Dear all Please see below.
John - please would you forward the details on to others who may be interested and may not be on our philosophy email lists. Thank you! All the very best Heather -- ****************************************************************************************** Heather Sanderson Faculty Administrator Faculty of Philosophy Tel: (01223) (3)30525 email: [email protected] ****************************************************************************************** Seminar on Twelfth Century Philosophy John Marenbon and Christopher Martin will be holding a series of Seminars this term on Peter Abaelard's philosophy of language and metaphysics on Tuesdays from 4.00 to 6.00 in the Philosophy Faculty Board Room starting on Tuesday 24th. 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. Readings will be available electronically. 1. (Jan. 24) 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. 2. (Jan. 31) 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 in consider the development of the idea that meaning depends upon context and the consequences of this for thinking about translation. 3. (Feb. 7) 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. 4. (Feb. 14) 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. 5. (Feb. 21) Guest seminar: Dr Bruno Michel on Abaelard's theory of enthymematic inference. 6. (Feb. 28) '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. _____________________________________________________ Sent by the CamPhilEvents mailing list. To unsubscribe or change your membership options, please visit the list information page: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEvents Posts are now archived here: http://bit.ly/CamPhilEventsArchive
