Hey, thanks for your reply. I agree that Linguistics is mostly past Saussure, but I do think that the arbitrary relationship between signifier/signified is useful leaving essentialism behind and moving toward prototype theory.

I've taken graduate courses in Cognitive Linguistics, Psycholinguistics, and Linguistic Anthropology as well as worked with writings of Kövecses, Rosh, and etc.

Have you worked in Cognitive Linguistics? It's always fun to find another nerd. I'm also be curious if you remember what part of Augustine where he discusses this topic.

Reading last night it just seemed as if a lot of things started pointing to the idea that we humans don't discover so much as create meaning, and the follow up that then there may not be any meaning beyond our own perception.