Semiotics and philosophy: Working for a historical reconstruction of human understanding

Four ages by John Deely contributes to demonstrating the centrality of the theory of sign to the history of philosophy. The notion of sign and its foundation in a theory of sign together constitute the vital context of the specific perspective of our present for a new understanding of the history of philosophy as a whole. Human understanding (Locke) is possible because man is a semiotic animal, but also a "political animal" (Aristotle). Otherness and civilization: in Deely's view these are the basic elements of the origin of philosophy, which does not have a precise beginning, any more than the experience of the other as other, or of the "Other in its otherness," as Deely puts it, has a precise beginning. The other is necessary to the constitution of the objective world in its species-specifically human form. The relation with the other as other, the "otherness relation," irreducibly transcends the realm of knowledge. The relation with the other in its otherness constitutes an ethical foundation. This relation is involvement, exposition, responsibility, non-indifferent proximity of one-for-the-other. The ethical perspective is the very perspective from which we have read John Deely's Four ages.