CFP: "Doctor Virtualis" - ANALOGY AND THE MIDDLE AGES SIVE TWENTY YEARS OF ANALOGIES

CALL FOR PAPERS

“Doctor Virtualis”. History of Medieval Philosophy Journal

Special Issue for the 20th year of “Doctor Virtualis” (2002-2022)

ANALOGY AND THE MIDDLE AGES SIVE TWENTY YEARS OF ANALOGIES

A number of studies in the last century and others more recent have identified at least two significant aspects of analogy. On the one hand, analogy is a particular argumentative tool, strong persuasively, but weak demonstratively (Perelman, Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation). On the other hand, analogy is almost a cognitive a priori with which human being can conceptualise the world and can progress in the knowledge (Hofstadter, Sander, L’analogie. Cœur de la pensée; and, from this point of view, metaphor, as a kind of analogy or condensed analogy, plays a fundamental role in philosophy as we read in Johnson, Philosophy’s Debt to Metaphor).

The analogy, which certainly found many uses in the Middle Ages at different levels of reflection, represents one of the most significant indices and one of the most interesting ways of thinking to propose not dogmatic solutions but rather possible paths.

Middle Ages theorised on analogy, it used the analogy in different forms, and turned it into a philosophical and theological tool of decisive importance.

In the light of the argumentative and cognitive power of analogy, a question arises about the use of analogy not only by the medieval authors under study, but also by the scholar observing the Middle Ages.

This Issue aims to collect contributions on various aspects that concern analogy and Middle Ages.

In summary:

1) The medieval use of analogy:

1.     The textual basis

2.     Which representation of the world

3.     Did analogy have more persuasive than demonstrative purposes in medieval thought?

4.     Is analogy a cognitive tool in medieval thinkers?

2) Analogy as a tool for interpreting history

1.     Is analogy permissible in philosophical historiography?

2.     Is analogy a heuristic tool for understanding different epochs without losing their specificity?

3.     Does the analogy help to understand the historical depths of an object of study?

See more: https://riviste.unimi.it/index.php/DoctorVirtualis/announcement/view/675

Timetable:

·                Submission of the proposal for the article (6000/8000 characters): 30th April 2021

·                Proposal acceptance: June 2021

·                Paper submission (35000/45000 characters): December 2021

Send the proposal for the article to:

[email protected]

[email protected]