens rationis, ‘mind-dependent being’).*” In a summary remark, Deely (2010b: 765) alludes to Thomas A. Sebeok, who observes that semiotics is “at the intersection of nature and culture” [Sebeok 1975].” As Deely (2010b: 767) further notes, Poinsot's *Tractatus de Signis* constitutes the first effort to show that signs are the “universal means of communication”. As such, Poinsot represents that link between “Christian theology, philosophical Latinity, and modern intellectual concerns”.

**John Deely**

During his lifetime, John Deely dedicated a considerable
amount of his research to reviving and expounding upon John
Poinsot's doctrine of signs as set forth in his Latin text *Trac-
tatus de Signis*. In his unique exposition of Poinsot's ideology,
Deely provides a personalized and appealing account of his
efforts through his discussions in essays and extensive foot-
notes relating to his research discoveries that, in many cases,
makes readers feel that they are engaged in a personal dia-
logue with him. It is this endearing quality that makes read-
ers react in such a positive fashion to his scholarly inquiries
into John Poinsot's pivotal volume on the doctrine of signs,
*Tractatus de Signis*. We are, as it were, accompanying Deely
on his global academic explorations, and we feel individually
engaged and involved with him in his scholarly pursuits. For
Deely, research is not an “ivory tower”. A part of his scholar-
ship involves physical effort, as he reveals in his writings. In
many instances, he traveled to well-known scholarly archives
in various parts of the world in order to seek out and confirm
information that what he asserts in his publications actually
exists. He thus goes to great efforts and expends much time
and energy to search for answers to vexing academic questions.
Moreover, he frequently contacted other scholars by letter,
email, telephone, and in person to seek clarity for his numer-
ous intellectual inquiries. Deely was, thus, constantly absorbed
in and occupied with his scholarly pursuits. We see in all of
Deely’s scholarship the joy and delight that he receives from
resolving his research questions through his ongoing related
and demanding inquisitive activities. Finally, his attention to
detail is everywhere apparent.

***The Translation of Tractatus de Signis***

The etymology of the word ‘translation’ derives from the Latin
word ‘*translatio*’ which is a combination of ‘across’ (*trans*) plus
‘to carry’ (*latus*, the past participle of *ferre*). The translator
is thus a mediator of meaning between two linguistic systems,
who seeks to carry across the meaning of the source language
to the target language. To be sure, scholars and semioticians
have written at length on the topic of translation (Eco 2000,
Hatim and Mason 1997, Jakobson 1959, Niklas 2010, Nuessel
2002, Schogt 2010, Torop 2002, Toury 2010). These and other
academicians have sought to define the meaning of the act of
translation, and they have made significant observations about
what it means to translate one language text into another one.
Toury (2010:1128) captures the essence of this process when
he describes it in the following succinct way:

Translating is an act (or a process) which is performed
(or occurs) over and across systemic borders. In the
widest of its possible senses it is a series of operations,
or procedures, whereby one semiotic entity, which is a
[functional] constituent (element) of a certain culture
(sub)system, is transformed into another semiotic en-
tity, which forms at least a potential element of another
cultural (sub)system, providing that some information-
al core is retained 'invariant under transformation,' and
on its basis a relationship known as 'equivalence' is
established between resultant and initial entities.

As noted previously, scholars of translation and its
theory point out the numerous challenges posed by trying to
re-create the sense of the original source language text in the
target language text (Eco 2000, Hatim and Mason 1997, Ja-
kobson 1959, Niklas 2010, Nuessel 2002, Schogt 2010, Torop
2002, Toury 2010). Because Deely is aware of the pitfalls and
the responsibility imposed by the act of translation, he clari-
fies his basic principles for the translation of Poinsot's *Tracta-
tus de Signis* into English. When an academician translates a
text from one language to another, that person seeks to convey
the meaning of the original text in the lexicon and syntax
of the target language. Deely (2013: 457-461) explains that
he followed three guiding principles in his English rendition.
The first principle is guided by the doctrine of signs set forth
by Poinsot. Thus, Deely seeks to adhere to the fidelity of the
basic scheme of the original text. At times, this primary prin-
ciple requires Deely to make use of lengthy English statements
for the more concise Latin and for the sake of terminological
consistency. The second guiding principle is to maintain the
literary quality of the original by recreating the original style
and syntax, especially with respect to subordinate clauses and
parallel structure. The third and final principle that guides
Deely's translation relates to his desire to utilize the histori-
cal resources of English even when the resulting translation is
specialized and philosophically sophisticated. Deely reminds
the reader that Poinsot's text was written during a time when
there was an ongoing shift from Latin to the various national languages that were quickly emerging in Europe. Nevertheless, Deely's ultimate goal for his English version of Poinsot's Latin text is to achieve maximum readability and legibility for the "non-Latin-speaking public".

Deely's three principles of his translation of Poinsot's *Tractatus de Signis* correspond to what Schogt (2010: 1126) calls the effort on the part of the translator to use a somewhat archaic language to capture the sense of the source language. Deely is to be commended for his effort to seek a translation that is as close as possible to the Latin source language. A careful review of the source language (Latin) and the target language (English) reveals that he succeeded in his efforts because of his fidelity to his own guiding principles.

Deely (2013: 446) considers the source of the translation of Poinsot's original Latin text of *Tractatus de Signis* into English when he explains that:

> The text and translation presented here have been based on the 1932 emended second impression of the edition and text of the complete *Ars Logica* published in 1930 at Turin, Italy, by Marietti, edited by B. Reiser. Though it was not yet a complete critical edition ..., H.-D. Simonin (1930, 147, 148) nevertheless did not hesitate to call Reiser's text 'the classical edition' of Poinsot's work.

Deely (2013: 446-448) further notes that he has included a brief passage that does not appear in the Reiser edition labelled "Transition to Book II", which comes from the 1638 edition of Thomas of Sarria, a professor of Poinsot's order at the University of Cologne. In a detailed footnote, Deely (2013: 447, Note 76) expresses amazement that the transitional passage was not included in Reiser's edition because of its value to the doctrine of signs. Deely's (2013: 448) justification for including this short text is that "...the
particular passage in question fits in nicely, and its parallel
to the paragraph of text similarly introducing Book III of
our *Treatise*, which is unquestionably from Poinsot's own
hand, [and it] creates an impression of authenticity suffi-
ciently strong to warrant its inclusion here."

