Abstract

This article focuses on the role of the medical semiotics of Hippocrates and Galen in the formation of Western semiotic theory. In ancient medical practice symptomatology was an essential part of semiotics, and the symptom was a model sign. But over time, the strong association of clinical and philosophical semiotics was destroyed. The article analyzes the causes of this historical gap and the marginalization of the symptom as a special type of sign, and identifies the philosophical questions of symptomatology: the relationship between the symptom and sign, the symptom and its denotation, and the subjective and the objective side of the symptom. The article demonstrates the relevance of symptomatology to the development of computer technology and artificial intelligence theory, and to the interpretation of disease in modern medicine. The author argues that currently there is a need for the reestablishment of semiology in the sphere from which it originated – the field of medical biology. The philosophy of medicine, psychology, biology, linguistics, communication theory and semiotics must rebuild the strong theoretical connection that flourished in the Greco-Roman era.