Four Ages of Understanding, by an Aquinas Medal winner and excellent contemporary Thomist philosopher John Deely, is an excellent history of philosophy (vide this review). With an emphasis on the development of the notion of sign, he magnificently describes the history of philosophy beginning with the Greeks, then progressing to St. Augustine's definition of sacrament as a sign, then showing how this progressed through the philosophy of esse of St. Thomas and lead to the Tractatus de Signis of John of St. Thomas all the way to modern "post-modern" times. In all this he shows how profound an influence the Church has been on fostering philosophical and scientific inquiry.

Anyways, Deely's bilingual edition of John of St. Thomas (John Poinsot)'s Tractatus de Signis is available on Archive.org: http://www.archive.org/details/tractatu ... 00johnrich

Has anyone here read it? It is well-worth the read!

Ah, thank you very very much. I was looking for this tract some time ago, but could only find the extremely expensive hard copy.

I will certainly have a look at it!

St. Augustine's Press just recently released a new edition of it.