The Conception of Formal Sign According to Sebastião Do Couto (1606)

Authors: Da Conceição Camps M

DOI: 10.23880/phij-16000260

Volume 5, Issue 3

Abstract

In this paper we intend to explain how Sebastião do Couto is aware of the importance of the formal sign as a privileged vehicle of analogy, thus putting himself against those who deny it, namely nominalism, by underlining that the epistemological process is based on formal signs, which were left by Creator in creation, so that man can know and love Him, founding a sustaining dialogue of being. Basing the process of human knowledge on formal signs, Sebastião do Couto provides the essential philosophical raw material for the theological support of the defense of the possibility of dialogue between Creator and creature, reaffirming man as imago Dei. 

Keywords: Formal sign; Analogia entis; Coimbra Jesuit Course; Species; Epistemological process; Creator; Creation

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