Cursus PHILOSOPHICUS John Poinsot, O.P., also known as Joannes a Sancto Thoma (1589–1644) wrote two major works in his lifetime: the Cursus Theologicus, on which incomplete text he worked from 1635 until 1643, when he was requested to become counselor and Royal Confessor to King Philip IV of Spain.  While attending to this new duty, […]

A Philosophical Happy Hour on why the study of signs constitutes the recovery of genuine philosophy and may result in the infusion of philosophical habits into culture. Few words common in modern “intellectual” environments sound as sophisticated or are used as carelessly as “semiotics”.  Given that it is often associated with French structuralism or deconstructionism, […]

Description To understand and affect this maturation into postmodernity, we will turn our attention in this seminar to the major contributions to semiotics given by Deely: the proto-semiotic history, an expanded doctrine of causality,  the retrieved and clarified notion of relation, the concept of physiosemiosis, the continuity of culture and nature, the notion of purely objective reality, and the real interdisciplinarity which semiotics fosters. This is […]

An extract from Deely 2006: “Semiotics, History of” in Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Second Edition (London: Elsevier) v.11: 216–29. The thinkers of the Latin Age, inspired by Aristotle, liked to distinguish between remote and proximate potentialities. Thus, awareness or knowledge of the action of signs was no more than a remote possibility the long […]

On 20 May at 10am ET (see times around the world here), Dr. Victor Salas (Sacred Heart Major Seminary, Detroit MI) will present on “Where Philosophy and Sacred Theology Meet: The Case of John of St. Thomas (Poinsot)”. This presentation will be accessible via Zoom (details on recording availability forthcoming). Add it to your calendars! […]

Though “semiotics” is a word coined only in the late 17th century—and used consistently and meaningfully beginning only in the late 19th—the study of signs and their actions goes back millennia. During those thousands of years, some of the most important contributions were made during the age often called “Medieval” (though it would be better […]

“I know.” “I don’t know.” We say these two sentences all the time. But do we know what they mean? Do we know what it means, “to know”? For many persons, content as they are not to ask meaningful questions, there seems no need of an answer. But for anyone who wishes to have confidence […]

I apologize to the folks at the Lyceum for my long absence!  A new project that I’m beginning with my friend Fr. Cajetan Cuddy will hopefully help me to spin off some of this kind of content as I write on various Thomistic topics online.  But… I realize, also, that I’m not much of a “blogger.”  This is […]

What is a sign? It is a deceptively difficult question—deceptive because we think we know when we have never bothered truly to ask the question. We believe that we see and hear signs everywhere: guiding our use of streets, telling us where to exit, the location of the bathroom, what dangers might lie ahead, and […]

The year 2022 saw the Lyceum offer a spate of diverse and fascinating seminars. so how can we top this wonderful past year of seminars? Why, with a new year of wonderful seminars, of course! We are covering a broad range of thinkers and ideas this year: Aristotle, Aquinas, John Henry Newman, John Poinsot, Yves […]