Deely (2013: 451-457) continues the comprehensive
discussion of his translation of *Tractatus de Signis* that
demonstrates his careful treatment of the original text.
Thus, he notes that he has changed the original number-
ing system contained in the larger work *Ars Logica*. Thus,
Question 21 now becomes a chapter and it is numbered "1",
but he does retain the term 'article' in the two preambles.
He further notes that the page design of the bilingual edi-
tion has two columns. Reiser's Latin text appears on the
right side and the English translation is on the left side.
Furthermore, in the center of the two columns, every fifth
line has an Arabic numeral. Deely (2013: 451) explains that
his translation is the kind in which "each line is a com-
mentary and not really usable *except* as a commentary".
This format allows for a single set of footnotes for both
languages located at the bottom of each page. Finally, this
configuration allows the reader to locate a citation such as
"287/14-18", i.e., the page location is "287", and lines "14-18"
in the English translation and approximately in the same
place in the Latin version. Deely likewise provides the Rei-
ser pagination "722b39-45" in the heading to facilitate the
reader's ease of reference to that edition. Deely's exactitude
in the layout and design of the English translation and the
original Latin text with a reference to the Reiser edition is
remarkable for its reader-friendly presentation.

Deely (2013: 451-454) also explains his use of the
indices contained in Reiser's (1937) edition at the end of
the final volume: *Index Biblicus, Index Arisotelicus, Index
Thomisticus, Index Personarum, and Index Rerum* (In-
dex of Terms and Propositions). In order to treat Poinsot's
*Tractatus de Signis* as an independent and autonomous
unit, Deely notes that he has greatly expanded upon the *In-dex Rerum*. Furthermore, Deely (2013: 454-457) spells out his systematic procedure for the use of italic typeface with regard to foreign languages in his footnotes. Deely (2013: 456-457) explains his use of typographical devices. Deely thus shares in great detail everything he has done in rendering Poinsot's Latin text of *Tractatus de Signis* into English so that the reader will have a clear understanding of what he has done in his translated version.

## The Term Semiotics

John Deely began his ongoing etymological study of the word “semiotics” and related terms in his review essay of Thomas A. Sebeok’s (1976) collection of essays entitled *Contributions to the Doctrine of Signs* (Deely 1978). In it, Deely specifies Sebeok’s second article “‘Semiotics’ and Its Congeners”, reprinted from Sebeok’s (1971) original essay in a *Festschrift* for Archibald A. Hill, which he labels as the most important study in the book. Because Deely feels that this essay is the most significant in the entire book, he devotes approximately half of his entire review article to a discussion of its implications for semiotics. In many ways, this review essay prefigures what would become Deely’s career-long dedication to the study of John Poinsot and his *Tractatus de Signis*, a person whom Deely views as the key to the understanding of the study of semiotics as a doctrine of signs. It is thus a blueprint for much of his subsequent research.

In his review article, Deely (1978: 159) refers to Poin-sot, who distinguishes between ‘formal’ and ‘instrumental’ signs to designate “...the intraorganismic and extraorgan- ismic signs at work in awareness.” He then cites Poinsot (1632:10a4-12) who makes the following observations about the sign. First, it represents without an intermediary. Sec- ond, an instrumental sign represents something other than itself through an *a posteriori* self-awareness, e.g., the hoof-
print of an animal that stands for the animal itself. Deely (1978: 159) again cites Poinsot, who notes that a sign is “that which represents something other than itself to a cognizing power”. More specifically, Poinsot follows Augustine’s (c. 427) assertion that “a sign is something which, besides the impressions that it conveys to sense, makes something come into cognition” (Poinsot 646a 14-28). Deely (1978: 162) further cites Poinsot, who poses the question of the relation of a sign to how it has being, i.e., ontological, or its relation to its expressive use in discourse, i.e., transcendental (Poinsot 646b 16-19). Deely (1978: 165) contrasts representation with signification when he points out that Poinsot states that:

> A sign, even though in representing it respects a power in order to manifest thereto what is signified..., and in this precise consideration relative to the power need not consist in an ontological relation, yet in the subordination to what is signified, inasmuch as it respects that signified as what is principal and as the measure of itself, a sign must necessarily consist in an ontological relation thereto ... (Poinsot 1632:649b 15-26).

In his outstanding onomastic and etymological essay “On ‘Semiotics’ as Naming the Doctrine of Signs”, Deely (2006: 1; cf. Nuessel 2006b; Deely 2003 has a detailed discussion of the word semiotics and its formation and origins) provides a meticulous and detailed historiography of the two terms “semiology” and “semiotics”, the first usage of the former can be traced to the latter part of the nineteenth century. Semiology is now associated with Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913; See Saussure 1916) as a cultural concept, or the “science of signs”, while semiotics has become a wider more generally accepted expression for the “doctrine of signs”. Thus, these two terms are no longer associated with medicine as symptomatology in their original usage.
Deely further discusses the distinction of the terms “science of signs” and “doctrine of signs”. According to Deely (2006: 4-5), Saussure meant that semiology referred to the “science of signs”, which was a modernistic concept, i.e., it was a notion that belonged to the sphere of culture, and, which excluded the sphere of nature. More precisely, Saussure sought to create what was singularly in the mode of the *Geisteswissenschaften* ['Humanities'].

Next, Deely (2006: 6) identifies Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) as the intellectual who was developing his general study of signs around the same time that Saussure was putting forth his notion of semiology. Thus, for Peirce, semiotics was a doctrine of signs and not a science of signs with the distinction being that science was ideoscopic (ideas that belong to specialized experience with instrumentation, experimentation, and calculation, Greek *idios* 'singular', 'specialized' and *skopein* 'to see, to look') whereas philosophy was essentially cenoscopic (the study of experience acquired through the five senses, Greek *koinos* 'common' and *skopein* 'to see, to look'), i.e., it differentiates the Latin words *scientia* and *doctrina* (See Paine 2021 for a detailed discussion of the differences between the terms 'cenoscopic' and 'idioscopic').

