Tag: Philosophy

MA Dissertation Journal #3: Can Derrida Be Applied Historically?

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

In this post, I will expand on some thoughts I have had while doing my dissertation, which nevertheless cannot fit in my thesis. You may know that I am interested in whether theories can be grounded in evidence. After all, one of my dissertation’s aims is to see if Paul Ricoeur’s ideas can be compared to Gregory the Great’s. In this post, I will explore the controversial and radical idea that the ideas of Jacques Derrida are not only sound but can also be applied in a historical context within an empirical basis. Admittedly, much more research needs to be done to verify my argument, but I am using this post as an opportunity and tangent to investigate the idea’s potential.

The first comparison between Derrida and Late Antique thinking centres around semiotics and language. But first, I want to highlight how semiotics again plays a pivotal role. In my previous post, I talked about the importance of semiotics to connecting the world and text. However, I am now becoming aware, as my dissertation progresses, that signs and language are crucial topics in philosophy, many ideas cannot be addressed without dealing with the relevant issues.

One Derridean theory that might be applicable to Late Antiquity is différance. This idea has its origins in Ferdinand de Saussure’s conception that words receive their meaning through their relationship with others. Derrida, building on this, suggests that words can never fully summon their meaning because of their interdependence. However, why is this idea potentially useful for Late Antique studies? Moorhead, in his introduction to Gregory the Great, writes ‘the need to interpret the Bible allegorically, and the possibility that that something could have more than one meaning, allowed Gregory to see words as unstable in what they signified. Furthermore, Markus, in Signs and Meanings: World and Text in Ancient Christianity, describes signs as ‘ambivalent’ and that ‘their meaning has to be struggled for.’ Both these two authors are using evidence for these points, Markus is using Augustine’s works, while Moorhead is using Gregory the Great’s. In the Late Antique conception, signs were seen as complicated and unstable. Naturally, we have to appreciate the fact that Augustine’s ideas vary from source to source and that Gregory never wrote a full treatise on semiotics, but it appears différance may have a historical basis when talking about Late Antiquity.

What are the implications of this? Well for one thing it means that the meaning of a text is never quite fully realised. The Bible, because of the ambivalently of its language, is open to different interpretations. Moorhead recognises this while discussing Gregory the Great, he writes ‘the deepest books are those which are most open to different readings and, in a sense, allow themselves to be perpetually remade as people read them in various ways’. He also adds ‘The Bible positively invites different kinds of interpretation, for it has a kind of flexibility which enables it to adjust itself to the capacities of its reader and grow with them’ This sounds a bit like Derridean Deconstruction- the Bible is not internally coherent and its contradictions can be exposed. Different readers have different readings. However, this only describes one sense of what Deconstruction actually is and not its other senses (the word, intentionally, is very hard to decipher).

The other meaning of Deconstruction, as explored in Of Grammatology, is that it attempts to reveal the that oppositions, like those of speech/writing and nature/society can be undermined. Historically, such binaries have dominated philosophical thinking. Moorhead, for example, comments ‘one of the key structures in Gregory’s thought is the distinction between the inward and the outward, and his invariable tendency to see the former as being the most important.’ It would appear initially that the Derridean examination of binaries does not apply to Gregory the Great. However, Straw, in Gregory the Great: Perfection in Imperfection, reveals that this sense of deconstruction is in fact applicable to how Gregory viewed the world. Straw’s approach is almost Derridean and the binary she examines in most depth is the spiritual/carnal one, which is of course very important for the phenomenological dimension of my dissertation. She writes, on this topic, ‘Gregory sees the carnal and spiritual realms as interrelated, as connected as endpoints of a continuum.’ Carnal signs also point to ‘the spiritual world beyond’ and ‘the visible world of flesh and blood and mere human experience reveals a variety of mysteries links with the transcedent, invisible world of the spirit’. However, one can go even further in making the link between Derrida and Straw. A large part Of Grammatology is dedicated to analysing the works of the philosopher Jean Jacques-Rosseau. Derrida looks at the binary of north/south in his work. Straw similarly attempts to examine north/south in the writings of Gregory the Great, she writes ‘the cold north wind is the raw numbness of the evil spirit, while the south wind warms and thaws the Holy Spirit.’ However, simultaneously the role of north/south and cold/warm is reversed, as Straw states that Gregory writes that one may burn with carnal desires and be cooled by holy thoughts. Thus, in Gregory’s thought, binaries such as the ones discussed can be examined, inverted and analysed.

To summarise, some of Derrida’s ideas seem to not only be present in the scholarship on Gregory the Great, but are also found in the evidence used by the discussed writers. What does this mean for how we should approach Late Antiquity? Well, for me, it proves modern theory can have a basis in the evidence. There does not need to be contradiction between the theoretical and the empirical. Now of course this post is only a brief elaboration of one of my thoughts while doing reading for my dissertation, but it opens up a whole new area of research. What else can Derridean theory do to change our understanding of Late Antiquity?

Bibliography

Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.  Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press 1977.

de Saussure, Ferdinand. Course in General Linguistics. Translated by Wade Baskin.  New York City: McGraw-Hill Paperbacks, 1966.

Markus, Robert A. Signs and Meanings: World and Text in Ancient Christianity. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1996.

Moorhead, John. Gregory the Great. Abingdon: Routledge, 2005.

Straw, Carole. Gregory The Great: Perfection in Imperfection. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.

Reading Kierkegaard’s ‘The Concept of Anxiety’

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

In this post I shall discuss my experience of reading Søren Kierkegaard’s ‘The Concept of Anxiety’, also sometimes known as ‘The Concept of Dread’.

I must admit approaching this post that I found this book a challenging, but equally rewarding, book. Concepts such as ‘sin’ and ‘guilt’ are found throughout and it is not always easy understanding what Kierkegaard means when engaging with the Christian faith. Nevertheless, the focus on ‘anxiety’ is an interesting one. I bought this book hoping to find a philosophical approach to anxiety which may help with that state of mind which we all sometimes find ourselves in. I am a firm believer in the idea that philosophy should have a practical impact. Did the book do this? Unfortunately, apart from a few observations, it generally did not provide a complete answer, in my opinion, on how to approach anxious situations. Yet in this post I shall still discuss the observations I found most interesting and useful, alongside other ideas which were present throughout the text.

