John Deely (1942 – 2017) was an American philosopher and semiotician who was known for his work in the fields of philosophy, semiotics, and theology. He was a professor of philosophy at Saint Vincent College and Seminary in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Deeply has written extensively on the subject of ethics.
Deely attended the Pontifical Faculty of Philosophy at the Aquinas Institute of Theology, where he earned a Ph.D. in 1967, and prior to becoming the Rudman Chair of Graduate Philosophy at the Center for Thomistic Studies, he held the position of Professor at the University of St. Thomas.
Some of his most well-known work has been published in the journal Advances in Semiotics, including one of his most popular publications, Introducing Semiotics: Its History and Doctrine (1982). He has also co-edited two books, Frontiers in Semiotics (1986) with Brooke Williams and Felicia Kruse, and Semiotics: An Introduction (1998) with David S. Wray.
Deely’s main research was focused on the role of semiotics (the action of signs) in mediating objects and things. He investigated the way experience is a dynamic structure, woven of triadic relations (signs in a strict sense) whose elements or terms (representamens, significates, and interpretants) interchange positions and roles over time in the spiral of semiosis. He also became the 2006-2007 Executive Director of the Semiotic Society of America.
John’s books, more than thirty in number, are supplemented by over 200 articles and a number of book series that he has edited. From 2015 until his death, John was the Philosopher-in-Residence at St. Vincent Arcaba College and Theological Seminary in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. His unexpected death prevented him from continuing his work in merging the Benedictine and Dominican traditions in the Philosophy department.