## The Sign

Poinsot, Peirce, and Deely all discuss the notion of the sign. Danesi and Perron (1999: 73) provide a simple account of the Peircean notion of sign when they state that his was a tripartite view that features the following components illustrated in Figure 1.

1. The *representamen* is the perceivable part of the sign, i.e., that which does the representing.

2. The *object* is the concept that it encodes.

3. The *interpretant* is the meaning that someone gets from the sign.
<figure><img src="image_13.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1. The Peircean triadic sign (Danesi and Perron 1999: 73).</figcaption></figure>

Moreover, Danesi (2000: 209) notes that the sign:

... consists of three dimensions. First, it involves something physical – sounds, letters, gestures, etc. – that is made to refer to something in the world (a thing, an object, an idea, etc... The second dimension of the sign is the something other than itself for which it stands.... This is known as the referent, signified, or *object*. The third dimension, known as the signification or the *interpretant* is what the sign means in specific uses.

Deely (2006: 11) defines the sign in the following way:

So it is always a question of three elements, not two: there is the 'sign', that is, the element which represents some other; and there is the 'significate', the other that is represented; and there is the one to or
for whom the sign achieves this presentation of its
significate, which Peirce proposed that we should call
‘interpretant’, not ‘interpreter’, so as to avoid beg-
ging the question of whether only cognitive organ-
isms use signs.

The fact that Deely points out that a sign is triadic, and not
dyadic is noteworthy. Within Saussure’s semiology, a sign is
bipartite. Danesi and Perron (1999: 72) note that Saussure:

...defined the *sign* as something perceivable (i.e. made up of sounds, letters, etc.), which he termed the *signifier* (= [A] part of the sign), that is used to encode a concept, which he called the *signified* (= [B] part of the sign). He named the relation that holds between the two *signification* (= [A ≡ B]).

For Saussure (1916), the relationship between signifier (*signifiant*) and signified (*signifié*) is arbitrary. Thus, Saussure’s semiology is a bipartite description of the sign while Peirce’s was tripartite. Saussure’s semiological model addressed intentional communicative acts, whereas Peirce’s approach involved every form of sensorial stimuli that leads to another concept in the recipient’s perception and understanding of a message.

In his discussion of the triadic sign, Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) labelled its perceivable component the *representamen* and its concept, the idea that it encodes the *object*. The meaning that a person gets from the sign in the *interpretant*, i.e., the sense made of the sign. Figure 1 illustrates the components of the Peircean triadic sign. A sign's meaning is determined by personal, social, and contextual means mediated by culture. As Deely (2009: 43) points out that "... a sign is anything that stands for another than itself to yet some third: *aliquid alicui stans pro alio.*" This Peircean triadic view of the sign means that "something stands for another to someone".
## The Doctrine of Signs

In his review article of Umberto Eco's (1932-2016) *A Theory of Semiotics* (1976), Deely (1976: 172) refers to John Poinsot's long ignored *Tractatus de Signis*. To be sure, this reference to Poinsot's work predates Deely's (1985, 2013) translation and explication of that great treatise by nine years. With respect to the sign, Deely (1976: 171) argues that semiotics is a discipline, i.e., a doctrine of what a sign is and the conditions by which something functions as a sign. Because semiotics, as a field, seeks to study the signifying components of specialized domains of research such as music, architecture, and so forth. Thus, as a field of inquiry, the term semiotics is a better label for the systematic study of the concept of sign.

In their *Encyclopedic Dictionary of Semiotics* (Sebeok and Danesi 2010) entry for the term “doctrine,” Deely (2010a: 222) specifies that the word ‘doctrine’ means ‘teaching’, i.e., a body of thought that is consistent and that provides explanations for phenomena. In this regard, Deely (2010a: 222) states that “...the notion of doctrina is of one the avenues expressing the differing ways in which the sensory core of cognition is relied upon in dominant moods of thought which are typically ‘scientific’ as contrasted with those that tend more to typically ‘philosophic’ analysis.”

Deely (2010b: 765) concludes that:

> ...Poinsot's work provides us with the first of several 'missing links' in the history of logic and philosophy after Ockham (c. 1350), enabling us to trace backwards through the Iberian schools of Coimbra (notably the work of Petrus Fonseca [1564] and the team of workers he organized, the so-called 'Conimbricenses'), Salamanca (Báñez, Soto, and others), and Alcalá, a heretofore largely untold story of developments that are exceptional in their import for semiotics....
## The Poinsot Trilogy

John Deely had planned to write a trilogy on John Poin-
sot with a focus on three famous philosophers: Augustine
(354-430 A.D.; Deely 2009), René Descartes (1596-1650;
Deely 2008), and Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). The
first two were published by the University of Scranton
Press. Unfortunately, the third volume with the proposed
title *Peirce & Poinsot. The Action of Signs from Na-
ture to Ethics* to be focused on Peirce was never published
because of financial issues at the University of Scranton
Press which closed its doors in early 2010. Deely did, how-
ever, address the relationship between Poinsot and Peirce
in subsequent writings. Nevertheless, his monographs on
Augustine and Descartes saw their way into print, and
they merit brief commentary.

