Mental Language

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claude Panaccio
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
William Of Ockham ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Medieval Philosophy ◽  
Human Thought ◽  
Recent Philosophy ◽  
Mental Language ◽  
History Of

The notion that human thought is structured like a language, with a precise syntax and semantics, has been pivotal in recent philosophy of mind. Yet it is not a new idea: it was systematically explored in the fourteenth century by William of Ockham and became central in late medieval philosophy. This book examines the background of Ockham's innovation by tracing the history of the mental language theme in ancient and medieval thought. It shows the various contexts in which the idea was developed, the different uses it was put to, and the networks through which it was transmitted. Two ancient traditions are identified as relevant: one philosophical, stemming from Plato and Aristotle, which led to the emergence of a technical notion of ‘internal discourse’ in later Greek philosophy; and the other theological, rooted in the Fathers of the Christian Church and reaching its apogee in Augustine in the fifth century A.D. The study then focuses on the merging of the two traditions in the Middle Ages, as they gave rise to detailed discussions over the structure of human thought and its relations with signs and language. And it finally stresses the originality and significance of Ockham's doctrine of the 'oratio mentalis' (mental discourse) and the strong impression it made upon his immediate successors.

Logica modernorum

2021 ◽  
Vol 113 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-262
Author(s):  
Joke Spruyt
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
William Of Ockham ◽  
Medieval Philosophy ◽  
Faith And Reason ◽  
Critical Note ◽  
Eminent Scholar ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract Logica modernorum. A critical note on Habermas’s portrait of medieval philosophy In his monumental history of philosophy, the eminent scholar Jürgen Habermas has managed to provide us with a thorough and very nuanced overview of thousands of years of western thought. The famous philosopher paints an impressive picture of the vicissitudes of the modernisation processes featuring in the history of western philosophy. The Leitmotiv of Habermas’s narrative is the way in which throughout history philosophy dealt with the question concerning the relationship between faith and reason. When it comes to the Middle Ages, it is not surprising that Habermas should focus on the opposition between Thomas Aquinas and William of Ockham. However, by confining himself to the concepts of fides and ratio, he completely overlooks thirteenth-century developments in the domain of logic. To take note of these developments is fundamental to understand the process of modernisation in philosophy. The aim of this paper is to fill in the gap, by concentrating on thirteenth-century discussions of necessity and (logical) consequences.

scholarly journals Il nome della rosa di Umberto Eco e la storia della filosofia medievale / Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose and the History of Medieval Philosophy

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 107
Author(s):  
Gregorio PIAIA
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Historical Fiction ◽  
William Of Ockham ◽  
Umberto Eco ◽  
Medieval Philosophy ◽  
Marsilius Of Padua ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Rose ◽  
The Middle Ages

What contribution has Umberto Eco’s historical fiction made to knowledge of the history of medieval philosophy? His first and most famous novel, The Name of the Rose (1980), had the merit of drawing the attention of the common reader to mediaeval thought, which is usually neglected and still not widely known. However, this portrayal was characterized by a negative and deforming image of medieval monasticism and its philosophical conceptions. By contrast the scholastic Middle Ages (Roger Bacon, Marsilius of Padua, and especially William of Ockham) were looked upon by Eco with very modern —even “postmodern”— eyes, so that very little was left of the Middle Ages themselves.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Timothy Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Night And Day ◽  
Eleatic Monism

This book is a study of Aristotle’s engagement with Eleatic monism, the theory of Parmenides of Elea and his followers that reality is ‘one’. Parmenides wrote a single philosophical poem, sometime in the early fifth century BCE. This poem, which now survives only in fragments, is widely acknowledged to be a pivotal work in the history of Greek philosophy. It tells the story of a young man who is taken on a journey by the daughters of the Sun. After passing through the gates of the paths of Night and Day, he is greeted by a goddess:...

Eternity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eleonore Stump ◽  
Norman Kretzmann
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Medieval Philosophy ◽  
Divine Omniscience ◽  
History Of ◽  
Necessary Truths ◽  
Temporal Location

The distinctive, philosophically interesting concept of eternity arose very early in the history of philosophy as the concept of a mode of existence that was not only beginningless and endless but also essentially different from time. It was introduced into early Greek philosophy as the mode of existence required for fundamental reality (being) contrasted with ordinary appearance (becoming). But the concept was given its classic formulation by Boethius, who thought of eternity as God’s mode of existence and defined God’s eternality as ‘the complete possession all at once of illimitable life’. As defined by Boethius the concept was important in medieval philosophy. The elements of the Boethian definition are life, illimitability (and hence duration), and absence of succession (or timelessness). Defined in this way, eternality is proper to an entity identifiable as a mind or a person (and in just that sense living) but existing beginninglessly, endlessly and timelessly. Such a concept raises obvious difficulties. Some philosophers think the difficulties can be resolved, but others think that in the light of such difficulties the concept must be modified or simply rejected as incoherent. The most obvious difficulty has to do with the combination of atemporality and duration. Special objections have arisen in connection with ascribing eternality to God. Some people have thought that an eternal being could not do anything at all, especially not in the temporal world. But the notion of an atemporal person’s acting is not incoherent. Such acts as knowing necessary truths or willing that a world exist for a certain length of time are acts that themselves take no time and require no temporal location. An eternal God could engage in acts of cognition and of volition and could even do things that might seem to require a temporal location, such as answering a prayer. The concept of God’s eternality is relevant to several issues in philosophy of religion, including the apparent irreconcilability of divine omniscience with divine immutability and with human freedom.

