May 21, 14.15 Remo Gramigna will defend his PhD in semiotics on „Augustine and the Study of Signs and Signification“

14.15 at the Senate Hall.

URL: http://dspace.ut.ee/handle/10062/59821

Supervisor:
Timo Maran, PhD

Opponents:
Giovanni Manetti, PhD, Italy, University of Siena
Constantino Marmo, PhD, Italy, University of Bologna

This study attempts to unravel some aspects of the relation between Augustine of Hippo (354¬–430 AD) and the study of signs and signification. This dissertation will attempt to show why, after more than fifteen hundred years, Augustine’s ideas are still as significant to the contemporary debate within the humanities. With an author such as Augustine one should be careful when drawing a line between the theologian and the philosopher because these two souls in fact often coexist. Before becoming Bishop of Hippo, Augustine was a successful teacher of rhetoric at Carthage, Rome and Milan. His fascination for words and signs of all kinds, his profound interest in dialectics and communication were indeed lifelong concerns. The present study argues that the rudiments of a theory of signs can be discerned with the clarity of Augustine, who explicitly devoted numerous works to the subject, albeit generally framed within a broader theological and exegetical context. The aim of this dissertation is to present an account of the theories of the sign and signification on the basis of the interpretation of Augustine’s works, with a view to its implications to the domain of semiotics. This study (1) unravels and describes the Augustinian doctrine of signs from the Dialectica to the De doctrina christiana; (2) expounds Augustine’s semiotic terminology and clarifies some obscure or misunderstood knots; (3) interprets Augustine’s approach to signs within the context of where the theory was originally formulated and grafted; (4) offers an account of the subject of lies (understood as a false signification) in light of its relevance to a theory of semiotics; (5) synthesizes the main features of Augustine’s sign theory and emphasizes the significance for a general theory of signs. In light of these objectives, the four chapters around which the study is articulated takes a closer look at the De dialectica (387), the De magistro (389), the De doctrina christiana (396¬–427), and the De mendacio (395), respectively. Although the inquiry is primarily confined to the abovementioned works, it does take into account numerous additional Augustinian and contemporary sources that encourage the elucidation, interpretation, and expansion of the subject. The distinction of things and signs, the concept of intentionality, the understanding of words as signs, the distinction between object language and metalanguage are the trait d’union of the works scrutinized and illustrate some of the key features of the Augustinian semiotics.