As noted, Deely published two volumes of what he
labeled “A Poinsot Trilogy”. The first volume *Augustine &
Poinsot. The Protosemiotic Development* has a copyright
date of 2009, while the second volume *Descartes & Poin-
sot. The Crossroad of Signs and Ideas* has a copyright
date of 2008, which I noted in my review of these two vol-
umes (Nuessel 2011: 263). The third volume entitled *Peirce
& Poinsot. The Action of Signs from Nature to Ethics*
was never published by the University of Scranton Press.
The Wikipedia entry about the University of Scranton
Press (2023) states that it “published more than 200 books
and other publications between 1988 and 2010.” That same
entry states that the University of Scranton Press no longer
accepted new works in early 2010. This would explain why
the third volume of Deely’s trilogy was never published.
The University of Scranton Press came into existence in
1988 under the guidance of the Reverend Richard W. Rous-
seau, S.J., who was then the chair of the university’s De-
partment of Theology and Religious Studies. It was origi-
nally known as Ridge Row Press from 1981 to 1988 before
its name change to University of Scranton Press. The press
ceased accepting new works in early 2010, and then Provost
and Vice-President for Academic Affairs, Harold Baillie, de-
clared that the press would be shuttered because "...it was
a budgetary decision. We are a tuition-driven institution,
and these are tough economic times... Our main priority is
the education of students, and that takes precedence in the
distribution of our resources" (University of Scranton Press
2023). The third volume of the trilogy would have provided
significant insights into the connection between Poinsot's
and Peirce's notion of the sign. Nevertheless, the first two
volumes of the proposed trilogy contain observations about
Poinsot and Peirce. Deely (1994; See Junqueira 2023: 2,
Note 5 and 3, Note 6; See Deely 1981) published an earlier
essay that provides a rationale for the study of the common
sources of the semiotic of Charles Peirce and John Poinsot.
Junqueira (2023: 3) notes that "...Deely has been bringing
the importance of the CJC to the attention of the English-
speaking community of inquiry at least since 1981[Deely
1981], and at least since 1995 he has been disseminating
the meaningfulness of the Peirce-CJC relation [Beuchot and
Deely 1995]. Deely is to be credited as the father...in this
particular instance...of the common belief about the Peirce-
CJC relation." It is certain that Deely would have discussed
the commonalities of Peirce and Poinsot, had it been pub-
lished. In this regard, Deely (1994: 37-38) notes that in
Peirce's young adulthood, medieval philosophy was virtu-
ally forgotten in part because Descartes's rationalism had
the effect of effacing Latin Scholasticism. Deely (1994: 39)
argues that Peirce, even though he did not know Poinsot's
work, paid attention to the history of ideas, and as a result
developed a detailed theory of the doctrine of signs. Thus,
both great thinkers shared a common set of references.
Deely (1994: 44) concludes that "Peirce and Poinsot, have
a certain parity in being, independently of one another, the
first to consciously realize and thematically demonstrate
in their written works that signs as such involve but can-
not be reduced to the sensible elements by which we access
them, for they consist essentially in relations which are
irreducibly triadic.”

Deely (1994: 44-45) makes the following overall ob-
servation, namely, that semiotics may re-emerge after the
period of modernity to continue and resume “the develop-
ment of semiotic consciousness as the proper matrix for
the whole of human knowledge, for natural and human sci-
ences alike. In this respect semiotics appears as the proper
paradigm under which to work out the positive implica-
tions, and not merely the petulant, rejectionist ones, in
the notion of ‘postmodernity’.”

Augustine and Poinsot

The first volume (Deely 2009) of the proposed trilogy has a
publication date of 2009 while the second one (Deely 2008)
has a publication date of 2008. The original trilogy had
Poinsot as the centerpiece of the trilogy. Deely (2009: iii)
alludes to the three “crucial nodes” or “turning points” on
the way to twenty-first semiotics. According to Deely (2009:
v) the first turning point was the development of semiotic
consciousness at the end of the fourth century AD when
Augustine (354-430 AD) “articulates the notion of sign as
a mode of being transcending the ‘divide’ or difference be-
tween nature and culture.” For Deely, the period of the
Latin centuries culminates in the work of John Poinsot who
establishes the triadic nature of the sign as its essence.

Descartes and Poinsot

The second turning point for Deely (2009: v-vi) occurs in Poin-
sot’s lifetime with the ideology of Descartes (1596-1650). Des-
cartes distinguished reasoning from sensorial experience with
the former being central. Thus, the mental representations
constitute the essence of human experience. In this regard,
Deely (2009: vi; See Markie and Folescu 2023) states that
“[t]hus arose the modern distinction between ‘Empiricism’
attending to the sense and ‘Rationalism’ touting the prima-
cy of reason.” Descartes’ rationalism became dominant to the
detriment of Poinsot’s ignored *Tractatus de Signis* in which
worldly objects including human beings are interdependent,
which constitutes a *sine qua non* for existence and propaga-
tion and continuation.

Deely (2008: 29) alludes to Sebeok's use of the term
"cryptosemiotics" to refer to the long interlude when the doc-
trine of signs went underground because of the dominant Car-
tesian paradigm that gave primacy to the mental construction
of reality at the expense of empirical inquiry into knowledge.
This centuries-old philosophical dichotomy was reflected in the
bitter debate known as "The Linguistics Wars" (Harris 1993;
Nuessel 1994) in linguistic theory during the second half of
the twentieth century concerning rationalism (Chomsky 1957,
1965) and empiricism (Lakoff and Johnson 1980, Lakoff 1987)
in the study of language acquisition. Deely further notes that
the crux of the issue, in very simple terms, relates to nominal-
ism (particulars) vs. realism (universals). The fact that Poin-
sot's doctrine of signs was relegated to obscurity with the rise
of Cartesianism caused it to be ignored for centuries. It would
not be until Deely unearthed the *Tractatus de Signis* and
systematically and relentlessly argued for its significance and
for the importance of Poinsot's treatise through his copious
writings and his persuasive personality.

Peirce and Poinsot

The very unfortunate closure of the University of Scranton
Press resulted in the non-publication of the third volume of
Deely's trilogy. the second volume of his trilogy, Deely (2008:
xi-xii) points out that "Poinsot was completely unknown to
Peirce, which is a pity, because Poinsot was the first systemati-
cally to demonstrate the foundations of logic as semiotic. Yet
their common acquaintance with the Conimbricenses achieved
a common influence in orienting them alike to the problem, as
we might put it, of 'Thirdness' in nature and culture".
In his Rationale for the Trilogy (2009: vi-vii), Deely states that the third turning point is:

> ... the point at which C. S. Peirce, in the waning light of modern philosophical thought as the 20th century opened, turns back to the Latins and picks up again the threads of the semiotic development. He thus establishes himself as the last of the moderns and the first of the postmoderns in realizing that the being of signs as triadic relations holds the key not only to hardcore realism of ancient Greek and medieval Latin thought — the ‘scholastic realism,’ as Peirce called it....

