Jürgen Trabant reads the profound insights into human semiosis contained in Vico's 'sematology' as both a spirited rejection of Cartesian philosophy and an early critique of enlightened logocentricism. Sean Ward's translation makes this work available to an English-reading audience for the first time.

• Cover 2
• VICO'S NEW SCIENCE OF ANCIENT SIGNS: A study of sematology 5
• Copyright 6
• CONTENTS 7
• FOREWORD 9
• TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 15
• REFERENCES, EDITIONS, ABBREVIATIONS, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 17
• INTRODUCTION 19
• 1 MR. VICO, RENATO, AND PHILOLOGY 22
• 2 VICO'S DISCOVERY: Poetic characters 42
• 3 GESTURES AND OBJECTS (SEMATA), WORDS 52
• 4 THE COMMON MENTAL DICTIONARY 79
• 5 TO SPEAK BY WRITING (DERRIDA-ROUSSEAU) 99
• 6 TO SPEAK BY SINGING (HERDER) 111
• 7 MEMORIA–FANTASIA–INGEGNO 124