On the other hand, its comments on anxiety are still sometimes thought-provoking. One idea that I found particularly engaging is that anxiety is the result of freedom. Kierkegaard writes ‘anxiety is the dizziness of freedom’ and later states ‘anxiety is constantly to be conceived here in terms of freedom. Therefore, the presence of free will causes anxiety because we can make any decision we want. Anxiety arises from the possibilities in the world. Kierkegaard also comments that anxiety is future driven. This point seems obvious, but it is nevertheless pivotal to still state it. Anxiety only depends on the potentialities of the future- if something from the past is making us anxious it is only because it may influence what lies ahead.

Kierkegaard also makes some other observations about anxiety. He states that it ‘through being a synthesis the human being can me made anxious, and the more profoundly, the greater the human being.’ There are several points made in this instance. Firstly, it highlights Kierkegaard’s insistence throughout the book that human beings are a mixture of mind and body supported by spirit. Humans are a synthesis of mind and body and are not composed of two separate parts, like in the Cartesian view. What has this to do with anxiety? Well, Kierkegaard writes that ‘as a beast or an angel, a human being could not be made anxious’. Beasts (body/material) and angels (mind/spiritual) can not get anxious like humans because they are not a synthesis. Humans are also a combination of finitude and infinitude because of their synthetic nature. I tend to agree with Kierkegaard here on that humans are combination of mind and body, to me it seems the best way of dismissing the older binary view that differentiates between the two.

The other point made in the above is the greater the human the greater the anxiety. This links to Kierkegaard’s earlier comments about genius. Geniuses are, according to Kierkegaard, strongest in the moment of danger. However, their anxiety lays in the moment before and after an anxiety has passed, when they must face the great unknown of fate. While I do not exactly adhere to the concept of geniuses, intelligence is far more complex and diverse than that, Kierkegaard does make a valid insight here. Anxiety is often about the past or future, it is rarely in the moment. It is also interesting how Kierkegaard refers to ‘the great unknown that is fate’, which seems to contradict his earlier point about anxiety being the dizziness of freedom. Kierkegaard, it appears, believes in a mixture of free will and determinism, which is yet another synthesis on his part. I have not exactly thought or read a lot about free will before, but then our actions and lives are, in my view, often both the victim of circumstance and our own choices in particular moments.

Sin, as mentioned, is also a theme that is repeated throughout The Concept of Anxiety. In fact, Kierkegaard ties it closely to anxiety. He writes ‘anxiety is the psychological state that precedes sin, that comes as close as possible to it, as anxiously possible, yet without explaining sin which breaks out only in the qualitative leap.’ Anxiety is therefore deeply related to sin. I did not find Kierkegaard’s extensive treatment of sin in the book that thought-provoking to be honest, but the one thing that does come across clearly is that it is an important concept to him. In fact, the subtitle of the book is A Simple Psychologically Oriented Deliberation in View of the Dogmatic Problem of Hereditrary Sin. As a theist and postmodernist, I am not sure where I exactly stand on the concept of sin. However, I do believe that one should not be blamed for the actions of another. Sin, if it exists, should not be used as a tool to burden mankind with guilt.

Time is another topic Kierkegaard deals with in The Concept of Anxiety. He distinguishes between the present, which he calls the eternal and ‘the infinite succession’ of the life in time (outside of the eternal). There are some thoughts I have about Kierkegaard’s attitude to time, mainly about how he places importance on the present. It would seem he follows the tradition of the metaphysics of presence, which, as the name suggests, sees presence as more important than absence (including the future and past). In fact, he states ‘the instant is that ambiguity in which time and eternity touch each other.’ The present intersects with eternity, the former ‘touches’ the latter. Therefore, yet another synthesis is posited by Kierkegaard. I cannot help but find his synthesising approach agreeable. It is interesting to see a nineteenth-century thinker having a distaste for binaries. However, he is still not Heidegger or Derrida, due to how he believes presence is more important than absence, even if his view is more nuanced than some other thinkers.

This post has discussed some of the points I found interesting in Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Anxiety. I have not covered everything comprehensively, but instead I have discussed some of the sections or themes of the book and the thoughts they provoked. Overall, it was an interesting read, although challenging at points. Would I read more Kierkegaard? Yes, probably, his synthesising is something I like a lot. However, I would have liked it more if he focused in on anxiety throughout. His thoughts on sin, which are prominent throughout, are not as interesting as his other ideas. Nevertheless, there were few moments, as outlined above, that sparked my mind and so therefore it was worth reading.

Reading John Stuart Mill’s ‘Utilitarianism’

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

While researching Epicurus, I came across John Stuart Mill’s ‘Utilitarianism’. An 1861 book it aims to introduce and discuss a theory of ethics that centres around achieving the maximal happiness for all individuals affected by an action. In this post, I shall discuss my experience of reading it and raise any points I found significant.

Mill starts by raising the divisive nature of ethical theories. The question of right and wrong, according to him, ‘has occupied the most gifted intellects and divided them into sects and schools carrying on a vigorous warfare against one another’. One cannot disagree with Mill on this, morality is a central question for humanity and so it is not surprising that it can be divisive. Another interesting point about ethics is that, unlike science, theory must precede practice. In my recent post, on Epicurus and Musonius Rufus, I argued philosophy should aim to be practical. However, ethics is an example that shows that theory is certainly not redundant. You cannot walk blindly into a scenario without an innate sense of right or wrong. Furthermore, if you do have a philosophical theory of ethics, it should certainly influence your actions.

So how should we make decisions according to Mill? According to him ‘actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness.’ Like Epicurus, Mill believes that pleasure can be equated with happiness, whereas unhappiness is equated with pain. Utilitarianism is therefore a theory that holds actions should be undertook with a calculation of how much pleasure or happiness they shall produce for the maximum number of people affected. Mill states ‘pleasure and freedom from pain are the only things desirable as ends’. It is worth noting here, that Mill was definitely influenced by Epicurus, he mentions him several times, so understandably their ideas share some similarities.

However, when you state that pleasure is the ultimate aim of your philosophy you inevitably encounter a problem. Some think your idea of pleasure can be equated with base desires. And Mill certainly had this problem, he reveals that some think of utilitarianism as ‘a doctrine worthy only of swine’. Mill responds to this criticism by arguing ‘human beings have faculties more elevated than the animal appetites’ and also writes ‘there is no known Epicurean theory of life which does not assign to the pleasures of the intellect, of the feelings and imagination, and of the moral sentiments a much higher value as pleasures than to those of mere sensation’. Therefore, ‘base desires’ do not have much of a place in utilitarianism.