In Deely’s (2001: 611-668) masterly volume entitled *Four Ages of Understanding. The First Postmodern Survey of Philosophy from Ancient Times to the Turn of the Twenty-First Century*, the fourth part contains a chapter (chapter 15) entitled “Charles Sanders Peirce and the Recovery of *Signum*” that addresses many of the points that he would have considered in the third volume of his uncompleted trilogy. In this regard, Junqueira (2023: 4) has discussed in detail the relationship between Peirce and the Coimbra Jesuit Course in his paper presented at the Charles S. Peirce Society on February 18, 2023. In this study, he states that:

> Deely has been most definitely effective in spreading the belief that the *doctrina signorum* of the CJC [Coimbra Jesuit Course] provided a stepping stone for Peirce, as earlier for João Poinsot, to arrive at the triadic definition of the sign understood as a sign-relation. The belief holds because not only did Peirce actually mention the CJC..., but the definition of the sign in the CJC also substantiates it. In the CJC, we read that the sign is ‘*omne id, quod potentiæ cognoscenti aliquid a se distinctum repræsentat*’; in other words, ‘anything which represents something other than itself to a knowing power’. Behold the triadic definition of
the sign-relation, which could be put in Peirce's words in the following manner: 'something, A, which denotes some fact or object, B, to some interpretant thought, C'.

Junqueira (2023: 9) counsels that “[t]he details of the impact of the CJC on Peirce remain to be duly studied as regards an already well-rounded array of topics with regard to which Peirce refers directly to the CJC, as well as one other, that of the sign-relation, wherein Peirce refrains from mentioning the CJC, although the community has already dutifully flagged it.” Nevertheless, Junqueira (2023: 9) concludes that “the bond between Peirce and the CJC is far more pervasive than commonly believed.

**International Open Seminar on Semiotics: A Tribute to John Deely on the Fifth Anniversary of His Passing**

Five years after John Deely's tragic demise, the University of Coimbra sponsored an “International Open Seminar on Semiotics: A Tribute to John Deely on the Fifth Anniversary of His Passing” on January 7, 2022 (International Open Seminar on Semiotics 2023; https://ucpages.uc.pt/fluc/uidief/act/io2s/auditorium/) contains the recordings of the presentations for this congress. The same University of Coimbra web site (International Open Seminar on Semiotics, 2023), provides important information about this tribute to John Deely's contributions to Poinsot studies and the doctrine of signs.

The first section of the website, “Greeting Note”, states that:

> The Occurrence of this seminar over the calendar year 2022 also marks the 80th year of John's arrival. Although he would most certainly instruct us not to focus on celebrating his life, but instead on developing the Way of Signs, there seems to be no downside to accomplishing both of these tasks simultaneously. Hence this seminar seeks to render homage to his genius and further develop his work. Professor
Deely spent a lifetime studying semiotics and fostering a network of semioticians from around the planet. Hopefully, his mission is here dutifully echoed. We congregated a number of distinguished experts in the field of semiotics in a shared enterprise to provide a formative environment openly accessible to the general audience through a series of lectures on semiotics and its history, with particular care for Doctor Deely's historical perspective and the challenges presented to semiotics in the world today. Having done so, chances are that we matched Prof. John's aspiration for future generations to acknowledge the core significance of semiotics and its history for the evolution of human understanding.

Lectures are arranged into two modules. The first, comprising sessions on the legacy of semiotics, has been titled “Historical Module: From Early Latinity to the Last Postmodernity.” Here, including lectures on prominent figures in the history of the field, the emphasis is on the diachronic extension of semiotic development, meaning its historical path as a laboratory where the community of living inquirers is given the necessary instruments for casting eyes upon the future. The second, dealing with semiotics at cross-thematic levels, has been titled “Systematic Module: *De-Sign* or Semiotics in Relation.” Now, involving issues such as space and time, cognition, ethnicity and digital education, attention is turned to the present, the synchronic scale of the issues challenging those not yet dead. Both strands constitute keystones for the refinement of human understanding and are, after all, inextricably connected.

The second component of this web site, “Semiotic Gateways”, provides access to the following resources. Freely available recordings of the presenters are accessible here.
1. Auditorium.

2. Persons Involved.

3. Lecturers.

4. Organizing Committee.

5. Scientific Council.

6. Board of Institutions.

7. Global Goals.

8. Extramural Links.

The final segment, “Closing Remarks”, specifies that 21 individuals from a wide variety of countries, and affiliated with 12 institutions who participated in the creation of the tribute papers for Deely (International Open Seminar on Semiotics 2023).

