John Deely

(? - 2017)

The notion of “semiotic scaffolding”, introduced into the semiotic discussions by Jesper Hoffmeyer in December of 2000, is proving to be one of the single most important concepts for the development of semiotics as we seek to understand the full extent of semiosis and the dependence of evolution, particularly in the living world, thereon. I say “particularly in the living world”, because there has been from the first a stubborn resistance among semioticians to seeing how a semiosis prior to and/or independent of living beings is possible. Yet the universe began in a state not only lifeless but incapable of supporting life, and somehow “moved” from there in the direction of being able to sustain life and finally of actually doing so. Wherever dyadic interactions result indirectly in a new condition that either moves the universe closer to being able to sustain life, or moves life itself in the direction not merely of sustaining itself but opening the way to new forms of life, we encounter a “thirdness” in nature of exactly the sort that semiosic triadicity alone can explain. This is the process, both within and without the living world, that requires scaffolding. This essay argues that a fuller understanding of this concept shows why “semiosis” says clearly what “evolution” says obscurely.

ASSERTIONS ARE A SYMBOLIC FORM that exists only within species--specifically human language. Language, of course, allows for many other conventions of symbolic expression: greetings, exclamations, commands, exhortations, imprecations, interrogatives, and so forth. But assertions are unique in possessing, of themselves, a truth-value--that is to say, in being adjudicable as true or false. All other varieties of discourse are adjudicable as true or false by reason of assertions they presuppose, contain, or imply. But the assertion as such is what is directly so adjudicable.

This book concludes with the suggestion that Aristotelian tradition "is perhaps the only remaining unexplored source for providing liberalism with the kind of secure moral footing it desperately needs". The suggestion seems preposterous on the face of it. In this case, however, the suggestion is a summation of all the considerable analysis that has gone before. The entire book consists of a demonstration of the fact that the quintessentially modern and liberal notion of fundamental rights for individuals ultimately requires the quintessentially ancient Aristotelian notion of nature.

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.