Abstract

The article shows that the currently fashionable idea of an omnipresence of mediality is already effective in some areas of medieval thought, even though in another form. The medieval conception of the relation between god, the world, and man implies a theological world view, according to which the phenomenon of mediality is not only universally present in the world, but in which the mundus creatus itself appears as a medium par excellence, as a message to man, assisting him in transcending that medium. Furthermore it is argued that medieval philosophical thought is by no means restricted to such a symbolic world view. Scholastic philosophy does not only come with a highly elaborate theory about the different forms of cognitive media, but also has developed, particularly in the context of logic, a thoroughly rational theory of the sign and its functions, by which the symbolic and allegorical thinking was pushed to the margins of the philosophical discourse.