## Concluding Remarks

John Deely's final academic appointment was Full Professor and Philosopher-in-Residence at the Saint Vincent College in the fall of 2015. The college is located in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, and it is a private Benedictine academic institution founded in 1846 by Boniface Wimmer, a Bavarian monk. It is operated by the Benedictine monks of Saint Vincent Archabbey, the first Benedictine monastery in the United States. John Deely's untimely death on January 7, 2017 shocked the entire scholarly community. Saint Vincent College has a web site for the “Deely Project” (2023) that describes all of his scholarly activities, and it celebrates his research and his life. In the online reference work *Theory and History of Ontology* (2023), under the rubric of “Semiotics and Ontology”, there are two annotated bibliographies of John Deely's prolific scholarship, namely, the “Annotated Bibliography of John Deely. First part: 1965-1998” (2023a) and “Annotated bibliography of John Deely. Second part: 1999-2010” (2023b). Together, these two bibliographic references provide an overview of John Deely's extensive research into John Poinsot, semiotics, ontology, and related topics.
Table 1 specifies the three important scholars in the
development of the doctrine of signs discussed in this essay.
To be sure, St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) plays a
very significant role in the history of the doctrine of signs in
his discussion of language as signs in *De Doctrina Christi-
ana* and *De Magistro* (Tornau 2020). However, the present
article focuses on the three pivotal figures of John Poinsot,
Charles Sanders Peirce, and John Deely. The first is John
Poinsot, the Portuguese Dominican friar, philosopher and
Thomist scholar born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1589, who re-
ceived his formal education at the University of Coimbra
and the University of Louvain. He became a Dominican 1610
(Deely 2013: 434). He would ultimately be named a profes-
sor of Philosophy and Theology at the University of Alcalá,
Spain where he was renowned for his prolific academic writ-
ings. His *Tractatus de Signis* published in 1632 is his *opus
magnum* because it contains his reasoned discussion of a
comprehensive overview of the doctrine of signs. The second
is Charles Sanders Peirce whose articulation of the sign is
triadic, which involves the process of semiosis (the innate
capacity that allows for the production and comprehension
of signs) consists of three components. The first element
of the triad is the representamen or something that does
the representing. The second component is the object or
the referent. The third constituent is the interpretant or
the sign's meaning, which may be immediate, dynamic, or
final. Finally, the third person in Table 1 is John Deely,
whose lifelong dedication to philosophical and semiotic re-
search, showed that John Poinsot's *Tractatus de Signis* is
the missing link between the Latin scholarly tradition and
the Peirce's articulation of the component parts of the sign.
Although Peirce indicated no direct knowledge of Poinsot's
masterpiece on the doctrine of signs, his discussion of the
sign certainly coalesced with Poinsot's ideology (Deely 2001:
614). Beuchot and Deely (1995: 566) capture the protracted
advancement of semiotics in the following way:
...that, in semiotics, the best students of the slow development of semiotic consciousness as it took shape between Augustine's suggestion of *signum* as a possible field of unified inquiry, and Fonseca as perhaps the classical initiator of the theory of the sign as a systematic project, were John Poinsot and Charles S. Peirce. Both were first-Poinsot absolutely and Peirce relative to contemporary awareness-explicitly to achieve the identification of a single subject matter at the heart of semiosis, namely, the irreducibly triadic and ontological sign-relation. Recognition of their achievements restores to philosophy its lost history, and provides for postmodernity the richest soil in which to continue the development of semiotic consciousness as the new matrix for human and natural science alike, and the proper paradigm under which to work through the positive implications of postmodernity as a new age in the history of philosophy and intellectual culture. It is finally, after all, a question of self-understanding.

Were it not for John Deely's lifelong, diligent, assiduous, rigorous, industrious, and relentless scholarly efforts to bring to light John Poinsot's major contribution to the doctrine of the sign in his Latin treatise, *Tractatus de Signis*, the latter's compelling and cogent discussion of the triadic sign may well have continued to be neglected even though it was ignored for more than three centuries.
<table><caption>Table 1. Three major scholars of the doctrine of signs.</caption><thead><tr><td>John Poinsot</td><td>Charles Sanders Peirce</td><td>John Deely</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1589-1644</td><td>1839-1914</td><td>1942-2017</td></tr><tr><td>1632. <i>Tractatus de Signis.</i><br>Alclalá de Henares.<br>Iberia.</td><td>1931-1966. <i>Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce.</i><br>Ch. Hartshorne, P. Weiss, A. W. Burke (eds.). 8 vols. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.<br><br>Peirce Edition Project. 2023. <a href="https://peirce.iupui.edu/index.html">https://peirce.iupui.edu/index.html</a>.</td><td>2013. <i>Tractatus de Signis. The Semiotic of John Poinsot.</i> John Deely (trans.). Bilingual Format. Corrected Second Edition. South Bend: Indiana: St. Augustine's Press.</td></tr></tbody></table>

It must be reiterated that John Deely's writing style engages the reader immediately. First, he writes as if he is speaking directly to the reader in person through his personable, affable, and interactive polish and charm. On the one hand, Deely writes precisely, lucidly, and insightfully on every topic. Moreover, he writes in a logical and orderly format with multiple cross-references to his own work and that of others. Furthermore, he provides interesting vignettes about his pursuit of accurate information by travelling to the various academic sites that house the information that confirm his initial assumptions. Finally, his work is replete with metaphoric language that helps the reader's comprehension of a particular topic by utilizing an important property of metaphor, namely, the comparison of a known concept or property to a novel and unknown notion in order to make that novel notion comprehensible (Nuessel 2000, Nuessel 2006a: 456-458).

John Deely dedicated a significant portion of his adult academic life as a scholar, advocate, commentator, interpreter, translator, and teacher of John Poinsot's mas-
terpiece *Tractatus de Signis* in which the doctrine of the
sign was so clearly articulated. John Deely made its exis-
tence known to many in the twentieth and twenty-first cen-
turies through his prolific research, public presentations at
academic congresses, and teaching at various universities.
As a result, John Poinsot's and John Deely's professional
scholarly lives are forever inextricably joined. John Deely's
gift was to make John Poinsot's academic insights, which
had been shrouded in the shadows for centuries, available
to researchers in semiotics.

For those who have had the pleasure of engaging with
him personally, all of these factors are at once evident in
such interpersonal interactive communication. Deely's writ-
ing reflects his persona, and the two are inextricably linked.
I had the good fortune to interact with John at all but two
of the annual meetings of the Semiotic Society of America
from 1996 to 2016 as a participant and an observer.
## References

“Annotated Bibliography of John Deely. First part: 1965-1998.” 2023a. https://www.ontology.co/biblio/john-deely.htm https://www.ontology.co/biblio/john-deely.htm. Accessed 29 May 2023.

“Annotated bibliography of John Deely. Second part: 1999-2010.” 2023b. https://www.ontology.co/biblio/john-deely-2.htm. Accessed 29 May 2023.

Aquinas Institute of Theology. 2023. https://www.encyclopEDIaDUBUque.org/index.php/AQUINAS_INSTITUTE_OF_THEOLOGY. Accessed 10 July 2023.

Beuchot, Mauricio and John Deely. 1995. “Common Sources for the Semiotic of Charles Peirce and John Poinsot.” *The Review of Metaphysics* 48(3): 539-566.

