Metaphor and mental language in late-medieval nominalism

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 ◽  
pp. 136-166
Author(s):  
Magali Roques
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
William Of Ockham ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Language And Communication ◽  
Mental Language ◽  
University Of Paris ◽  
And Function ◽  
The University

Abstract In this paper, I intend to examine the conception of metaphor developed by fourteenth-century nominalist philosophers, in particular William of Ockham and John Buridan, but also the Ockhamist philosophers who were condemned by the 1340 statute of the faculty of arts of the University of Paris. According to these philosophers, metaphor is a transfer of meaning from one word to another. This transfer is based on some similarity, and is intentionally produced by a speaker. My aim is to study whether this view on metaphor is related to a specific view on the relation between thought, language, and communication. With this case study, I intend to argue that the view on the nature of thought one holds does not necessarily determine what the nature and function of metaphor are. I will show that the three philosophical doctrines under study diverge in their understanding of the mechanisms of a metaphor, while they share the same view on the nature of thought, namely that thought is a mental language.

A Fourteenth-Century Scholastic Dispute on Astrological Interrogations

Vivarium ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 59 (3) ◽  
pp. 241-285
Author(s):  
C. Philipp E. Nothaft
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
The Future ◽  
University Of Paris ◽  
Internal Coherence ◽  
The University

Abstract This article examines and edits an anonymous text from the late 1330s (Quesitum fuit utrum per interrogationes …), which was written to refute the arguments presented in a lost quaestio disputata by an unknown Parisian philosopher. At the heart of this scholastic dispute was the question whether the astrological branch known as interrogations was an effective and legitimate means of predicting the future. The philosopher’s negative answers to this question as well as the rebuttals preserved in our anonymous text offer valuable new insights into the debate over astrology that raged at the University of Paris during the fourteenth century. Besides arguing at length for the internal coherence and philosophical soundness of interrogations, the text contains a bold defence against the Augustinian view that astrologers consort with demons. This defence was later rebutted as part of an anti-astrological polemic by the astronomer Heinrich Selder, who is known to have studied in Paris during the 1370s.

Suing in a local jurisdictional court in late medieval Catalonia. The case of Caldes de Malavella (1328–1369)

2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-81
Author(s):  
LLUÍS SALES I FAVÀ
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Institutional Framework ◽  
Court System ◽  
Breach Of Contract ◽  
Late Medieval

ABSTRACTThis article addresses the question of the effectiveness of court litigation over private contracts. Through a case study of fourteenth-century Caldes de Malavella, in northeastern Catalonia, it provides an instructive example of contract registration and enforcement. A large peasant clientele made use of the institutional framework provided by a compact jurisdictional estate. We also explore the ways in which the court system within this barony was affected by the demands of external jurisdictions. The article concludes that the whole system was efficient in prosecuting breach of contract, in serving broader mercantile strategies, and even in softening tensions among parties.

Mental Language and Tradition Encounters in Medieval Philosophy: Anselm, Albert and Ockham

Vivarium ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 269-282
Author(s):  
Claude Panaccio
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
William Of Ockham ◽  
Medieval Philosophy ◽  
Albert The Great ◽  
Textual Borrowing ◽  
Mental Language ◽  
Institutional Contexts

AbstractMedieval philosophy is often presented as the outcome of a large scale encounter between the Christian tradition and the Greek philosophical one. This picture, however, inappropriately tends to leave out the active role played by the medieval authors themselves and their institutional contexts. The theme of the mental language provides us with an interesting case study in such matters. The paper first introduces a few technical notions—'theme', 'tradition', 'textual chain' and 'textual borrowing'—, and then focuses on precise passages about mental language from Anselm of Canterbury, Albert the Great and William of Ockham. All three authors in effect identify some relevant Augustinian idea (that of 'mental word', most saliently) with some traditional philosophical one (such as that of 'concept' or that of 'logos endiathetos'). But the gist of the operation widely varies along the line and the tradition encounter is staged in each case with specific goals and interests in view. The use of ancient authoritative texts with respect to mental language is thus shown to be radically transformed from the eleventh to the fourteenth century.

