Angelo Mazzocco. Linguistic Theories in Dante and the Humanists: Studies of Language and Intellectual History in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Italy. 
            Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1993. xvi + 270 pp. $71.50.

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.

Download Full-text

Order and Theology

Political Theology of International Order ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198859901.003.0001 ◽

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.

Download Full-text