The Philosophy of Jonathan Edwards: A Study in Divine Semiotics (Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Religion)
The Puritan divine, Edwards is difficult to situate in the classical, philosophical episteme. In this challenging work, Daniel (philosophy, Texas A&M; Univ.) draws on the semiotics of Foucault, Kristeva, and Peirce to explore Edwards's typology. Where the classical episteme posits a signifying idea beyond the sign, Edwards's develops a Renaissance-Stoic conception of the signifier-signified as a unit. Nature itself exists as a divine text, the Word made manifest, and the sign takes its meaning from the intertextual displacement with other signs. Original sin is the disintegration of the sign from its original unity, and Christ is the mediating sign that reestablishes the link between the language of nature and human language. This is an elegant and important book; recommended for academic libraries.T.L. Cooksey, Armstrong State Coll., Savannah, Ga.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.