One aspect that sounds potentially dangerous initially is Mill’s separation between those of a higher intellect and a lower intellect. ‘Capacity for other nobler feelings is in most natures a very tender plant’, according to Mill. The lack of mental cultivation is according to him one of the main factors that prevents happiness in life. Thankfully, he attributes this absence to a person’s social position in life, rather than any innate factor. Mill states ‘the present wretched education and wretched social arrangements are the only real hindrance to its (happiness) being attainable by almost all.’

Another interesting aspect of Mill’s thought is his emphasis on the consequence of an action rather than the motive behind it. He writes ‘he who saves a fellow creature from drowning does what is morally right, whether his motive be duty or the hope of being paid for his trouble’ and ‘the great majority of good actions are intended not for the benefit of the world, but for that of individuals, of which the good of the world is made up.’ Utilitarianism therefore emphasises actions can still be right, even if they are not done for the right reason. This, as Mill predicts, raises a potential criticism of the ethical theory. It suggests a bad person can carry out good actions and if they did utilitarianism would not critique them.

What other problems does utilitarianism face? Mill devotes an entire chapter to one- what is the motive to obey its ethical theory? Firstly, the improvement of education would have a pivotal role. It would do this by cultivating the inbuilt sense of unity human beings have. Mill states ‘if we now suppose this feeling of unity to be taught as a religion, and the whole forces of education, of institutions, and of opinion directed, as it once was in the case of religion, to make every person grow up from infancy surrounded on all sides by the profession and the practice of it, I think that no one who can realise this conception will feel any misgiving about the sufficiency of the ultimate sanction for the happiness morality.’ Another factor would also play a key role- the hope of favor and fear of displeasure from fellow humans or from God. Likewise, the fact that every being naturally desires his own happiness would have a role.

Mill also comments on the proof that is required for the utilitarian doctrine. His answer is simple; ‘no reason can be given why the general happiness is desirable, except that each person, so far as he believes it to be attainable, desires his own happiness.’ Utilitarianism is right because of the innate human desire for happiness and pleasure.

Another interesting aspect of Mill’s thought centres around virtue and the role it plays in utilitarianism. Virtue plays a central role in the ancient philosophy of Stoicism, so it was fascinating to find out that Mill still believes it to be important in his more Epicurean focused ideas. Virtue, according to Mill, is conductive to our pleasure and protects us from pain. As a result, it should be cultivated among the people to ensure general happiness. This crossover between Epicureanism and Stoicism in Mill resembles the interaction between the two philosophies in the ancient world. They were never in complete isolation from each other, even if sometimes they were opposed.

The final chapter of John Stuart Mill’s ‘Utilitarianism’ deals with the concept of justice. Mill raises that one of the main objections to theory that happiness is right or wrong comes from this topic. Should people not be punished or rewarded depending on their actions? Mill responds to this question by suggesting that justice should be guided by utility (whether it promotes happiness or not). He writes ‘I account the justice which is grounded on utility to be the chief part, and incomparably the most sacred and binding part, of morality.’ Therefore, justice with utilitarian principles would not be like the conception we have of it. Mill suggests to save a life, it may be allowable and a duty, to steal or take by force medicine or kidnap a medical practitioner. Utilitarian justice would therefore calculate if an action promoted happiness or not when making a decision on whether it should punished or not.

I have summarised Mill’s ‘Utilitarianism’, to conclude I will discuss my opinion on the work. I agree with the idea that one should carry out an action with a view to how much happiness it produces. However, I do not like how utilitarianism focuses on the consequences of an action rather than whether the action itself is right or wrong. The former could be dangerous- it could allow people to perform completely immoral acts just because they are seen to promote happiness. Nevertheless, I find the idea that education should focus on promoting happiness through utilitarianism quite an engaging idea. While it still should be taught alongside other ideas, teaching individuals the importance of attaining happiness and encouraging the unity of man could have the practical impact that education and philosophy should have. It is therefore fair to say then, that although I do not completely agree with Mill, I find most of the main concepts behind utilitarianism quite attractive.

Reading Musonius Rufus and Epicurus

~ Liam Greenacre ~ 4 Comments

In a previous post, I mentioned that I thought Stoicism was a good system for approaching life. In this post, I will aim to describe why I have changed my mind to an extent. I will do this through a reading of the writings of Musonius Rufus, a Stoic, and Epicurus, the founder of Epicureanism. However, do not expect a complete shift, I still believe that Musonius Rufus has some wisdom to offer, even though I do not completely agree with his version of Stoicism.

I will start by discussing Musonius Rufus. Who was he? Rufus was a Roman eques (knight) who was born before 30 AD and died before 101/102. He was also a preeminent Stoic philosopher, even if he is less well known than his fellow Stoics; Seneca, Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus. Stoicism, in a simplified form, can be described as a philosophy that believes virtue is the main goal and good to strive towards and that it can be reached through self-control of our faculties. Rufus’ lectures and sayings are preserved in a fifth-century Anthology by Stobaeus. And these writings shall form part of my discussion in this post.

Before I criticise him, I want to make clear there are some very admirable traits of Musonius Rufus. Firstly, his belief that woman should also be educated and learn philosophy, as he puts it ‘women have received from the gods the same reasoning power as men.’. He also believes they can attain virtue like men, so long as they are not a ‘slave to desires’ and are ‘self-controlled’. Therefore, even though Rufus thinks woman should be allowed to study philosophy, he still demands the same tough standards he has for men. Another aspect of Rufus I like is his belief that philosophy should be practical rather than only theoretical. He argues this using a series of analogies. For example, arguing that you would rather see a doctor who can practice medicine, rather than only one who can talk about his expertise. This does not mean I believe that theory has no place in philosophy, but I believe it should be done with practicality in mind. If someone is studying the philosophy of history, then it should affect how they approach history in practice. Rufus also advocates vegetarianism, while I believe people should be free to choose what they eat, it does make me a tad more sympathetic towards him as I am vegetarian.

