Ancient tradition and modern audacity: On the ( proto-) semiotic ideas of Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz

The article proposes a short bio-bibliographic profile of the seventeenth-century Spanish polymath Juan Caramuel y Lobkowitz, exposes the main contents of one of his Latin works, the Grammatica Audax ( litt.: “the Audacious Grammar”), and focuses on the passages of this work that shed new light on the history of semiotic ideas. The paper dwells, in particular, on the first part of the Grammatica Audax, the Methodica, where Caramuel adopts the linguistic approach of Renaissance speculative grammars and elaborates his ideas on the combinatorial nature of linguistic expression, the definition of meaning, the types of signification, the naturalness versus conventionality of signs and words, etc. Two points of the Grammatica Audax are deeply relevant vis-à-vis the history of semiotic ideas: first, Caramuel’s speculations on signs as relations; second, his original conception of signification as “moral or virtual transubstantiation.” The paper concludes by emphasizing the importance of rekindling the interest of contemporary semioticians in Caramuel’s neglected works. Like most Catholic scholars after the Council of Trent, Caramuel conceived of signs, signification, language, and communication so as to provide a theoretical ground for early-modern Catholic spirituality against the critiques of Protestant theologians. Yet, such a theological effort gave rise to ( proto-) semiotic insights whose importance for the development of modern and contemporary semiotics should not be underestimated.