Introduction: Where is Medieval Pragmatics?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Amsler
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Social History ◽  
Margery Kempe ◽  
Formal Grammar ◽  
Life Narrative ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Critical History ◽  
History Of Linguistics ◽  
History Of ◽  
Religious Cultures

This book recovers pragmatics within the history of medieval linguistics. The introduction outlines the study of pragmatics from a critical history of linguistics perspective, situating language study in a complex social field and comparing medieval pragmatic ideas and metapragmatics with assumptions in contemporary pragmatic theory. Pragmatics embraces communication, expression, and understanding; it prioritizes meaning, context, affect, and speaking position over formal grammar. Relevant texts for late medieval pragmatics include grammatical and logical texts, especially those by Roger Bacon, Robert Kilwardby, and anonymous grammarians, and Peter (of) John Olivi. Other sources for medieval pragmatics include life narrative (Margery Kempe), poetry (Chaucer), and heresy records. Theoretical and everyday texts reveal provocative intersections of Latin and vernacular intellectual and religious cultures and different assumptions and ideologies concerning meaning, speech, and speakers. Across these heterogenous, sometimes antagonistic discursive fields, medieval intellectual history crosses paths with social history.

The Medieval Life of Language

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Amsler
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Social History ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Margery Kempe ◽  
Pragmatic Theory ◽  
Sign Theory ◽  
Philosophy And Literature ◽  
Social Discourses ◽  
History Of Linguistics ◽  
History Of

The Medieval Life of Language: Grammar and Pragmatics from Bacon to Kempe explores the complex history of medieval pragmatic theory and ideas and metapragmatic awareness across social discourses. Pragmatic thinking about language and communication are revealed in grammar, semiotics, philosophy, and literature. Part historical reconstruction, part social history, part language theory, Amsler supplements the usual materials for the history of medieval linguistics and discusses the pragmatic implications of grammatical treatises on the interjection, Bacon's sign theory, logic texts, Chaucer's poetry, inquisitors' accounts of heretic speech, and life writing by William Thorpe and Margery Kempe. Medieval and contemporary pragmatic theory are contrasted in terms of their philosophical and linguistic orientations. Aspects of medieval pragmatic theory and practice, especially polysemy, equivocation, affective speech, and recontextualization, show how pragmatic discourse informed social controversies and attitudes toward sincere, vague, and heretical speech. Relying on Bakhtinian dialogism, critical discourse analysis, and conversation analysis, Amsler situates a key period in the history of linguistics within broader social and discursive fields of practice.

The Medieval Life of Language

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Amsler
Keyword(s):  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Social History ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Margery Kempe ◽  
Pragmatic Theory ◽  
Sign Theory ◽  
Philosophy And Literature ◽  
Social Discourses ◽  
History Of Linguistics ◽  
History Of

The Medieval Life of Language: Grammar and Pragmatics from Bacon to Kempe explores the complex history of medieval pragmatic theory and ideas and metapragmatic awareness across social discourses. Pragmatic thinking about language and communication are revealed in grammar, semiotics, philosophy, and literature. Part historical reconstruction, part social history, part language theory, Amsler supplements the usual materials for the history of medieval linguistics and discusses the pragmatic implications of grammatical treatises on the interjection, Bacon's sign theory, logic texts, Chaucer's poetry, inquisitors' accounts of heretic speech, and life writing by William Thorpe and Margery Kempe. Medieval and contemporary pragmatic theory are contrasted in terms of their philosophical and linguistic orientations. Aspects of medieval pragmatic theory and practice, especially polysemy, equivocation, affective speech, and recontextualization, show how pragmatic discourse informed social controversies and attitudes toward sincere, vague, and heretical speech. Relying on Bakhtinian dialogism, critical discourse analysis, and conversation analysis, Amsler situates a key period in the history of linguistics within broader social and discursive fields of practice.

scholarly journals The Annihilation of Space: A Bad (Historical) Concept

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-30
Author(s):  
Alexis D. Litvine
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Social History ◽  
Economic Consequences ◽  
Cultural Mediation ◽  
Counter Example ◽  
Dead End ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Representations Of Space

Abstract This article is a reminder that the concept of ‘annihilation of space’ or ‘spatial compression’, often used as a shorthand for referring to the cultural or economic consequences of industrial mobility, has a long intellectual history. The concept thus comes loaded with a specific outlook on the experience of modernity, which is – I argue – unsuitable for any cultural or social history of space. This article outlines the etymology of the concept and shows: first, that the historical phenomena it pretends to describe are too complex for such a simplistic signpost; and, second, that the term is never a neutral descriptor but always an engagement with a form of historical and cultural mediation on the nature of modernity in relation to space. In both cases this term obfuscates more than it reveals. As a counter-example, I look at the effect of the railways on popular representations of space and conclude that postmodern geography is a relative dead end for historians interested in the social and cultural history of space.

