Abstract

This essay explores new terrain in our era: Does the redefining of the human being as the “semiotic animal” have the potential to offer a point of departure historically by transcending in terminology—rather than replicating—long prevailing yet paradoxical philosophical dualisms such as rational/non-rational; culture/nature; public/private; active/passive; contemplation/action? As a historian I will put the definition of “semiotic animal” to the test in the laboratory of human experience, as illustrated by Teresa of Avila. Questions arise such as: Does this redefining of the human being as “semiotic animal” for the first time ontologically integrate the rational mode of knowing and the contemplative mode of knowing through love? Does the new definition thereby also intrinsically transcend those philosophical presuppositions deeply embedded in the older definitions of the human being as “rational animal” animal and “thinking thing” that privileged man qua male as more perfect than woman qua woman? Does the “semiotic animal”, furthermore, deepen understanding of the human being as a relational being who is part of nature, thereby bearing ethical responsibility to nature as a whole?