The sermon literature of pope Clement VI

1975 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 163-172
Author(s):  
Diana Wood
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Teaching Skill ◽  
University Of Paris ◽  
The University ◽  
Walter Burley

Maximus sermocinator verbi Dei is the description of pope Clement VI, formerly Pierre Roger, given by a fourteenth-century French chronicler. Others of the pope’s compatriots were equally fulsome in their adulation. An Italian chronicler, perhaps an ex-student at the university of Paris, where Pierre Roger had been a master in theology, records:. . . gratissimus fuit sermocinator. Quum cathedram concionaturus aut disputaturus ascendebat, tota Parisiorum Civitas, ut eum audiret, accurrebat. Proh quam eleganter sermocinabatur!In Prague, Clement’s ex-pupil, the emperor Charles IV, remembered the grace with which he had been infused through listening to one of his master’s sermons over twenty years before. Even the English joined this chorus of praise. Thomas Walsingham paid tribute to Clement as a man of singular culture, while Walter Burley lauded his teaching skill, his oratory, and his legendary memory. By the early fifteenth century Clement’s sermons were regarded as models. Several of them appear, abbreviated and anonymous, as part of a treatise on preaching by Paul Koëlner, canon of Ratisbon, written some time before 1420.

A defence of the focus hypothesis concerning Late Medieval Greek object clitic pronouns

2013 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-209
Author(s):  
Jorie Soltic
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Modern Concept ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Syntactic Rule ◽  
Light Verbs ◽  
Pragmatic Principle ◽  
Direct Objects ◽  
Almost All

In this article, I strengthen the contested view that the distribution of Late Medieval Greek object clitic pronouns is not only regulated by a syntactic rule but also by a pragmatic principle, i.e. that fronted focalised information attracts object clitic pronouns into preverbal position. For this purpose, I appeal to the modern concept of “light verbs”, as the direct objects of these semantically weak, unspecific verbs can be assumed to constitute focalised information. By means of a case study of the fourteenth century Chronicle of Morea, I demonstrate that almost all the fronted direct objects of the light verbs ποιώ (‘to do’) and δίδω (‘to give’) are indeed associated with preverbal object clitic pronouns. As such, the so-called “focus-hypothesis” can be verified in an objective way.

Robert Kilwardby

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Filipe Silva
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Medieval Philosophy ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Central Figure ◽  
University Of Oxford ◽  
Latin West ◽  
Robert Kilwardby ◽  
University Of Paris ◽  
The University

Robert Kilwardby is a central figure in late medieval philosophy and theology, but key areas of his thought have until now remained unexamined in a systematic way. Kilwardby taught Arts at the University of Paris and Theology at the University of Oxford around the mid thirteenth century. He is among the first in the Latin West to comment on the newly translated works of Aristotle and among the first Dominicans to comment on the Sentences of Peter Lombard at Oxford. Writing at that time, Kilwardby is both witness and actor in the emerging conflict between the traditions of Augustinianism and the new Aristotelianism. By offering a comprehensive overview of his works, ranging from topics in logic to theology, this book shows the development of those disciplines and traditions in a way that is accessible to nonspecialists and to anyone interested in medieval thought.

New Scenarios, Old Questions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Gamberini
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Medieval Italy ◽  
Regional State ◽  
Political Cultures ◽  
City States ◽  
The Many

This chapter, beginning Part II, takes as its theme the advent of the regional states—new and broader political formations that replaced city-states from the middle of the fourteenth century. It looks briefly at the causes of a transformation that profoundly altered the balance of late medieval Italy and which ended with the introduction of other, different political cultures. Far from simplifying the political picture, the regional state absorbed but did not dissolve the many existing territorial bodies, resulting in a stratification of languages and ideas and a configuration of extreme tensions. The Milan Duchy is employed as a case study in order to investigate these phenomena analytically.

Which Hugo? This One! Hugo de Hervorst

Vivarium ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 89-110
Author(s):  
Harald Berger
Keyword(s):  
Medieval Philosophy ◽  
Promising Candidate ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
History Of ◽  
University Of Paris ◽  
A Chain ◽  
The University ◽  
First Time

AbstractOne of the riddles of the history of late medieval philosophy is the identity of a certain Hugo who is frequently quoted in manuscripts as well as in early prints. This article offers solutions to the relevant problems, identifying the work to which these quotations refer. One of the manuscripts presents the author’s name as “Hugo de Reyss,” Reyss being identified with Rees in North-Rhine/Westphalia. A passage in that work links the author to the University of Paris. Among the Hugos documented at the University of Paris at the relevant time, Hugo de Hervorst is the most promising candidate. Hugo of Hervorst and his family had close relations to Rees. In sum, a chain of arguments leads to the identification of Hugo de Reyss as Hugo de Hervorst, whose academic and ecclesiastical careers can thus be outlined. Documented for the first time in 1372, he died in 1399.

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