SÊMAINÔ (I): Ancient Theories of meaning » (Lille, December the 5th, 6th and 7th, 2016)

Call for Papers : International Conference « SÊMAINÔ (I): Ancient Theories of meaning » (Lille, December the 5th, 6th and 7th, 2016)

Organisation :

Leone Gazziero (French-Swiss Collaborative Research Project « SÊMAINÔ »)

Address :

UMR 8163 « Savoirs, Textes, Langage » (STL), Université Lille 3, Rue du Barreau - BP 60149, 59653 Villeneuve d’Ascq Cedex.

Contact :

[email protected]

Provisional Schedule :

April, the 15th, 2016 (submissions deadline) ; April, the 30th, 2016 (peer-review process completion and results   notification) ; October, the 15th, 2016 (deadline for submitting detailed abstracts) ; December, the 5th, 6thand 7th, 2016 (Conference). 

Event: 

« What are linguistic signs and why do we need them ? »

« How do they mean what they mean ? »

« What effects do they have and what precautions are called for when we avail ourselves of them in order to convey our thoughts and feelings, argue with other people or try to influence their behaviour in some way or another ? »

Such and similar issues, whose roots go back at least as far as Plato and Aristotle (and arguably beyond), are of paramount importance, since they determine what questions ancient philosophers and other language specialists asked about linguistic signs, their meaning and their uses. Through debates whose emphasis shifted hence and forth between logic, grammar, rhetoric and theology, ancient understanding of what it takes for a linguistic expression to be meaningful has come in a variety of ways.

In order to make sense of this diversity and, more in general, in its effort to investigate the history of philosophy from the angle of theoretical variations on the themes of language and meaning, SÊMAINÔ Project – a French National Agency for Research (ANR) and Swiss National Science Funds (SNF) joint venture led by Leone Gazziero and Claudio Majolino (University Lille III) and Laurent Cesalli (University of Geneva) – invites paper submissions for its first International Conference (Lille, December, the 5th, the 6th and the 7th, 2016).

The Conference’s main objective will be to identify and categorise theoretical patterns implemented in Ancient and Late Ancient times in order to account for meaning as either a property of linguistic expressions, or a correlate of contents of thought, or else as a product of communication practices. Within the chronological boundaries of Classical and Late Antiquity, the range of issues open to discussion is deliberately broad and propositions’ focus may be either physical (linguistic signs have a materiality and a physiology of their own), morphological (typologies of parts of speech have been put forward by philosophers and grammarians alike) semantic (meaning, reference and everything that falls between), psychological (the actual handling of signs in its intellectual and affective dimension) or pragmatic (usage situations of linguistic expressions, both successful and biased)

Communications (speaking time: 50 minutes), either in French or in English, will follow a common pattern: upon acceptance of their propositions, authors will select one or more texts (or sections thereof), which they will expound and comment upon. A bibliography and a detailed abstract will be sent by October the 15th 2016 in order to be circulated beforehand amongst the Conference’s participants. Communications, whose Authors are willing to, will be submitted to further review in order to be published in the Conference Proceedings.

Interested Authors are invited to submit a 500-1000 words proposition either in French or in English. These should be prepared for blind review by removing all identifying information. Author’s name and institutional affiliation will be provided in the email or as a separate cover page.

Submissions are to be sent – no later than April, the 15th, 2016 – as .pdf or .docx attachments to

[email protected]

All queries may be directed to the same email address.