However, what I do not like about Rufus is his focus on pain. And this is where I found myself losing my fondness of Stoicism. Rufus writes ‘because we humans acquire all good things by pain, the person who is himself unwilling to endure pain all but condemns himself to being worthy of nothing good’. Statements like these put my commitment to Stoicism in doubt. When reading the other main Stoic philosophers, I do not remember this obsession with pain coming up much if at all, but nevertheless Rufus’ comments do put me off. However, the worst part about this, is that he advocates voluntary inflicting pain on oneself in order to train your ability to endure. He writes ‘we will train both soul and body when we accustom ourselves to cold, heat, thirst, hunger, scarcity of food, hardness of bed, abstaining from pleasures, and enduring pains.’ Seeking pain so you can endure more pain seems a disagreeable idea to me.

While I was reading Seneca, Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, an aspect of their thought I liked was their dichotomy of control. This involves separating what you can control from what you cannot. Nearly, everything in Stoicism is out of your control, apart from your own mind and perceptions. However, I am no longer sure this is an effective dichotomy. What happens if there are certain instances in life where a person is no longer in complete control of their faculties due to no fault of their own? Stoicism might not be very useful in these circumstances. It is fair to say then I fallen out with Stoicism quite a lot then, although I believe no system is completely foolproof.

So what alternatives to Stoicism are there? Surprisingly, I have found myself drawn to Epicureanism, an ancient rival to Stoicism. Epicurus, who was born in 341 BC in the Athenian colony of Samos, argues that pleasure is the ultimate good. As he himself writes in his Letter to Menoeceus, ‘pleasure [is] the alpha and omega of a happy life. Pleasure is our first and kindred good.’ Epicureanism is therefore hedonistic with its focus on pleasure. This may evoke images of debauchery, but Epicureanism is far from that (and those who know me would probably laugh at the concept of me being hedonistic in the first sense, for example I do not drink). It seems Epicurus himself encountered misconceptions of his philosophy because he writes:

‘When we say pleasure is the end and aim, we do not mean the pleasures of the prodigal or the pleasures of sensuality, as we are understood to do by some through ignorance, prejudice, or willful misrepresentation. By pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul. It is not an unbroken succession of drinking-bouts and of merrymaking, not sexual love, not the enjoyment of the fish and other delicacies of a luxurious table, which produce a pleasant life; it is sober reasoning…’ Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus.

Epicureanism thus like Stoicism is focused on happiness, but it believes this is to be achieved through pleasure rather than virtue. This does not mean Epicureanism believes pain can be completely avoided in life. Rather it asks you to calculate and weigh up when making a decision whether the pleasure is worth the later pain, or whether a small pain will produce much greater pleasure in return. As Epicurus writes we ‘often pass over many pleasures when a greater annoyance ensures from them. And often we consider pains to superior to pleasures when submission to the pains for a long time brings us a consequence a greater pleasure.’ Epicurus’ approach of maximising pleasure and minimising pain now seems a lot more attractive to me then Stoicism’s focus on enduring pain being necessary. Its ‘method of calculating’ pain and pleasure seems more positive and more proactive rather than simply enduring fate.

It is necessary to note here that Stoicism and Epicureanism are not completely opposed. In fact, Senenca often quotes from Epicurus. Epicureanism still believes we can control our desires of pleasure to minimise pain. For example, Epicurus writes ‘Don’t ruin the things you have by wanting what you don’t have, but realise that they too are things you once did wish for.’ Epicurus also warns ‘the esteem of others is outside our control; we must attend instead to healing ourselves.’ Therefore, if I am embracing Epicureanism more, it is not at the cost of all my Stoic learnings.

While I am newly interested in Epicureanism, that does not mean I agree with everything it says. Its physics is atomist (arguing the world is made of atoms) and as I do not have much of a background in the history of science, I cannot really comment on his theories. Furthermore, as I hinted at a previous post, I disagree with his approach to God (for him the classical Gods) as not being involved in the world. I believe that the very definition of God as omnipotent and omnibenevolent requires his intervention in the world. Therefore, I might agree more with the Stoics than Epicurus on divine matters.

To end, I want to quote Epicurus one more time. He writes ‘And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness it not yet or that is now no more’. Philosophy, as hopefully this post has shown, can have a direct influence on your wellbeing.

Jacques Derrida, William Reddy and Emotions

~ Liam Greenacre ~ Leave a comment

This post contains an undergraduate essay which aimed to apply the ideas of William Reddy and Jacques Derrida to the history of emotions. It was in answer to the question; ‘Do emotions get lost or found over time or does the vocabulary to describe them merely change?‘.

Emotions cannot be lost or found over time, as they are never fully present in the first place. Likewise, while the vocabulary used to describe emotions may change this does not mean we can use words to meaningfully talk about them. This essay will use ideas from linguistics and continental philosophy to critique traditional approaches to the history of emotions. It will suggest the debate posed by the question is fundamentally flawed, as it relies on the assumption that emotions or the words used to describe them can be fully present. I will demonstrate this in two sections; the first will explain why the ideas of Jacques Derrida and William Reddy are relevant to tackling this question. The second section builds on this by using several case studies to show that many of the problems encountered in this debate are explained by these ideas. By doing this, it will become clear that any generalisations that can be made in this comparative discussion can be attributed to the historiographical, philosophical and scientific assumptions of scholars researching emotions.

The ideas of Jacques Derrida, a twentieth-century continental philosopher, are relevant to discussing whether emotions are lost or found or if emotional vocabularies merely change. This is seen by the ambiguity Derrida applies to words. Ferdinand de Saussure suggested that words only receive their meaning through their relations with others.[1] Derrida developed this through the idea of différance, which suggests because of this interdependence, words can never fully summon their meaning. It is always deferred due to the mixture of presence and absence created by these relationships.[2] The implications of this are shown through Derrida’s analysis of the word pharmakon found in Plato’s Phaedrus; which he describes as ambivalent, standing for both remedy and poison simultaneously.[3] Therefore, as a result of différance, a word never fully summons a single meaning.  How is this relevant? One only needs to look at the bibliography to see that previous histories of emotions have focused on single words; like nostalgia, sympathy or acedia. The ideas of Derrida would suggest this is wrong, emotional words cannot be understood in isolation. If one was to study a word to see if the vocabulary of emotions merely changes or an emotion is lost or found, they would be operating on the incorrect assumption words can accurately represent a given emotion at any time.

