Pulchrum and pulchritudo in Thomas Aquinas’ Comment on De divinis nominibus by Pseudo- Dionysius Areopagite

Abstract

The research project which I would like to present here is an attempt at the analysis of a pair of notions: pulchrum and pulchritudo using differentiation into meta-language and object language1, which is a tool of analysis derived from 20th century logical semiotics. Let us therefore examine the logical status of this pair of notions as if from the outside, leaving aside their historical context of medieval logic, as the character of certain logical categories developed in the 20th century seems universal enough to be commonly binding. One may therefore use such categories to analyse texts created in various periods of history.

This is also true about the differentiation between object language and metalanguage. Since logical semiotics assumes that this differentiation provides a solution to the antinomy of the liar2, it might also prove to be an effective tool for a semiotics analysis of other interdependencies within language including analysis of relations between abstract and specific names.