THE TRACE OF THE TRINITY: CHRIST AND DIFFERRENCE IN SAINT AUGUSTINE'S THEORY OF LANGUAGE

Abstract

Augustine anticipates post-structuralist lingustic in holding signs do not mediate knowledge but signify themselves and their signifying force At the same time he maintains that knowledge is prior to language These two positions are in conflict in the early De Dialectica, maintained in parallel in De Magistro, and finally solvede in De Trinitate, where conscious knowledge is constituted by an original difference Augustine calls a word The deferring of origin enacted by language Augustine derives from the difference at the origin in the Trinity meaning, even in the church, thus occurs not from authority but in community.