Having established that these ideas are relevant to discussing the vocabulary of emotions, how can we link them to experience rather than language? Reddy’s idea of emotives allows us to do this. Emotives are utterances which alter the state of an emotion itself, due to the effects vocalisation can have, like reaffirming or denying a particular state.[4] It may initially appear odd to use ideas from an article titled ‘Against Constructionism’ in conjunction with a postructuralist thinker like Derrida. However, Reddy clearly had some of his ideas in mind while discussing emotions. ‘Emotions are the real-world-anchor of signngs.’[5] For Reddy, emotives automatically confirm the existence of something outside of language through failing at representation. Therefore, they act like a bridge between reality and language.[6] Consequently, while discussing whether emotions are lost and found or the vocabulary to describe them merely changes, we need to recognise that the experience of an emotion and its language are interlinked.

I will now demonstrate the relevance of this to our discussion. If the experience of an emotion and the language used to describe it do not have rigid boundaries, we can also imply they might share similar qualities. In fact, a large portion of Derrida’s Of Grammatology was dedicated to undermining binaries like these. Like those of the eighteenth-century philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rosseau, such as speech/writing and nature/society.[7] Therefore, if the idea of différance makes it difficult to talk about emotional vocabularies, this would equally apply to the experience of an emotion itself. Derrida also suggested that the history of western metaphysics has been dominated by the idea of presence.[8] However, différance, as discussed, undermined this. The implications are clear. Most theories of emotions take it for-granted that emotions can be isolated and studied separate from their counterparts. This is most obvious in the ‘Hydraulic model’ which views emotions as bubbling below the surface, ready to be switched on or off.[9] However, based on Derrida’s ideas it is implausible to take this view which would prioritise an emotion’s presence. it is wrong to discuss whether emotions are lost or found over time or whether the vocabulary used to describe them merely changes, as doing so implies an emotion or word is ever fully present.  

Having problematised our ability to talk about whether emotions are lost and found or the vocabulary to describe them merely changes, I will now show how most issues encountered in this debate are attributable to presumptions that emotions or emotional words are ever fully present.  I will firstly do this by looking at those who suggest the words to describe emotions merely change or that there is an element of universality to emotions.

The first case study I will use to critique those suggesting words to describe emotions merely change, will focus on acedia. This word has proved problematic for historians trying to match its meaning with ‘modern’ emotions. Originating from the monastic movement of early Christianity, in particular through the writings of Evagrius (345-399) and John Cassian (360-435) scholars have connected it to a range of states like depression and Emile Durkheim’s concept of anomie.[10] The latter describing the disjuncture between a society’s expectations and an individual’s ability to reach them.[11] This discussion over what acedia can be ‘matched up to’ is a result of its symptomatic variety. For example, acedia was both seen as a dedication to prayer and extreme asceticism.[12] However, all the attempts at understanding acedia have a major similarity; they presume there is a single, definable concept that can be translated into the language of modernity. A manifestation of assigning importance to presence. A simpler explanation for acedia’s symptoms is that the emotion was never fully present in the first place. Like language, an emotion is slippery and can only be understood through its relationship with other emotions. It is never present by itself. This is shown by how John Cassian’s concept of Acedia borrows from the concept of sloth, whereas for him Tristia is also more equivalent to Evagrius’ notion of Acedia.[13]  Therefore, it is wrong to speak of the words describing acedia merely changing because doing so presumes we can identify single emotions in the past.

In comparison to this, the idea of presence has also been used in science to suggest the vocabulary to describe emotions merely changes. Several scholars have deferred to biology as a universal constant when studying emotions. Frevert describes how brain damage can impair a person’s sympathy, whereas Hunt writes autism also does this.[14] However, this recourse to science contradicts with these scholars’ semi-constructionism. For example, Frevert writes ‘honour can confuse those looking for a biological’ explanation to emotions, a claim at odds with her earlier statement.[15] This implies there is a problem using science to suggest words for emotions merely change.

The idea of presence can explain this contradiction found arguing for a degree of universality in emotions. Scholars presume medical terminology can accurately represent the condition it refers to. O’Sullivan’s study challenges this by looking at transformations in the diagnosis of nostalgia as a medical condition during nineteenth-century France.[16] There was not a single identifiable condition known as nostalgia, as a term can never fully describe an illness. This is reemphasised by nostalgia still having divergent meanings into the twentieth century.[17] Therefore, scholars using science to suggest words describing emotions merely change end up contradicting themselves, as the meaning of a condition is never fully present. Consequently, it is impossible to reduce emotions purely to a biological state. The use of science can therefore be compared to studies on the word acedia, as they both rely on the incorrect assumptions that emotions can ever be fully present. The similarities between them are not historic but based on philosophical presumptions of scholars.

I will now demonstrate this is equally true when describing emotions as having a largely cultural basis or as being lost or found over time. Fiering describes various approaches to sympathy in the eighteenth-century, during which both theological and humanitarian approaches to the emotion interacted with each other.[18] However, constructivist approaches like this struggle to identify precise points for emotional transformations. Instead, they focus on longer time periods like a century. This problem is explained by the fact there is a not a single transition point for emotions, as due to their interdependence on each other they are never fully present. Sympathy in the eighteenth-century can only be understood through its religious, classical and humanitarian contexts and not by itself.[19] As a result, it is inaccurate to state that emotions are lost and found because they are never fully present in the first place.

The problem of metaphysical assumptions regarding presence can also be extended to the sources consulted when discussing whether emotions are lost or found. Halsall has described how the portrayal of King Guntram and Chilperic in Gregory of Tours’ sixth-century Ten Books of Histories often changed due to political circumstances.[20] Guntram’s inconsistent emotions, like piety and anger, could therefore be described as becoming lost or found in the sources due to the political conditions the author lived in. However, the emotional inconsistencies could also be attributed to that the fact that emotions are never fully present; Guntram’s anger can only be understood through its interaction with his piety. His frequently contradictory actions and emotions are explained by the fact that he is never fully in one state or another. In this way, talking about whether emotions are lost or found is problematised by ideas of presence.

This essay has suggested it is difficult to talk about whether emotions are lost and found or whether the vocabulary to describe them merely changes, as doing so operates on metaphysical assumptions regarding presence. It then explained how many of the problems encountered while studying emotions are a consequence of this. Simultaneously, it showed many comparisons made while studying emotions originate from historiographical presumptions, rather than the past itself. My argument may appear overly cynical regarding the information we can ascertain through the history of emotions. This was not intended. Future studies could focus on how different emotions and emotional words interact, which would increase our understanding of their multifaceted nature. Nevertheless, it is clear emotions are not lost or found over time and the words to describe them do not merely change.