Order and Theology

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
William Bain
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Theoretical Investigation ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
International Order ◽  
Medieval Theology ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Shared Beliefs ◽  
History Of ◽  
Central Claim ◽  
Modern Thinking

This chapter introduces political theology as an approach to interpreting and analysing the idea of order. The central claim is that widely held conceptions of international order, for example, a multitude of states organized in terms of a spontaneous balance of power or relationships self-consciously constructed through will and consent, reflect intellectual commitments that originate in medieval theology. Specifically, the chapter argues that modern thinking about international order is mediated by rival theories of order that arise out of medieval dispute about the nature of God and the extent of his power. Two overriding objectives guide this investigation. The first is to provide a better intellectual history of late medieval and early modern traditions of thought and to illuminate how they shape contemporary thinking about international order. The second is to conduct a theoretical investigation of international order in terms of its presuppositions. This involves interrogating the conditions and assumptions that render the idea of international order intelligible as what it is. Uncovering this theological inheritance repositions widely shared beliefs about the place of theology in modern international thought, the debates that define the theoretical cartography of the field, and the kind of knowledge that explains the idea of international order.

Materials for the Study of Labor and Working Class History in Italy

1972 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 16-19
Author(s):  
Kenneth Kirkland
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Social History ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
Labor History ◽  
The Political ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Working Class History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

The subject suggested in the title is so broad as to make it rather difficult to decide what boundaries to draw around the study of various resources available to the historian or other social scientist who sets out to study labor history, the social history of Italian workers and peasants, and the political and intellectual history of socialism and other radical movements. Keeping in mind that the following discussion is not intended to be exhaustive, but rather an indication of the necessary starting point to begin an investigation is probably the best way to understand this note.

Kontekstualisme - Fra modernistisk metode til post-analytisk historicisme?

2018 ◽  
pp. 109-120
Author(s):  
Mark Bevir
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
Critical History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Unpublished Manuscripts ◽  
Cambridge School

This article provides a critical history of the Cambridge School of intellectual history. Laslett’s work on Locke appeared to vindicate modernist historicism. Laslett shunned the broad narratives of romantic developmental historicists. He relied on bibliographies, unpublished manuscripts, and other evidence to establish atomized facts and thus textual interpretations. Pocock and Skinner’s theories defended modernist historicism. They argued historians should situate texts in contexts and prove interpretations correct by using modernist methods to establish empirical facts. They attacked approaches that read authors as contributing to perennial debates or aiming at a coherent metaphysics. I argue we should reject modernist historicism with its methodological focus; we should adopt a post-analytic historicism focused on philosophical issues arising from analyses of the human sciences as studying actions by attributing meanings to actors and showing how these meanings fit into larger webs of belief.

Materials for the Study of Labor and Working Class History in Italy

1972 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 16-19
Author(s):  
Kenneth Kirkland
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Social History ◽  
Social Scientist ◽  
Labor History ◽  
The Political ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Social ◽  
Working Class History ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject

The subject suggested in the title is so broad as to make it rather difficult to decide what boundaries to draw around the study of various resources available to the historian or other social scientist who sets out to study labor history, the social history of Italian workers and peasants, and the political and intellectual history of socialism and other radical movements. Keeping in mind that the following discussion is not intended to be exhaustive, but rather an indication of the necessary starting point to begin an investigation is probably the best way to understand this note.

Contextualism: From Modernist Method to Post-analytic Historicism?

2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 211-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Bevir
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
Critical History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Unpublished Manuscripts ◽  
Cambridge School

AbstractThis article provides a critical history of the Cambridge School of intellectual history. Laslett's work on Locke appeared to vindicate modernist historicism. Laslett shunned the broad narratives of romantic developmental historicists. He relied on bibliographies, unpublished manuscripts, and other evidence to establish atomized facts and thus textual interpretations. Pocock and Skinner's theories defended modernist historicism. They argued historians should situate texts in contexts and prove interpretations correct by using modernist methods to establish empirical facts. They attacked approaches that read authors as contributing to perennial debates or aiming at a coherent metaphysics. I argue we should reject modernist historicism with its methodological focus; we should adopt a post-analytic historicism focused on philosophical issues arising from analyses of the human sciences as studying actions by attributing meanings to actors and showing how these meanings fit into larger webs of belief.

