Continuity and Innovation in Medieval and Modern Philosophy of Knowledge, Mind and Language

Chairman/organiser:
John Marenbon FBA (Trinity College, Cambridge)

How modern is modern philosophy? Recently specialists in medieval philosophy have been examining how scholasticism was developed up to the seventeenth century, whilst experts on seventeenth-century philosophers have been looking back to scholasticism. This Dawes Hicks Symposium explores these continuities and changes.

Speakers:
Martin Lenz (Humboldt University, Berlin), commentator Michael Ayers FBA (University of Oxford)
Robert Pasnau (University of Colorado), commentator John Hawthorne (University of Oxford)
Dominik Perler (Humboldt University, Berlin), commentator Andrew Pyle (University of Bristol)

About the main speakers:

Martin Lenz, whose recent book (Lockes Sprachkonzeption, 2010) shows how far Locke’s philosophy of language is from a crude mentalist stereotype, speaks on 'Essences and Signification: Medieval Heritage and Innovation in Locke's Philosophy of Language'.

Robert Pasnau, author of Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 (2011) looks at 'Epistemic Divisions of Labor: Who Should Know, Who Should Believe, and Who Should be Left in the Dark', with special reference to Aquinas, Locke and Averroes.

Dominik Perler, who has just published Transformationen der Gefühle. Philosophische Emotionstheorien 1270-1670, discusses 'What Are Mental Faculties? A Debate in Late Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy', looking especially at Olivi, Ockham, Descartes and Malebranche.

Papers from this symposium were published in 2013 as Continuity and Innovation in Medieval and Modern Philosophy: Knowledge, Mind, and Language, edited by John Marenbon (Proceedings of the British Academy, 189).

More about the Dawes Hicks Symposia on Philosophy