Bibliography

Crislip, Andrew. “The Sin of Sloth or the Illness of the Demons? The Demon of Acedia in Early Christian Monasticism.” The Harvard Theological Review 98, no. 2 (2005): 143-69.

de Saussure, Ferdinand. Course in General Linguistics. Translated by Wade Baskin.  New York City: McGraw-Hill Paperbacks, 1966.

Derrida, Jacques. Of Grammatology. Translated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.  Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press 1977.

Derrida, Jacques. “Plato’s Pharmacy”. Originally published 1981. Accessed 19/02/2019 at http://www.occt.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/derrida_platos_pharmacy.pdf

Fiering, Norman S. “Irresistible Compassion: An Aspect of Eighteenth-Century Sympathy and Humanitarianism.” Journal of the History of Ideas 37, no. 2 (1976): 195-218.

Frevert, Ute. Emotions in History-Lost and Found.  Budapest: Central European University Press, 2011.

Halsall, Guy. “Nero and Herod? The death of Chilperic and Gregory of Tours’ writing of history.” In The World of Gregory of Tours, edited by Kathleen Mitchell and Ian Wood, 337-50. Leiden: Brill, 2002.

Hunt, Lynne. Inventing Human Rights: A History.  New York City: W. W. Norton, 2008.

Matt, Susan J. “You Can’t Go Home Again: Homesickness and Nostalgia in U.S. History.” Journal of American History 94, no. 2 (2007): 469-97.

O’Sullivan, Lisa. “The Time and Place of Nostalgia: Re-situating a French Disease.” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 67, no. 4 (2011): 626-49.

Reddy, William. “Against Constructionism: The Historical Ethnography of Emotions.” Current Anthropology 38, no. 3 (1997): 327-51.

Reddy, William, xa, and M. “Against Constructionism: The Historical Ethnography of Emotions.” Current Anthropology 38, no. 3 (1997): 327-51.

Rosenwein, Barbara H. “Worrying about Emotions in History.” The American Historical Review 107, no. 3 (2002): 821-45.

Toohey, Peter. “Acedia in Late Classical Antiquity.” Illinois Classical Studies 15, no. 2 (1990): 339-52.

[1] Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, trans. Wade Baskin (New York City: McGraw-Hill Paperbacks, 1966), 114-16.

[2] Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press 1977), 57-60.

[3] Jacques Derrida, “Plato’s Pharmacy”. Originally published 1981. Accessed 19/02/2019 at http://www.occt.ox.ac.uk/sites/default/files/derrida_platos_pharmacy.pdf

[4] William Reddy, “Against Constructionism: The Historical Ethnography of Emotions,” Current Anthropology 38, no. 3 (1997).

[5] Reddy, “Against Constructionism: The Historical Ethnography of Emotions,” 332.

[6] Reddy, “Against Constructionism: The Historical Ethnography of Emotions,” 332.

[7] Derrida, Of Grammatology.

[8] Derrida, Of Grammatology, 10-12.

[9] Barbara H. Rosenwein, “Worrying about Emotions in History,” The American Historical Review 107, no. 3 (2002): 834.

[10] Peter Toohey, “Acedia in Late Classical Antiquity,” Illinois Classical Studies 15, no. 2 (1990): 340; Andrew Crislip, “The Sin of Sloth or the Illness of the Demons? The Demon of Acedia in Early Christian Monasticism,” The Harvard Theological Review 98, no. 2 (2005): 159-66.

[11] Crislip, “The Sin of Sloth or the Illness of the Demons? The Demon of Acedia in Early Christian Monasticism,” 159.

[12]Crislip, “The Sin of Sloth or the Illness of the Demons? The Demon of Acedia in Early Christian Monasticism,” 150-53.

[13]Toohey, “Acedia in Late Classical Antiquity,” 342.

[14] Lynne Hunt, Inventing Human Rights: A History (New York City: W. W. Norton, 2008), 39; Ute Frevert, Emotions in History-Lost and Found (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2011), 20.

[15] Frevert, Emotions in History-Lost and Found, 52-53.

[16] Lisa O’Sullivan, “The Time and Place of Nostalgia: Re-situating a French Disease,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 67, no. 4 (2011).

[17] Susan J. Matt, “You Can’t Go Home Again: Homesickness and Nostalgia in U.S. History,” Journal of American History 94, no. 2 (2007): 470.

[18] Norman S. Fiering, “Irresistible Compassion: An Aspect of Eighteenth-Century Sympathy and Humanitarianism,” Journal of the History of Ideas 37, no. 2 (1976): 215.

[19] Fiering, “Irresistible Compassion: An Aspect of Eighteenth-Century Sympathy and Humanitarianism,” 196-98.

[20] Guy Halsall, “Nero and Herod? The death of Chilperic and Gregory of Tours’ writing of history,” in The World of Gregory of Tours, ed. Kathleen Mitchell and Ian Wood (Leiden: Brill, 2002).

Review: Complexity and Postmodernism, Understanding Complex Systens

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This post will review Paul Cilliers 1998 book ‘Complexity and Postmodernism: Understanding Complex Systems’. Integrating theory from the sciences and social sciences with postructural thought it aims to encourage interdisciplinarity discussion by looking at how they might mutually benefit each other.

The first issue raised by Cilliers is how do we define complexity? Complexity is a framework used in the sciences to understand systems with a distinct set of features. Cilliers provides ten criteria for thinking about them. These include containing a large amount of components, having non-linear interactions, being open to the environment and operating far from equilibrium, as well as having components that communicate locally. There is not space to list them all attributes of complex systems here, as the definition of them is somewhat debated, but it suffices to say that Cilliers’ definition is broad and incorporates a number of features systems may have. The examples he uses to exemplify complexity, the human brain and language, are introduced here and used throughout the book. Meanwhile, Cilliers also makes an effective comparison to the complexity of a country’s economy as a useful introductory example. A country’s economy can be composed of millions of people, have non-linear interactions like interest and be influenced by outside factors. It also requires constant flow to exist and economic agents who usually operate with those closest to their proximity.

Cilliers also describes connectionism in the opening chapter before providing a more in-depth explanation in the second chapter. Connectionism is a form of information processing inspired by the our understanding of the human brain. It is made up of neurons or nodes that are connected to each other. These connections have a number of weights that determine the characteristics of the network. In a ‘training period’, in which the network learns its function, the weights adjust based on what it inputs they receive. Connectionism, Cilliers argues, should also be defined as a distributed rather than rule-based form of representation, there is no algorithm with central control, a theme which Cilliers returns to later in the book.