Casalini, Cristiano. 2017. *Aristotle in Coimbra. The Cur-sus Conimbricensis and the Education at the College of Arts*. Luana Sakvarini (trans.). New York: Routledge.

Chomsky, Noam. 1957. *Syntactic Structures*. The Hague: Mouton.

Chomsky, Noam. 1965. *Aspects of the Theory of Syntax*. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

The Conimbricenses Encyclopedia. 2023. http://www.conim-bricenses.org/contents/. Accessed 16 May 2023.

The Conimbricenses.org Project. 2023. http://www.conim-bricenses.org. Accessed 16 May 2023.

Danesi, Marcel. 2000. *Encyclopedic Dictionary of Semiot-ics, Media, and Communications*. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Danesi, Marcel and Paul Perron. 1999. *Analyzing Cultures. An Introduction & Handbook*. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Deely, John. 1976. “The Doctrine of Signs: Taking Form at Last: À propos of A Theory of Semiotics by Umberto Eco.” *Semiotica* 18(2): 171-193.

Deely, John. 1978. “What’s in a Name?” *Semiotica* 22 (1-2): 151-181. [Review article of Thomas A. Sebeok, *Contribu-
tion to the Doctrine of Signs, Research Center for Language and Semiotic Studies, Bloomington, Indiana, and Lisse: Peter de Ridder Press, 1976.]

Deely, John. 1981. "The Relation of Logic to Semiotics." *Semiotica* 34 (3-4): 193-265.

Deely, John. 1985. *Tractatus de Signis. The Semiotic of John Poinsot*. 1st ed. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

Deely, John. 1986. "John Locke's Place in the History of Semiotics." In John Deely and Jonathan Evans (eds.), *Semiotics 1986. Lanham, MD: University Press of America*. 406-418.

Deely, John. 1994. "Why Investigate the Common Sources for the Semiotic Charles Peirce and John Poinsot?" In C. W. Spinks and John Deely (eds.), *Semiotics 1994. New York: Peter Lang*. 34-50.

Deely, John. 2001. *Four Ages of Understanding. The First Postmodern Survey of Philosophy from Ancient Times to the Turn of the Twenty-First Century*. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Deely, John. 2003. "The Word 'Semiotics': Formation and Origins." *Semiotica* 146: 1-49.

Deely, John. 2006. "On 'Semiotics' as Naming the Doctrine of Signs". *Semiotica* 158: 1-33.

Deely, John, 2008. *Descartes & Poinsot. The Crossroad of Signs and Ideas*. (Vol. 2 in the Postmodernity in Philosophy. A Poinsot Trilogy"). Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press. [Note: the second volume of this proposed trilogy has a copyright date of 2008].

Deely, John. 2009. *Augustine & Poinsot. The Protosemiotic Development*. (Vol. 1 in the Postmodernity in Philosophy. A Poinsot Trilogy"). Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press. [Note: the first volume of this proposed trilogy has a copyright date of 2009].

Deely, John. 2010a. "Doctrine." In Thomas A. Sebeok and Marcel Danesi (eds.), *Encyclopedic Dictionary of Se-
miotics. 3rd edition revised and updated. 3 vols. Vol. 1: 221-222.

Deely, John N. 2010b. "Poinsot, John (1589-1644)." In Thomas A. Sebeok and Marcel Danesi (eds.), *Encyclopedic Dictionary of Semiotics*. 3rd edition revised and updated. 3 vols. Vol. 2: 765-767.

Deely, John (trans). 2013. *Tractatus de Signis. The Semiotic of John Poinsot*. Bilingual Format. Corrected Second Edition. South Bend: Indiana: St. Augustine's Press.

Deely, John. 2016. *Medieval Philosophy Redefined as the Latin Age: The Development of Cenoscopic Science, AD354 to 1644 (from the Birth of Augustine to the Death of Poinsot*. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine's press.

Deely Project. 2023. https://www.stvincent.edu/academics/special-programs/deely-project.html. Accessed 17 May 2023.

Eco, Umberto. 1976. *A Theory of Signs* (= Advances in Semiotics, No. 1). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Eco, Umberto. 2000. *Experiences in Translation*. Trans. by Alistair McEwen. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Harris, Randy Allen. 1993. *The Linguistics Wars*. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hatim, Basil and Ian Mason. 1997. *The Translator as Communicator*. New York: Routledge.

International Open Seminar on Semiotics: A Tribute to John Deely on the Fifth Anniversary of His Passing. 2023. https://www.uc.pt/fluc/uidief/act/io2s/Accessed 4 July 2023. [The recordings of the International Open Seminar on Semiotics: A Tribute to John Deely on the Fifth Anniversary of His Passing are available at this web site.]

Jakobson, Roman. 1959. "On Linguistic Acts of Translation." In R. A. Brewer (ed.), *On Translation*. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 232-239.

Junqueira, Robert Martins. 2023. "Peirce and the Coimbra Je-suit Course: A Bond Far More Pervasive than Commonly
Believed.” https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7607786. Accessed 28 May 2023.

Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson. 1980. *Metaphors We Live By*. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lakoff, George. 1987. *Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things. What Categories Reveal about the Mind*. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Markie, Peter and M. Folescu. 2023. “Rationalism vs. Empiricism.” In Edward N. Zalta and Uri Nodelman (eds.), *The Stanford Encyclopedia Dictionary of Philosophy* (Spring 2023 Edition). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2023/entries/rationalism-empiricism/. Accessed 28 July 2023.

Niklas, Ursula. 2010. “Translation: Ajdukiewicz’s Definition of of.” In Thomas A. Sebeok and Marcel Danesi (eds.), *Encyclopedic Dictionary of Semiotics*. 3rd edition revised and updated. 3 vols. Vol. 2, 1138-1139.

Nuessel, Frank. 1992. *The Study of Names: A Guide to the Principles and Topics*. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Nuessel, Frank. 1994. Review of Randy Allen Harris, *The Linguistics Wars*, Oxford University Press, 1993. *Lingua* 94: 270-279.