PREFACE

2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
SHRUTI KAPILA
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Social History ◽  
South Asian ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
Major Site ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Politics And Culture ◽  
History Of ◽  
First Time

In a recent appraisal of the nature of the enterprise of intellectual history, it was remarked, not for the first time, that the “the only history of ideas to be written are histories of their uses in argument”. Though perhaps not in such a self-conscious manner, the essays in this issue consider the transformative capacity of ideas. Modern intellectual history in the European and American context grew out of a critique of the dominance of social history; by contrast, it has received little or no attention in the field of colonial and modern South Asia. Despite the vibrancy of the field in general, the two major works in Indian intellectual history were written almost half a century ago. Eric Stokes's English Utilitarians and India and Ranajit Guha's A Rule of Property for Bengal were both concerned with the making of the regime of colonial political economy. These two important books took the major site of the generation of ideas to be the colonial state and the major actors to be its official intellectuals. Interestingly, both these historians later moved away from intellectual history to social history and the experience of the peasantry. It is an ironic tribute to their books that the subsequent focus of much South Asian historical scholarship has been on the nature of the colonial state and its relation to politics, economy and society. However, the emphasis on the power and the work of ideas, in Stokes's and Guha's initial formulations, slowly but surely gave way to “ethnographies of the state”. A related historiographical move emphasized the politics and culture of resistance, as indeed did Stokes and Guha in their later work.

scholarly journals OSSETIAN TEACHERS: SELF-AWARENESS AND EVERYDAY LIFE (LATE XIX – EARLY XX CENTURY)

2021 ◽  
pp. 21-31
Author(s):  
С.А. АЙЛАРОВА
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
Social History ◽  
History Of Education ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Behavioral Strategies ◽  
Social Community ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Main Representative

Статья посвящена одному из аспектов истории образования в Осетии конца XIX – начала XX в. – самосознанию социопрофессиональной группы – осетинского учительства. Формирование профессиональных групп было выражением модернизации социальной структуры пореформенного осетинского общества. Ввиду особенностей истории образования в Осетии главным представителем этой группы являлись учителя церковно-приходских школ – основного типа начальной школы в крае. Осознание профессиональных интересов, общественного статуса и материального положения народного учителя было проявлением оформления этого социального сообщества. В центре внимания педагогической публицистики – учительская повседневность, размеры жалования, проблема пенсий, жилье, питание, взаимоотношения учителя с школьной и сельской администрацией, представителями сельского общества, статус и перспективы педагогического труда. Обсуждение многих проблем носило полемический характер; участники дискуссии высказывали противоположные суждения о материальной обеспеченности народного учителя, качестве жилья, возможности подсобного хозяйства, будущего образования детей учителя. Освещалась запутанность ситуации с учительскими пенсиями, которые в реальности не выплачивались. В актуальной публицистике освещены не все проблемы учительской повседневности, а только социально значимые, волновавшие демократическую интеллигенцию. Изучение субкультуры и самосознания осетинского учительства актуально в русле методологических поисков отечественной «новой социальной истории», а также «историко-антропологического» подхода, дающих возможность реконструкции поведенческих стратегий этой группы интеллигенции. «Интеллектуальная история» Осетии дореволюционного периода формировалась во многом представителями этой образовательной общности, развивавшей общественную мысль на протяжении десятилетий. Публицистическая подборка, составившая основу статьи, информативна и свидетельствует о перспективности изучения такой социопрофессиональной и культурной группы, как осетинское учительство. The article considers one of the aspects of the history of education in Ossetia in the end of XIX – early XX century – the self-awareness of the Ossetian teachers as socio-professional group. The formation of professional groups was an expression of the modernization of the social structure of the post-reform Ossetian society. In view of the peculiarities of the history of education in Ossetia, the main representative of this group was the teachers of parish schools, the main type of elementary school in the region. Awareness of the professional interests, social status and material situation of the people's teacher was a manifestation of the formation of this social community. The focus of pedagogical journalism is on teachers' everyday life, salaries, the problem of pensions, housing, food, the teacher's relationship with the school and rural administration, representatives of rural society, the status and prospects of pedagogical work. Discussion of many problems was polemical in nature; the participants in the discussion expressed opposite opinions about the material security of a people's teacher, the quality of housing, the possibility of subsidiary farming, and the future education of the teacher's children. The confusion of the situation with teachers' pensions, which in reality were not paid, was highlighted. In actual journalism, not all problems of teachers' everyday life are highlighted, but only socially significant ones that worried the democratic intelligentsia. The study of the subculture and self-consciousness of the Ossetian teachers is relevant in line with the methodological searches of the national “new social history”, as well as the “historical-anthropological” approach, which makes it possible to reconstruct the behavioral strategies of this group of intelligentsia. The "intellectual history" of Ossetia in the pre-revolutionary period was formed in many respects by representatives of this educational community, which had been developing public thought for decades. This journalistic selection is informative and testifies to the prospects of studying such a socio-professional and cultural group as the Ossetian teachers.

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