This section also introduces the idea that connectionism may be similar to Ferdinand de Saussure’s model of language, which is addressed more thoroughly in the next chapter. In Saussure’s model, language is a system of relationships between different signs. ‘Brown’ gets its meaning from how it differs to ‘black’, ‘blue’, ‘grey’ and ‘train’. It does not get its meaning because it is tied to a particularly concept of brownness. As Cilliers puts it ‘The sign is a node in a network of relationships. The relationships are not determined by the sign; rather, the sign is the result of interacting relationships’. It therefore shares a similarity with a distributed connectionist approach in that relationships take precedence over the individual nodes or signs in this instance.

In the third chapter, Cilliers also engages with the ideas of the continental philosopher Jacques Derrida. This is because Saussure’s’ ideas can have some limitations when arguing for language as a complex system. For example, his theories present language as a closed, rather than open, system. Cilliers engages with the Derridean ideas of trace and différance. Trace, in this instance, refers to how a sign has no component that fully belongs to itself, ‘it is merely a collection of the traces of every other sign running through it.’ Whereas, différance refers in one case to the system of language consisting of differences and in another sense it refers to how meaning is continuously deferred. Cilliers then states ‘the characteristics of the system emerge as a result of the différance of traces, not as a result of essential characteristics of specific components of the system.’ Again, this draws comparisons with connectionist/neural networks. Because a weight only gains significance through its patterns of interaction, it might be possible to suggest, as Cilliers does, that ‘weight’ in a connectionist network and Derrida’s concept of trace are somewhat comparable. Likewise, différance can be used to explain how complex systems always contain loops and feedbacks. Because complex systems have delayed self-altering they are similar to différance, by the fact that they are also suspended between the active and the passive.

The next chapter deals with John Searle who would explicitly reject a postmodern way of understanding complex systems. Instead, he would take an analytical and rule-based approach to the brain and language. Cilliers engages with Searle’s ‘Chinese Room’ argument which is against strong AI and then criticises it. He also discusses the Searle/Derrida debate regarding speech acts. While short, the chapter effectively refutes some of the criticisms that could be launched be against Cilliers’ connectionist approach.

After this, Cilliers moves on to talking about the problem of representation. ‘Models of complex systems’ he states ‘will have to be as complex as the systems themselves’. Based on this Cilliers suggests classical theories of representation are inadequate to describe complex systems. In fact, connectionism puts the whole idea of representation at risk. This chapter consists of four main sections. The first critiques classical approaches, which establish a rule-based approach to understanding systems. It uses Hilary Putnam’s ideas to do this. The second section looks at connectionism and how it is better suited for modelling complex systems rather than algorithmic approaches. Firstly, connectionism does not require a theory to be developed before a solving a problem. Secondly, they can generalise solutions. Thirdly, connectionist networks are robust- they degrade slower than other forms of networks. Cilliers, in this section, also deals with some of the criticisms of connectionism. In the third part of the chapter, Cilliers looks at the practical benefit of connectionism for modelling, before he looks at some of the philosohical implications of connectionism in the final section.

After discussing representation, Cilliers moves on to look at self-organisation. Self-organisation is a feature of complex systems and can be defined as the ability of a system to develop or change their internal structure spontaneously and adaptively cope with its environment. As Cilliers describes, ‘self organisation in complex systems works in the following way. Clusters of information from the external world flow into the system. This information will influence the interaction of some of the components in the system- it will alter the values of the weights in the system.’ The chapter also applies selection- from theory of evolution- to how self-organising systems form, as well as looking again at some of the philosophical implications of the arguments in the chapter.

The final chapter of Cilliers’ book looks at the intersections between postmodernism and complexity. It does this with a very nuanced approach to postmodernism. Postmodernism is presented not as saying ‘anything goes’, but instead as having a sensitivity to complexity. Cilliers uses Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition to support his arguments in this section. Cilliers then moves on to argue that postmodern society can be compared to some of the features of complex systems he outlined earlier. For example, it is composed of a high number of components and is characterised by a series of local ‘narratives’ over a metanarrative. The author then examines language as a complex system, before arguing for a postmodern approach to science, which values openness and flexibility regarding different narratives, rather than a more constrained and conservative approach. ‘Descriptions’ of the world ‘cannot be reduced to simple, coherent and universally valid discourses’ due to its complexity. Finally, the chapter also looks at the connections between postmodernism and the philosophy of ethics.

Overall, ‘Postmodernism and Complexity’ successfully integrates a number of interdisciplinary themes in a well-structured fashion. The book introduces the idea that postmodernism and complexity may be compared to each other, opening the door to a range of potential research directions. To summarise, Cillier’s contribution here is important as well as an exciting prospect to read.

Reading J.L Austin’s ‘How to Do Things with Words’

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This post will discuss my experience of reading J.L Austin’s ‘How to Do Things with Words’, a collection of lectures on utterances published in 1955. The post aims to start a series where I will discuss works, without formally reviewing them. By doing this, I hope to clarify my understanding of the works and formulate opinions on them.

Austin starts by making a distinction between constative and performative statements. A constative statement is a descriptive sentence that is either true or false. Whereas, a performative statement is an utterance is a that does an action, such as ‘I name this ship’ or ‘I do’ in a wedding ceremony. Austin suggests the former has been the focus of analytic philosophy. By discussing the idea of performatives he hopes to undermine the idea that ‘a ‘statement’ can only be to ‘describe’ some state of affairs, or to ‘state some fact’. There are also questions, exclamations and commands among many other sentences and not just logical propositions.

The second trait that defines a performative statement is that it is either happy or unhappy, instead of being true or false. Austin lists a number of conditions necessary for performatives to be happy, such as that there must be an accepted conventional procedure in which it can be used and that the individual participants must intend to carry out the result of it. These only form a few conditions Austin commentates on. Performatives can also fail due to what Austin calls infelicities. Infelicities fall into two categories, misfires and abuses. A misfire is when an act is purported but void, whereas an abuse is act professed but which is hollow.

Austin goes into some detail about the types of misfires and abuses through which a performative can fail. An example of a misfire could revolve around the example of a game played at party, where someone says ‘I pick George’. If the response is ‘I’m not playing’ then the utterance would be unhappy because there is no convention that you can pick people who are not playing or because George is an inappropriate object for picking. A further example might include an the words ‘I will’ in a marriage ceremony being void if the other partner says ‘I will not’. As abuses centre around an act being hollow, an examples might include saying ‘I advise you’, when you do not believe your advice is wrong or saying ‘I declare war’ when you do not intend to fight.