Nuessel, Frank. 2000. “Philosophical Revolutions and Twentieth-Century Linguistic Theory.” In: Paul Perron, Marcel Danesi, Jean Umiker Sebeok, and A. Watanabe (eds.). *Semiotics and Information Sciences. Language, Media and Education Studies*. Vol. 18. Ottawa: Legas. 133-154.

Nuessel, Frank. 2002. “Translation: A Semiotic Perspective.” In Scott Simpkins and John Deely (Eds.) *Semiotics*. Ottawa: Legas. 311-324.

Nuessel, Frank. 2006a. “Figurative Language: Semiotics.” In K. Brown (ed.). *Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics*. 2nd ed. 14 vols. Vol. 4: 446-459.

Nuessel, Frank. 2006b. “Semiology vs. Semiotics.” In K. Brown (ed.). *Encyclopedia of Language & Linguistics*. 2nd ed. 14 vols. Vol. 11: 193.
Nuessel, Frank. 2011. "Poinsot and Semiotics." *Semiotica* 185: 263-277.

Paine, Fr. Scott Randall. 2021. "On the Cenoscopic and Idioscopic, and Why They Matter." *Reality: A Journal for Philosophical Discourse* (May 2021). https://realityjournal.org/2021/05/14/article-on-the-cenoscopic-and-idioscopic/ Accessed 11 July 2021.

Peirce, Charles Sanders. 1931-1966. *Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce*. Ch. Hartshome, P. Weiss, A. W Burke (eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Peirce Edition Project. 2023. https://peirce.iupui.edu/index.html. Accessed 30 June 2023.

Poinsot, John. 1632. *Cursus Philosophicus*. *IIa Pars*. Alcalá de Henares: Iberia.

Poinsot, John. 1930 [1632]. *Tractatus de Signis (Treatise on Signs)*, in *Ars Logica*, ed. by B. Reiser, Turin: Marietti. [*Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus*, 3 vols. Edited by B. Reiser. Turin: Marietti, 1930, 1933, 1937.]

Santiago de Carvalho, Mário. 2019a. "Couto, Sebastião do." In *Conimbricenses Encyclopedia*. Mário Santiago de Carvalho and Simone Guidi (eds.). http://www.conimbricenses.org/encyclopedia/couto-sebastiao-do/. Accessed 26 June 2023. Doi: 10.5281/zenodo.3270658.

Santiago de Carvalho, Mário. 2019b. "Cursus Conimbricensis." In *Conimbricenses Encyclopedia*. Mário Santiago de Carvalho and Simone Guidi (eds.). http://www.conimbricenses.org/encyclopedia/cursus-conimbricensis/. Accessed 26 June 2023. Doi: 10.5281/zenodo.3234133.

Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1916. *Cours de linguistique Générale*. Charles Bally and Albert Sechehaye (eds.). Lausanne/Paris: Payot.

Schogt, Henry G. 2010. "Translation." In Thomas A. Sebeok and Marcel Danesi (eds.), *Encyclopedic Dictionary of Semiotics*. 3rd edition revised and updated. 3 vols. Vol. 2, 1123-1126.

Sebeok, Thomas A. 1971. "'Semiotics' and Its Congeners." In
Ali Jazayery, Edgar C. Polomé, and Werner Winter (eds), *Linguistic and Literary Studies in Honor of Archibald Hill, I: General and Theoretical Linguistics*, Mohammed. Lisse, Netherlands: Peter de Ridder Press. 283-295.

Sebeok, Thomas A. 1975. *Zoosemiotics: At the Intersection of Nature and Culture*. Lisse: Peter de Ridder Press.

Sebeok, Thomas A. 1976. *Contribution to the Doctrine of Signs*. (Indiana University publications, Studies in semiotics, 5). Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press and Lisse: Peter de Ridder Press.

Sebeok, Thomas A. and Marcel Danesi (eds.). 2010. *Encyclopedic Dictionary of Semiotics*. 3 vols. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Simonin, H.-D. 1930. "Review" of the 1930 Reiser edition of Poinsot, 1631 and 1632. *Bulletin Thomiste* 7(5), septembre: 140-148.

Sweet, William. 2022. "Jacques Maritain." Edward N. Zalta (ed.), *Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy*. (Summer 2022 Edition). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2022/entries/maritain/. Accessed 9 July 2023. Theory and History of Ontology. 2023. https://www.ontology.co/idx02.htm. Accessed 5 July 2023.

Torop, Peeter. 2002. "Translating as Translating as Culture." *Sign Systems Studies* 30(2): 593-605.

Tornau, Christian. 2020. "Saint Augustine." *Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy* (Summer 2020 Edition). Edward N. Zalta (ed.). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/augustine/. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/augustine/ Accessed 25 May 2023.

Toury, Gideon. 2010. "Translation: A Cultural-Semiotic Perspective." In Thomas A. Sebeok and Marcel Danesi (eds.), *Encyclopedic Dictionary of Semiotics*. 3rd edition revised and updated. 3 vols. Vol. 2, 1127-1138.

University of Scranton Press. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Scranton_Press. Accessed 26 April 2023.
<figure><img src="image_14.png" /></figure>
Studia Poinsotiana

IEF — INSTITUTE FOR PHILOSOPICAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES UNIVERSITY OF COIMBRA

https://www.uc.pt/fluc/ief/publica/poinsotiana

<figure><img src="image_15.png" /></figure>

CONTRA ERRORES
PUBLISHING HOUSE

<figure><img src="image_16.png" /></figure>

MEDIEVAL PUBLISHING HOUSE

<figure><img src="image_17.png" /></figure>

<figure><img src="image_18.png" /></figure>

12
FACuldade de letrAS
UNIVERSIDADE D
COIMBRA

FCT

Fundação
para a Ciência
e a Tecnologia

<figure><img src="image_19.png" /></figure>

GOVERNO DE
PORTUGAL

The Institute for Philosophical Studies is sponsored by
Portuguese funds via the FCT- Foundation for Science and
Technology, I.P., under the UID/FIL/00010/2020 project.