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Tractatus de Signis: The Semiotic of John Poinsot

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Dr. John Deely has effectively served the philosophical community by bringing to light a profound text by John Poinsot (1589-1644).

Poinsot, a Spanish logician and Dominican friar, argues the following: "Every relation has a subject, a fundament and a terminus" (page 88/ line 9). There are two kinds of relations. 1. A "real relation" is an existing thing with an essence that is "the relation itself" (90/7); 2. An "expressed relation" is an "absolute" thing "upon which a relation follows" (90/6-8).

The fundament of a real relation stimulates the cognitive powers (125/36) of men and brute animals. There are two kinds of fundaments. 1. A "mind-independent" fundament brings about a real relation. 2. A "mind-depedent" fundament brings about an "expressed relation." Poinsot writes, "The whole difference... comes down to this... a physical relation has a mind-independent fundament... while a mental relation lacks such a fundament" (91/26).

Curiosly, a relation is the only feature that may belong to an existing thing in the physical environment and to an existing thing in the intellectual environment. Poinsot writes, "A relation... and a being-toward... is indifferent to the exercise of a mind-independent or a mind-dependent act of existence" (94/ 40). In other words, a "mind-dependent relation is a true relation" (95/ 39).

Because a concept is a real relation in which another existing thing is known immediately, directly and spontaneously by the agent of the concept and the agent intellect. The connection between a human person and his environment is real, direct, immediate and a caused by a "true relation."