Following these sections, Austin dedicates a large amount of space to trying to find a list of performative verbs. However, while doing this, he realises the constative and performative distinction, intially made in his first lecture, breaks down to a degree. In these sections, Austin introduces a large amount of ambiguity and hesitation and in fact even gives up on his effort to find a list at one point. It is easy to see why a thinker like Jacques Derrida took an interest in Austin (such as in Limited Inc.) when he discusses these difficulties and the ways in which communication can fail.

The best examples to illustrate this breakdown in the differences between constatives and performatives are found towards the end of Austin’s lectures. Constatives can be seen to have many of the same potential failings as performatives. For example, they might suitable in some contexts, but not in others. As Austin suggests, saying ‘France is hexagonal’ may be suitable for a top-level general, but it would not be correct for a geographer. Likewise, saying ‘Lord Raglan won the battle of Alma’ may be fine for a schoolbook, but it would not be suitable for a piece of historical research. Constatives, like performatives, can therefore be suitable in some contexts, but not in others.

Austin also introduces more concepts during his lectures. Most notably, distinctions between locutionary acts, illocutionary acts and perlocutionary acts. The former refers to saying something. Whereas, an illocutionary acts include ‘utterances which have a certain (conventional) force’, they do something. Perlocutionary acts are the actual responses to saying something. Furthermore, Austin comments on how the distinction between illocutionary and perlocutionary acts is not always clear. Austin also categorises illocutionary acts into different groups. According to him ‘the verdictive is an excercise of judgement, the exercitive is an an assertion of influence or excercising of power, the commissive is an assuming of an obligation or declaring of an intention, the behabitive is the adopting of an attitude, and the expositive is the clarifying of reasons, arguments, and communications.’ These five groups of illocutionary acts can also overlap to a degree, bringing the theme of ambiguity present in Austin’s work back to the forefront again.

To conclude, J.L Austin’s ‘How to Do Things with Words’ is an interesting read, especially when one focuses on the themes of ambiguity and communicative difficulty prevalent in the work. For a historian like myself, I believe it could be interesting to apply some of the ideas in it to past documents. Austin’s ideas have been used in literary criticism and it could be fascinating to see what insights they could bring to the historical discipline.

Boethius’ Philosophy of Language

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The Late Antique philosopher Boethius is primarily known for The Consolation of Philosophy. However, this only forms a small, if still important, part of the corpus of texts produced or translated by him. In this post, I will discuss the key aspects of his philosophy of language and signification. In particular, by focusing on his first and second commentaries on Aristotles’ Peri Hermeneias (On Interpretation).

Boethius followed a rich tradition of translation and commentary on Aristotle’s Peri Hermeneias. The Peripatetic School placed it second in Aristotle’s logical works. Ammonius, Alexander of Aphrodisias and Porphry all commented on it. The latter is important because Boethius may have heavily relied on him. Although, Ebbsen suggests other possibilities; that he used many commentaries without privilege, relied on a lost source which in used Porphry or simply had one codex of Aristotle’s logical works. However, despite potentially relying on other sources, the space Boethius dedicated to a theory of language is impressive. It is this I will focus on in this post, in particular the earlier parts where he distinguishes between the different elements of signification.

Understanding Boethius’ philosophy of language firstly describes the conditions necessary for an interpretation to occur. He writes ‘when these three occur: the percussion of a tongue, the articulate sound of voice, and the mental image during the utterance, an interpretatio occurs’. Boethius dedicates far more of his commentaries discussing the last clause. However, there are still some interesting points about speech. Firstly, he distinguishes between an articulate sound that gets it meaning fully across and an inarticulate one, like a cough, which does not. Secondly, his theory is logocentric by emphasising speech over writing. Boethius states ‘the written letters signify the spoken words’ and states this again later . Therefore, he follows a long tradition of giving speech primacy over the written word.

The mental aspect is by far the most developed part of Boethius’ philosophy of language. Before a person speaks about a thing, they must first develop a understanding or conception of it. As Boethius puts it ‘the things are what we perceive in our minds and discern by our intellect, the concepts are our means of acquiring the things’. A thing, in this context, simply refers to something in reality the mind can discern, such as a object. However, Boethius suggests there are several steps the mind must go through in order to fully understand a thing. Firstly, one must have a sensual or cognitive awareness of a thing. Then an imagination of a thing arises. Next, a supervening intellect intervenes, ‘developing all those parts which had been confusedly pictured before in the imagination.’ The supervening intelligence operates on the image of a thing through the likeness of the thing in reality to the concept the mind has developed.

This process is common to all human beings and the end product can be described as a ‘mental language’. This point is key for understanding Boethius’ philosophy of language because and the way he distinguishes between language which is used in speech and language which is used in the mind. Using the example of a Roman, Greek and ‘Barbarian’, Boethius describes how all three would use different words to describe a horse. As a result, they might not understand each other vocally. However, despite this they would still share the same image in their mind. All humans share a common mental language.

Boethius’ philosophy of language therefore has several distinct features. The separation between vocal and mental languages being one of the most important. Several interesting questions could be raised based on his theory. Would it be possible to link the way Boethius prioritises different forms of language to his metaphysics? What are the implications of Boethius’ belief in all humans sharing a similar mental language? Finally, what role does writing take, when it is not just secondary to speech, but also inferior to the language of the mind? Nevertheless, Boethius’ philosophy of language, while not as developed as Augustine’s, is certainly an interesting topic.

Bibliography:

Primary Sources:

Boethius, First Commentary on Aristotle’s Peri Hermeneias translated by Hans Arens in Aristotle’s Theory of Language and its Tradition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1984.

Boethius, Second Commentary on Aristotle’s Peri Hermeneias translated by Hans Arens in Aristotle’s Theory of Language and its Tradition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1984.

Secondary Sources:

Cameron, Margaret. “Boethius on Understanding, Utterances and Reality.” In The Cambridge Companion to Boethius edited by John Matenbon, 85-104. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Chadwick, Henry. The Consolations of Music, Logic, Theology and Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford University, 1981.

Ebbesen, Sten. “The Aristotleian Commentator.” In The Cambridge Companion to Boethius edited by John Matenbon, 34-55. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Marenbon, John. Boethius. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.