The Body of Western Embodiment

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brooke Holmes
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Interior Space ◽  
Ancient Greek Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Body And Soul ◽  
The Relationship

Much of western philosophy, especially ancient Greek philosophy, addresses the problems posed by embodiment. This chapter argues that to grasp the early history of embodiment is to see the category of the body itself as historically emergent. Bruno Snell argued that Homer lacked a concept of the body (sōma), but it is the emergence of body in the fifth century BCE rather than the appearance of mind or soul that is most consequential for the shape of ancient dualisms. The body takes shape in Hippocratic medical writing as largely hidden and unconscious interior space governed by impersonal forces. But Plato’s corpus demonstrates that while Plato’s reputation as a somatophobe is well grounded and may arise in part from the way the body takes shape in medical and other physiological writing, the Dialogues represent a more complex position on the relationship between body and soul than Plato’s reputation suggests.

A History of Greek Philosophy Vol. III: The Fifth-Century Enlightenment

Phoenix ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 348 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard Woodbury ◽  
W. K. C. Guthrie
Keyword(s):  
Fifth Century ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
History Of

scholarly journals Perception Of The Spiritual Symbol In Armenian Medieval Philosophy And Theology

wisdom ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-145
Author(s):  
Haykazun Alvrtsyan
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Medieval Literature ◽  
Medieval Philosophy ◽  
Methodological Basis ◽  
World Outlook ◽  
Spiritual Culture ◽  
Different Types ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
The Middle Ages

The article presents the perceptions and viewpoints of the Armenian medieval literary men concerning the spiritual symbol. Being anchored in the pan-Christian perception of the symbol, it laid the basis of the symbolic-allegorical thinking of the Armenian spiritual culture. In the history of the Armenian medieval literature and art studies, the analysis of symbols, in essence, the discovery of the epiphany in them, which is the fundamental meaning of the culture, have often been neglected. Today there is a necessity to analyse the spiritual culture in a new way to dig out its ideological – world outlook basis conditioned by the artistic and the festival and ritual functions of the different types of art. Such a research also enables us to comprehend the aesthetic, artistic and doctrinal - philosophical merits of the spiritual culture (literature, miniature, architecture, etc.) created throughout the centuries and still unknown to us in a new way, to review the system of criteria and ideological-methodological basis of the evaluation, which bears a great significance for the complete and precise perception and evaluation of the Armenian art and literature of the Middle Ages.

On the Problem of Syriac “Influence” in the Transmission of Greek Science to the Arabs: The Cases of Astronomy, Philosophy, and Medicine

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 211-227
Author(s):  
Siam Bhayro
Keyword(s):  
Medical System ◽  
Fifth Century ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Greek Astronomy

The answer to the question of why the role of Syriac in transmitting Greek science into Arabic is negligible in astronomy but important in philosophy and medicine lies in the history of Syriac science. There was little imperative to transmit Greek astronomy into Syriac because Babylonian astronomy was dominant and received in Syriac. Conversely, there was an imperative to transmit Greek philosophy, due to the lack of anything comparable in Syriac and a need that arose in the late fifth century. Medicine is an in-between case—there was a well-established Mesopotamian medical system, yet Greek sources were translated and integrated with it. This integration was rejected by Arab translators, the effects of which impacted modern scholarship. This analysis explains why influence varies by field and highlights how the modern study of the Syriac sciences has neglected their Mesopotamian background and focussed on how they received and transmitted Greek sources.

scholarly journals Vanaf Ockham na Kusa: Die ensiklopediese aanspraak van ‘n ‘post-skolastiek’ in die Middeleeuse filosofie

2012 ◽  
Vol 68 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Johann Beukes
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
History Of Ideas ◽  
The Political ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
William Of Ockham ◽  
Medieval Philosophy ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Early Modernity ◽  
Marsilius Of Padua ◽  
History Of

From Ockham to Cusa: The encyclopaedic case for ‘post-scholasticism’ in Medieval philosophy. This article argues for the encyclopaedic recognition of ‘post-scholasticism’, indicating the very last and complex period (circa 1349–1464) in late Medieval philosophy, where the via moderna and logica modernorum have clearly departed from the fundamental premises of high scholasticism, the via antiqua and the logica novus, as manifested in the work of William of Ockham (and, eventually, in the political theory of Marsilius of Padua). The article argues that post-scholasticism should be distinguished from late scholasticism (exiting Ockham) and early Renaissance philosophy (entering Nicholas of Cusa). The article indicates that there is a tendency in many introductions to and secondary texts in Medieval philosophy to proceed straight from Ockham to Cusa (the ‘very last Medieval and very first Renaissance philosopher’), understating more than a century of pertinent Medieval scholarship. In the modern encyclopaedia of philosophy, this understatement manifests in either a predating of Renaissance philosophy to close the gap between Ockham and Cusa as far as possible, or in understating this period as philosophically sterile, or in, without argument, simply proceeding straight from Ockham to Cusa. The article covers some of the essential philosophical contributions presented during this fragile philosophical-historical period, indicating that post-scholasticism is indeed a difficult and complex, yet productive period in the history of late Medieval philosophy, which should not be bypassed as a trivial gateway to either Renaissance philosophy or early modernity as such, but valued for its own idiosincracies, intricacies and overall contribution to the history of ideas in philosophy and theology.

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