Seminar Series: Topics in Twelfth Century Philosophy
Lent Term 2012
Board Room, Faculty of Philosophy
Tuesdays from 3.30 to 5 pm (starting 24 January)
Professor John Marenbon and Professor Christopher Martin will be holding a series of Seminars this term on Peter Abaelard's philosophy of language and metaphysics. Anyone interested is welcome to attend.
Each seminar will discuss recent work in English and the ability to read Latin will not be assumed. The aim of the seminar is to highlight the sophistication of twelfth century thinking in areas of concern to contemporary analytic philosophy.
Programme
24 January: Baptism and Essence
As in the twentieth century a central concern of twelfth
century philosophers was the theory of meaning. This seminar will
examine the claim that Abaelard anticipated Kripke in rejecting a
descriptional account of meaning in favour of a causal explanation.
Readings:
- C. Martin, 'Imposition and Essence: What’s New In Abaelard’s Theory of Meaning?'.
- J. Marenbon, 'Abelard and the 'New' Theory of Meaning'
31 January: Translation, Figurative Meaning, and Argument
Unlike contemporary discussions of meaning mediaeval
discussions seem not to have regarded translation as in any way
problematic. This seminar will discuss the reasons for this and
consider the development of the idea that meaning depends upon context
and the consequences of this for thinking about translation.
Readings:
- P. Geach, 'History of the Corruptions of Logic'
- J. Marenbon, 'Gilbert of Poitiers's Contextual Theory of Meaning and the Hermeneutics of Secrecy'
- C. Martin, 'What an Ugly Child: Abaelard
on Translation, Figurative Language, and Logic'
7 February: Sophisms and Modality
Abaelard invented the terminology of the de re - de sensu
(de dicto) distinction and employed it with great skill in
disambiguating modal claims. This seminar will discuss the role played
by the distinction in Abaelard's development of his de re theory of
modality and in particular the question of whether he has an account of
unrealisable possibilities.
Readings:
- S. Knuuttila, 'Modalities in Medieval Philosophy: Peter Abelard'
- J. Marenbon, 'Abelard and Gilbert on Possibility'
- J. Marenbon, 'An Unpopular Argument (I) Abelard and his Contemporaries'
- C. Martin, 'Abaelard on Modality, Some Possibilities and Some Puzzles'
14 February: Abaelard on The Structure of Substance
Abaelard is best known as a philosopher for his theory of
universals but there is disagreement over exactly what that ontology he
is committed to. This seminar will examine the thesis that Abaelard is
a trope-theorist who will allow that tropes may in some sense be
transferred from one individual to another but that he combines this
with a commitment to individual essences.
Readings:
- J. Marenbon, 'Abelard and Contemporary Metaphysics'
- J. Marenbon, 'Was Abelard a Trope Theorist?'
- C. Martin, 'Abaelard on the Structure of Substance''
21 February: Guest seminar
Dr Bruno Michel on Abaelard's theory of enthymematic inference.
Reading:
28 February: 'Nothing Grows'
Abaelard's followers in the twelfth century were known as
the Nominales (the Nominalists), and one of the claims for which they
were famous was 'Nothing grows'. This seminar will examine twelfth
century theories of parts and wholes and the arguments for and against
this claim.
Readings:
