Experience in thesis and peer reviewing revealed that most authors have much difficulty in presenting the structural supports of their study. This becomes evident in both their oral and written scientific reports in which little congruency or lack of it is frequently observed between title of the study, general objective (aim), and the hypothesis. Likewise, confusion is usually present when distinguishing purpose from objective when presenting the research problem. In order to aid in approaching the mentioned difficulties an exercise termed (...) Trivium is proposed and explained. This term that designated the main subjects in scholar formation during medieval times, is used to designate the effective coupling of the above three structural elements (title, objective, hypothesis) that, properly used, confer epistemological basis to their scientific reports. Likewise, in order to reinforce this exercise a Quadrivium is recommended in which a fourth structural element is added, i.e., a premise, as the theoretical basis that precisely indicates the purpose of the study and provides immediate support to the hypothesis. Examples to illustrate these exercises are provided. Abiding by this logic may significantly aid science students and some open-minded researchers in adequately constructing their scientific reports, while avoiding frustrating experiences due to uncomfortable observations by peers on their manuscripts. (shrink)

The mode of making silence, as well as its distorted visibility represents a set of informational practices of the historical forms of governing that come from the arcana misterii, or secrets of state. These secrets will be the basis for the development of discursive projections, which are consolidated by proliferation, defining, according to a critical interpretation of the linguistic-Marxian background, the daily post-truths in the big data era. This article puts into dialogue the relations between language, secret and post-truth in (...) the contemporary scene. To this end, the reflection indicates the role of a certain cybernetic sophistics, founded on the confluence and application of the "liberal arts" of the trivium, as the methodology for the construction of a Metainformational State, combining, from language, the relation between domination and defense from the elements of arch-secrets and post-truths. (shrink)

R.S. Peters coined the term the “paradox of moral education” to describe the I apply the resources of the classical tradition—poetry and gymnastics, the trivium, and the quadrivium—to examine recent strategies for character formation involving aretaic exemplars. I think there is forgotten wisdom here. We have a map of a productive pedagogical sequence of mixed methods in virtue education. For example, stories are paired with physical training. Virtue concept-learning comes next, and strategies involving imitation are adjusted as a student (...) grows. I make the case that we should not think of virtue formation strategies as stand-alone tools, but as part of a broader narrative of training, suitable to age and building on the work of the methods that preceded them. (shrink)

Today’s conflicts between the views that the humanities hold of science and engineering and the views science and engineering hold of the humanities weaken the very core of our culture. Their cause is lack of integration in today’s education among subjects that hark back to the medieval trivium and quadrivium. A new trivium is needed to provide every educated person with a basic understanding of the endeavors and instruments that help us address our world and shape a new (...) morality—the humanities, in the noblest sense of the word, to civilize, science to understand nature, and engineering, broadly defined, to encompass the kindred activities that modify nature. Integration of these endeavors is urgent. It involves, in turn, an intimate interaction (the “biosoma”) of biological organisms, society, and machines—a new quadrivium. No domain can any longer be considered and learned in isolation. (shrink)

J. Stephen Russell examines the impact that Chaucer's education had on his greatest work, the Canterbury Tales, and demonstrates that understanding the nature of education in the Middle Ages, especially linguistic education, provides important insights into Chaucer's poem.

Peirce's Law of Triviality: The Implementation of the Trivium of Logic, Rhetoric and Grammar. Basic Categories for Linguistics and Literature Studies from a Universal Semiotic Theory This article focuses on the aspects that refer to linguistics in the works of Charles S. Peirce. His pragmatic philosophy implemented many other sciences and among them is the traditional trivium of logic, grammar, and rhetoric, which Peirce divided into different kinds of logic, grammar, and rhetoric. While the impact of the work (...) of Peirce on theses sciences is weak, the integration of the sciences in his philosophy is interesting as a step in the history of science and his work is an example for ecclecticism and historism of science in the 19th century and the universalism of science deducted from a philosophy that uses the sign as an unitarian principle. Triple constructions are a very common feature in the writings of Peirce, and the trivium is an example of an academic construction Peirce implemented. (shrink)

Introduction -- Prologue -- Book one -- Book two -- Book three -- Book four.

"Language and its Public Features: Reorganizing the Trivium in Locke's Essay and Port-Royal Logic" The new theory of language in the 17th century coincides with the end the traditional order of disciplines in the trivium (grammar, logic and rhetoric), which in the mediaeval times provided a comprehensive view of the problems of discourse. The article focuses on some key passages in Port-Royal Logic and Locke's Essay that provide us with a typical early modern scheme of linguistic representation, characterised (...) by heavily emphasized dualism of ideas and words. Since ideas are also the meanings of words and are ontologically essentially private, one can raise the question, where in this analysis of language is it even possible to locate its public features. The article tries to show that private language is not only possible for Locke and the Port-Royalists, but that it is even a necessary and primary character of language. Language becomes a public medium of communication only on the junctures of private meanings constituted by the “common use” of words. The article then focuses on almost complete marginalisation in the two works of the theory of public speech. Rhetoric, in the 17th century often reduced to mere eloquence, has no place in philosophy, and the duties of making speeches persuasive are taken over by reason alone. To show how the domains of jurisdiction of the trivial disciplines had been transformed in the linguistic theories proposed by the Port-Royal Logic and Locke, one can construct a hypothetical early modern trivium in the light of the following order: idea – word – figure, or, logic – grammar – rhetoric. Rhetoric is found to have kept its structural place only to be singled out as dangerous. (shrink)

The enduring persistence of the examples and exercises used in handbooks of the traditional arts of the Trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) suggests that they were recognized as perennially effective as ways to inculcate intellectual virtue in many generations of students. Yet an examination of those examples and exercises suggests that only the ones in the rhetoric curriculum were able to resist acquiring the bad habits of the sister arts of grammar and logic. Sensitivity to facts and meanings and (...) the ability to manipulate theses do not by themselves guarantee the formation of active and competent citizens. Only when those virtues are combined in the interests of eloquence-the art of disciplined expressioncan they be fully realized. (shrink)

Cet article offre une analyse succincte des œuvres critiques de Ramus contre les deux grands rhéteurs de l’ancienne Rome, Cicéron et Quintilien, les Brutinae Quaestiones in Oratorem Ciceronis de 1547 et les Rhetoricae Distinctiones in Quintilianum de 1549. Ces œuvres se présentent comme des commentaires textuels, mais elles ne constituent pas une contribution substantielle à l’étude philologique des deux traités antiques. Elles semblent plutôt avoir pour but de montrer que, selon Ramus, la rhétorique ne concerne que l’élocution et l’action, et (...) que la séparation stricte des arts du Trivium au niveau de la théorie est la seule méthode appropriée pour les enseigner. (shrink)

아우구스티누스의 『질서론』(De ordine)은 카펠라의 저작에 앞서 7자유교과를 체계적으로 다룬 최초의 작품이다. 아우구스티누스는 이 저작에서 3학(trivium)과 4과(quadrivium)의 기본 형태를 제시하고 7자유교과의 의미와 정당성을 철학과 기독교적 가치로 입증하는 데 천착한다. 그에게 있어 7자유교과는 총체적 지식, 즉 우주적 질서에 도달하기 위한 방법임과 동시에 우주적 질서(ordo universitatis)의 일부분이다. 아우구스티누스는 보편적 우주의 질서에 도달하기 위해서는 자유교과가 반드시 가르침의 올바른 순서(ordo eruditionis)에 의해 확장해야만 한다고 말한다. 그는 7자유교과를 언어 분과와 수학분과로 나누는데, 이렇게 나눌 수 있는 근거도 필연적 발달 단계에 따른 것이다. 또한 그는 7자유교과가 이성적 (...) 활동에 최적화된 교과로 구성되었기 때문에 개별 교과는 이성(ratio)의 활동 여부에 따라 우선순위를 갖는다고 강조한다. 아우구스티누스의 7자유교과는 철학과 기독교적 가치를 강조한다는 점에서 로마의 학자들과 구분되며, 자유교과를 표준화하려고 노력한다는 점에서 그리스 학자들과 구분된다. 또한 자유교과의 위상을 신적 질서의 일부분으로 상정한다는 점에서 이전 기독교 학자들과도 구분된다. 아우구스티누스의 7자유교과는 단순히 로마의 자유교과를 기독교적으로 변용한 것이 아니라, 전문화된 로마의 자유교과 체제에 신적 질서와 그리스의 철학적 정당화를 종합하여 독특한 자유교과 체제를 구성한 것이다. 중세 학자들은 카펠라의 문학적인 내용을 적극 수용하여 7자유교과를 발전시켰지만, 자유교과의 존재 이유를 밝혀주는 아우구스티누스가 없었다면 800년 동안 7자유교과에 천착하는 일은 없었을 것이다. (shrink)

Zajęcia prowadzone przez Profesora Pelca niewątpliwie wpisywały się w tak szeroko zarysowaną koncepcję logiki ogólnej. Starał się on być nauczycielem myślenia i dobrej roboty – nie tylko w filozofii, lecz w humanistyce i cel ten osiągał, nie tylko poprzez dobór tematów, wysokie wymagania, różnorodne sposoby sprawdzania wiedzy słuchaczy, lecz także – przez przykład. Wielu rzeczy nie przekazywał przez wykład czy lektury, lecz bezpośrednio kierując wysił- kami podopiecznych – zwłaszcza tymi związanymi z przygotowaniem obligatoryjnych prac rocznych. Pouczający był sam proces – (...) konsultowanie kolejnych etapów prac nad esejem – ale także oczekiwania, np. że praca będzie opatrzona abstraktem i słowami kluczowymi w jednym z języków kongresowych. Profesor Pelc dał się poznać i pozostaje w pamięci jako wybitny naukowiec, twórca współczesnej semiotyki polskiej, organizator i dydaktyk. W tym artykule starałem się pokazać, że zwłaszcza ta ostatnia rola stawia go w jednym rzędzie z przedstawicielami SLW, gdyż wspólna im była troska o wykształcenie kultury logicznej słuchaczy, wierność postulatom jasności i krytycyzmu, preferencja dla logiki w szerokim sensie nieograniczającej się jedynie do logiki formalnej, lecz dziedziny prawdziwie interdyscyplinarnej, obejmującej m.in. elementy epistemologii, psychologii, prakseologii – i pełniącej rolę współczesnego trivium. Na koniec chciałbym wyrazić głębokie przekonanie, że koncepcja logiki ogólnej – szkolnej, pedagogicznej, pragmatycznej – zasługuje, by odkryć ją na nowo, zrekonstruować ją i spisać jej historię, a co ważniejsze – by twórczo ją rozwijać. (shrink)

Titre original : « Die Bedeutung des Geldes für das Tempo des Lebens » [1897/1900] in G. Simmel, Gesamtausgabe, vol. 5 : Aufsätze und Abhandlungen 1894 bis 1900, édité par H.-J. Dahme et D. P. Frisby, Francfort-sur-le-Main, Suhrkamp, 1992, p. 215-234. Traduction fr. A. Berlan. Ce texte a été originellement traduit et mis en ligne par la revue Trivium N° 9-2011. On entend souvent parler du « rythme de vie » et dire qu'il permet de distinguer les différentes périodes (...) historiques, les diverses régions - 1er XXe siècle – Nouvel article. (shrink)

Gibt es eine autonome Methodik der Geisteswissenschaften und speist sich diese aus der Quelle einer eigenstandigen, besonderen Vernunft, die das Denken und Forschen in diesen Disziplinen charakterisiert? Dieser Fragestellung gehen die Beitrage dieses Bandes am Leitfaden der Begriffsgeschichte des Konzepts der Phronesis nach. Hatte diese in der Antike ihren Platz primar in der Ethik und erfullte als Kategorie eine Abgrenzungsfunktion fur die Bestimmung einer spezifisch praktischen Vernunft im Unterschied zur theoretisch-wissenschaftlichen, so scheint sich der Begriff in Neuzeit und Moderne zunehmend (...) in einen wissenschaftstheoretischen Reflexionsbegriff verwandelt zu haben, der das Potential hat, den aus dem Trivium hervorgegangenen Geisteswissenschaften im Streit mit den Naturwissenschaften und im Streit um Autarkie und Abhangigkeit von Theologie und Philosophie eine eigene Form der Vernunft zuzuordnen.Die scheinbar rein wissenschaftsmethodische Fragestellung fuhrt somit, so zeigen es die Beitrage mit grosser Deutlichkeit, unmittelbar in die virulente Frage nach der Geschichte der verschiedenen Vernunftbegriffe und ihrer Transformationen.Mit Beitragen von Arbogast Schmitt, Hans Buchheim, Rainer Thiel, Christoph Markschies, Christel Meier, Friedo Ricken, Steven Harvey, Peter-Andre Alt, Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, Klaus W. Hempfer, Emil Angehrn, Ludger Honnefelder und Gyburg Radke-Uhlmann. (shrink)

In twelfth-century Europe schools flourished in many centres. There were schools in monasteries and cathedrals, primarily for the education of monks and priests but often open also to laymen. In Italian towns, especially, there were lay schools teaching law and commercial skills to fee-paying students. In France, especially, also in England and other countries, there were schools for feepaying students of the liberal arts. The traditional list of the liberal arts included seven: grammar, logic and rhetoric (the "trivium"), and (...) arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music (the "quadrivium"): most of the schools we're talking about taught the trivium, grammar, logic and rhetoric. These three disciplines in one way or other taught language skills; they were sometimes called the artes sermocinales. Students who had completed these "trivial" studies sometimes moved on to theology, or sometimes set up as teachers themselves of grammar, logic and rhetoric. Some students travelled from country to country looking for a good school, and sometimes made their living for a while by teaching before becoming students again. (shrink)

A review is undertaken of the contributions of 38 classical authors, from Pythagoras in the 6th century BCE to Isidore in the 6th century CE, to the classification of the sciences. Such classifications include some that are more theoretical in function, some that are more practical. The emergence of the quadrivium and trivium is charted; the Greek concept of “enkýklios paideía” and the Latin term “artēs liberales” are defined; and the ways in which the form, content, and function of (...) science classifications change during this period are assessed. (shrink)

Questo articolo ricostruisce la dimensione formale dell’ontologia elaborata da Max Scheler fra il 1908-1909 ed il 1922, nel corso cioè della sua prima fase produttiva d’interesse fenomenologico. Particolare attenzione è riservata alla struttura “architettonica” della prima ontologia formale scheleriana, composta da un trivium di sotto-discipline formali. L’autore elabora in questo modo la distinzione, sostenuta dai maggiori rappresentanti dei primi Circoli tedeschi di fenomenologia realista, fra un’ontologia formale “pura” che indaga la regione formale analitica dell’“oggettività in generale” e ontologie formali (...) generali interessate alle forme o categorie oggettuali dell’essere reale, organizzato in sommi generi materiali. L’articolo mostra inoltre come l’approccio scheleriano all’ontologia formale apra percorsi di recupero e rielaborazione di un’idea tipicamente pre-moderna: l’ontologia è disciplina che tratta anche dell’ordine sovra-predicamentale delle relazioni trascendentali. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Role of the Heavens in the Thought of Philip MelanchthonCharlotte MethuenPhilip Melanchthon has long been recognized as one of the central figures in the German Lutheran Reformation. His theological contribution to the Reformation may be found in his codifying of Lutheran theology in the Confessio Augustana and in the Loci Communes, the first major Lutheran theological textbook, which long remained a central text for the teaching of theology (...) in Lutheran schools and universities. A teacher at the University of Wittenberg from 1518 until his death, Melanchthon was also involved in the reform of universities and the establishment of school systems throughout Lutheran Germany. These reforms facilitated the spread of the Reformation by encouraging the development of Lutheran educational principles and the establishing of Humanist education as the basis for the schools and universities of Lutheran Germany, and Melanchthon’s role in this process has led to his being accorded the title Praeceptor Germaniae. 1 More recently, Melanchthon has also been hailed as the initiator of a new “Lutheran” approach to natural philosophy. 2 It is my contention in this article that Melanchthon’s interest in natural philosophy is integrally connected to his educational interest and that these hang upon a particular theological and cosmological [End Page 385] understanding of the universe, particularly the heavens, as becomes clear from his defense of astronomy.I. Despite his theological interests and his commitment to the dissemination of Lutheran theology, Melanchthon was reluctant to teach theology and remained primarily concerned with the teaching of the subjects which made up the curriculum of the arts faculty in a sixteenth-century university. It was as Professor of Greek that he was originally appointed to the University of Wittenberg, and he had a deep interest in the teaching of ancient languages, especially Greek, and in the study of ancient texts in their original form rather than through later commentators. His promotion of the trivium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) led him to write a textbook in each of these areas; and these works continued to be used as prescribed works in many German universities into the seventeenth century. 3 As an educator Melanchthon was thus firmly in the humanist mold. However, Melanchthon’s interests did not only take in the teaching of languages; he also promoted the teaching of both moral and natural philosophy. 4 Moreover, he was a strong advocate of the teaching of the mathematical sciences, particularly arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. These, together with music, made up the quadrivium, which complemented the linguistic arts.In Melanchthon’s day the mathematical sciences had long been accepted as part of the arts curriculum, 5 even if in practice minimal attention had been paid them at many universities. 6 Their ambiguous status is reflected by the attitude taken by many humanist reformers, who did not regard arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music as an essential part of the curriculum. Thus Erasmus believed that music, arithmetic, and geography should be taught only to pupils who had a particular interest in these subjects 7 and that knowledge of nature, astrology, architecture, and other related subjects would come from reading the ancient authors. 8 In a similar vein Juan Luis [End Page 386] Vives argued that mathematics tended to divorce the mind from the practical concerns of life and that its study was not, therefore, to be recommended. 9 In contrast Melanchthon seems to have recognized the value of the study of the mathematical sciences from the beginning of his scholarly career. Perhaps he was inspired by his professor of mathematics at Tübingen, Johannes Stöffler, a gifted mathematician who wrote his own Arithmetic and was also fluent in the praise of his subject. 10 In an early oration, De artibus liberalis, delivered in Tübingen in 1517, Melanchthon praises arithmetic as a principal part of philosophy; geometry for its role in producing the wonderful machines of war and the beautiful ornaments of cities; music for its elegance and harmony; and astronomy (very briefly) for its applications in medicine. 11This oration should almost certainly be read as part of the tradition of orations and odes which extolled each of the liberal arts for its practical (and often also... (shrink)

Histories of philosophy frequently depict the later eleventh century as the scene of a series of bouts between dialecticians and anti-dialecticians — Berengar vs. Lanfranc, Roscelin vs. Anselm — preliminaries to the twelfth century welterweight contest between Abelard and St. Bernard and — dare one say? — the thirteenth century heavy-weight championship between St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure.The bouts took place — no question about that — but whether the contestants can properly be characterized as dialecticians and anti-dialecticians is less (...) certain. Dialectics is logic, the third part of the trivium, and increasingly cultivated in the eleventh century; men like Berengar and Roscelin were plainly eager to apply the logical tools with which they had been equipped to the solution of intellectual problems. In particular they undertook the solution of certain central problems of theology — Berengar that of the Eucharist and Roscelin that of the Trinity — and it was this, we are told, that aroused the ire of the anti-dialecticians: if the aim of the dialecticians was to lay bare the mysteries of faith to the light of reason that of the anti-dialecticians was to protect those same mysteries from profanation. (shrink)

Dans les premiers chants de l’ Enfer, Dante déclare entre les lignes la tâche à laquelle il se sent appelé en tant que « poète chrétien » : d’un côté, il est invité à argumenter avec la rigueur du discours scientifique les vérités fondamentales de la religion ; de l’autre côté, il lui est confié la charge d’entraîner le lecteur dans une lecture anagogique de ces vérités en recourant aux fascinations allégoriques de la poésie. En accomplissant cette mission, Dante obtiendra, (...) pour lui-même et pour les autres êtres humains, cette perfection anthropologique naturelle qui culmine, après la mort terrestre, par le retour aux conditions métaphysiques qui se seraient actualisées en la personne d’Adam s’il n’avait pas péché. Cette conception est déjà opérante dans certaines pages de la Vie nouvelle et du Banquet, mais c’est surtout dans La Divine Comédie que Dante en revient spontanément à ce genre de techniques sur un mode original et particulièrement efficace. On en a un exemple éclairant quand, au Chant III de l’ Enfer, la poésie décrit le tourbillon, apparemment disharmonieux et dépourvu de sens, des sons qui émergent de la cavité infernale, en se basant non seulement sur l’application évidente d’au moins deux artifices rhétoriques déterminés, mais surtout sur l’évocation formellement rigoureuse des règles de la dialectique (selon la terminologie en usage dans les écoles) : le succès de cette opération dépend de la capacité, de la part du lecteur, de retrouver la signification authentique de la terminologie scientifique mise en œuvre en poésie, utilisée pour illustrer les vérités de la foi et la nouvelle beauté de la synthèse entre art poétique et disciplines du Trivium. (shrink)

In this Abelarde's work called Dialogus inter philosophum, iudaeum et christianum we will find three personages that come from different ways and different religions. I want to play special attention not only to why but how and where living away the arts of the Trivium. This work written while Abelarde was living in retirement in Cluny, is like he went back to his young years, to his fightings, to his discusions... The personages of this altercatio will be a dialectician, (...) a rethoric and a grammarian. The dialectic that argues against the Jewish and the Christian wants to guide then through the arts of languaje which manage as nobody do... Beside this, in the Dialogus... Abelarde open a new tradition which will help the use of the reason to protect the faith. (shrink)

Notkers um 1000 entstandene Bearbeitung der spätantiken »Consolatio Philosophiae« steht in der Tradition der karolingischen Rezeption, die die »Consolatio« zur Vermittlung christlicher Bildung im Rahmen des didaktischen Konzepts der artes liberales nutzt, und bedeutet gleichzeitig eine Innovation: Notker bedient sich tradierter Techniken der Texterschließung, indem er auf die Glossierungstypen lateinischer Textkommentare zurückgreift. Zugleich bezieht er die althochdeutsche Volkssprache in Form von Kommentar und Übersetzung in seine Texterklärung ein und nutzt die Lektüre der »Consolatio« als Ausgangspunkt für theoretische Wissensvermittlung, vor allem (...) auf dem Gebiet des Trivium und philosophisch-theologischer Fragenkomplexe. Seine Bearbeitung ist die erste umfassende Werkinterpretation zur »Consolatio«. Die vorliegende Studie ist die erste Monographie zu diesem Text seit dem Buch von Ingeborg Schröbler (1953). Sie bestimmt Notkers Ort innerhalb der Textgeschichte der »Consolatio« unter Einbeziehung zum Teil noch ungedruckter lateinischer Kommentare und arbeitet in Detailanalysen und im systematischen Überblick die formal-technischen und inhaltlichen Charakteristika seiner Bearbeitung vor dem Hintergrund der St. Galler Bildungstradition, der Unterrichtsmethoden und der wissenschaftlichen Entwicklungen seiner Zeit heraus. (shrink)

English summary: After borrowing their alphabet from the Phoenicians, the Greeks invented grammar, which is initially the art of letters, grammata. Platos' grammatike techne is the mastery of reading and writing. Elementary grammar, however, subject of school masters (grammarians), progressively expanded its ambitions in order to become the savant study of written works and Greek language - it is the subject of grammatikos. It is for the most part in Alexandria where generations of grammarians gave autonomy to this new discipline. (...) Their activity can be chronologically situated between the 3rd and 2nd century BC and the 1st and 2nd century AD. Jean Lallot's 26 studies touch upon various aspects - problems and diverse approaches, technical terminology, theory of the parts of discourse, syntax - the origins and the development of the discipline bound to provide the epistemological base of modern linguistics. French text. French description: Apres avoir emprunte leur alphabet aux Pheniciens, les Grecs ont invente la grammaire, qui est au depart l'art des lettres, grammata : la grammatike techne de Platon est la maitrise de la lecture et de l'ecriture. Mais la grammaire elementaire, domaine du maitre d'ecole (grammatistes), a progressivement elargi ses ambitions pour devenir l'etude savante des oeuvres ecrites et de la langue (grecque)--c'est le domaine du grammatikos. Dans le sillage des philosophes precurseurs (Platon, Aristote, les stoiciens), c'est en grande partie a Alexandrie que des generations de grammairiens ont donne corps et confere une autonomie a la nouvelle discipline. On peut situer chronologiquement leur activite entre le IIIe -IIe siecle avant J.-C., epoque des savants philologues de la grande Bibliotheque--au premier rang desquels Aristarque de Samothrace (ca 217-145)--et le IIe siecle de notre ere, domine par l'activite d'Apollonius Dyscole et de son fils Herodien. Les vingt-six etudes de Jean Lallot regroupees ici eclairent sous de multiples aspects--problematiques et demarches, terminologie technique, theorie des parties du discours, syntaxe--les origines et le developpement d'une discipline vouee a devenir la premiere du trivium medieval et a fournir le socle epistemologique de la linguistique moderne. (shrink)

Critics of Oxbridge take unkindly to our M.A. When I had to fill in one of those innumerable time-wasting forms to show how unqualified I was to hold an academic post, I was specifically instructed to describe myself as a B.A., which I was proud to do, since our B.A. is our best degree (everything in Oxford being the opposite of what it seems). But the real equivalent of a mediaeval M.A. is a modern D.Phil, with every academic wanting to (...) call himself Doctor rather than Master, which is felt to offend our egalitarian age; and now we are going back to the mediaeval trivium followed by a post-grad quadrivium, it might seem that we should tidy up our gradations, and have simply a B.A. for the former, and a D.Phil. for the latter. (shrink)

This article revises some of the main elements within Peirce’s general theory of signs and their relationship with discourse analysis. Our discussion focuses on the dialogues between researchers in the areas of semiotics and discourse analysis to follow up interdisciplinary studies on the processes of language signification. The article firstly relates the Peircean trivium and discourse analysis; secondly, examines Pignatari’s analysis on the relations between verbal and non-verbal codes; and, thirdly, discusses Peirce’s footprints in the development of the Linguistic (...) Turn, especially through his influence in pthe works of Wittgenstein, Grice and Austin. The article concludes that such interdisciplinary postmodern dialogues can be used for the development of more grounded modalities of pragmatic discourse analyses. (shrink)

The humanities have not enjoyed preeminence in academe since the Scientific Revolution marginalized the old trivium. But they long continued to play a subordinate educational role by helping constitute the distinguishing culture of the elite. Now even this subordinate role is becoming expendable as devotees of the profit motive seek to reduce culture to technological delivery of cultural products (Noble, Digital diploma mills: The automation of higher education, New York: Monthly Review Press, 2003). The result is a deliberate downsizing (...) of the humanities as traditionally understood. Personal preferences aside, is this planned obsolescence morally defensible? Arguably not, if one appeals to traditional ethical norms. But what if its legitimacy is assessed instead according to the quite different norms of capitalism that figure so prominently in university administrators’ rationales as they embrace corporatization? The corporatization of American universities has had multiple effects, and some of these have not been entirely positive. In particular, it has had an adverse effect on the professional status and values of faculty. But how faculty respond to these changes varies according to their institutional situation. (shrink)

This essay focuses on Charles S. Peirce’s grammar of representation and its relevance for a logical conception of scientific inquiry. Closely relying on Peirce’s writings, one of his important trichotomies of signs will be discussed in particular: that distinguishing between substitutive signs, or “semes”, informational signs, or “phemes”, and persuasive signs, or “delomes”. According to Peirce, these three categories of signs result from an extension of the traditional division between “terms”, “propositions”, and “arguments” to all signs, understood as the foundational (...) elements with and on which the scientific mind operates. It is shown that such an extended view of logic, conceived as a “semiotic”, or general doctrine of signs, is consistent with Peirce’s metaphysical views on truth and reality. Logic-as-semiotic, and its three corresponding branches of stecheotic, critic, and methodeutic, is thus conceived as a requisite normative trivium for the practice of scientific inquiry, whose purpose is to represent reality truthfully. In the end, we aim to remind that Peirce’s semiotic epistemology must necessarily be contextualized within the frame of his comprehensive philosophy of the scientific “settlement of opinion”. (shrink)

In the Renaissance, educating for philosophy was integrated with educating for an active role in society, and both were conditioned by the prevailing educational theories based on humanist revisions of the trivium. I argue that women's education in the Renaissance remained tied to grammar while the education of men was directed toward action through eloquence. This is both a result of and a condition for the greater restriction on the social opportunities for women.

Since the theme of this issue is ‘back to the future,’ especially to the ways in which information formats before the age of printing anticipate and perhaps even may give some guidance to principles of organization and cognitive layouts for the ‘new’ science of information design, I am going to focus in my presentation on the design of memory storage, as it was taught and practiced in the Middle Ages. It is important to recognize that ‘memory-art’ accompanied every aspect of (...) education in the ancient trivium, though different aspects and capacities of human memory were emphasized as appropriate to its various disciplines. What is commonly now taken to be ‘the art of memory,’ namely the advice to link powerful images of ‘content’ (imagines rerum) together in dramatic scenes conceived within a mental location (locus) (as described most completely in the early first century B.C. Rhetorica ad Herennium) is not a universal technique but specifically a device of Rhetoric, and thus of composition. There is also an ‘art of memory’ associated with Dialectic, and this is the device of the ‘topics’ or ‘seats’ (topoi) of argument, syllogism and enthymeme arranged in an orderly schematic of specific mental ‘places.’ Aristotle expounded this scheme as a variety of mnemonic art in his treatise Peri Topoi, and in turn it was further disseminated to later antiquity and the Middle Ages in works by Cicero and Boethius. (shrink)

O ensino na Idade Média compreendia um conjunto de disciplinas pertencentes ao Trivium e ao Quadrivium, matérias conhecidas como artes. A estes se opunham as artes mechanicae, de cunho prático. Focalizamos, neste artigo, as questões relativas ao ensino da linguagem verbal, centrando nosso interesse na ars gramatica e na ars retórica. Um texto latino exemplificará as atividades de um famoso mestre da Idade Média.

The ArgumentMy thesis in this text is that A. Ernst Cassirer outlines a philosophical theory that proves equally sensitive to historical change and to the consistency of conceptual thinking. B. Cassirer relies on the differential logic of an internally ruptured, and yet undivided “basis phenomenon.” Especially his reading of Goethe has led to the concept of the basis phenomenon existing in a differential symbolic mode. Cassirer's delineation of Goethe's conceptual trivium ofUrphänomene— “experience,” “deed,” and “life” — underscores the conceptual (...) rupture in the construction of any basis phenomenon. Furthermore, I argue that C. thePhilosophy of Symbolic Forms, takes up Goethe's notion of basis phenomena and eventually turns it into a modern, pluralistic theorem about the interrelation of science and culture. Cassirer reaches this aim by (1) focusing on the question of philosophical inquiry as a basis phenomenon in the sense of a basic philosophical activity. I also argue that (2) Cassirer's view retains an essentially ambiguous character, as opposed to a fundamentalist notion of basis phenomena. It is important to see that (3) this ambiguity also informs Cassirer's notion of culture (the plurality of symbolic forms), as well as his delienation of the relation between culture and science. (shrink)

In May 1867, when he was twenty-seven years of age, Charles Peirce read a paper to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences that was published in the next year under the title ‘On a New List of Categories’ (EP 1:1–10).1 It is remarkable for anticipating major features of his later thought: three categories relationally defined (bracketed, however, by two additional categories); a theory of signs, triadically conceived and triadically sub-divided, applied to thinking; the idea that every predicate is an (...) hypothesis; a form of abstraction named ‘prescision’; and a bold reconception of the Roman/medieval trivium. Prescision was used here to distinguish the categories and it was put to similar use much later in the.. (shrink)

Cette étude se propose en un premier temps de décrire les quelques contacts historiques entre Pierre de La Ramée et Loys Le Roy. Dans un second temps, à partir de leurs cas particuliers, l’article voudrait émettre quelques hypothèses sur les conditions de possibilité et les formes intellectuelles et textuelles que peut revêtir, au milieu du xvie siècle, une philosophie d’expression française, dont les nombreuses publications attestent la vitalité. Le recours à la langue française dans un contexte philosophique est déterminé par (...) des préoccupations idéologiques et politiques, une philosophie orientée vers la praxis et l’exemple de Cicéron. Nourris par des idées communes, mais évoluant dans des milieux socioculturels distincts, Ramus et Regius illustrent la philosophie française par des modes d’expression et des objets d’étude très différents (traités théoriques sur le trivium pour l’un, traductions et commentaires platoniciens puis politiques pour l’autre). (shrink)

Apresento neste ensaio alguns argumentos em defesa de uma proposta de metafilosofia que fornece uma resposta abrangente, formal e metodológica à questão ‘como se faz filosofia?’, tomada como anterior e mais fundamental do que a questão tradicional ‘o que é filosofia?’. Essa proposta se materializa metodologicamente através das ideias de uma poética e uma dramaturgia do fazer filosófico. A poética do fazer filosófico tem a ver com uma reapropriação do trivium clássico na forma de um trivium filosófico, composto (...) por uma gramática, uma dialética e uma retórica filosóficas. A dramaturgia do fazer filosófico se associa à polissemia da noção de diálogo, entendido como encenação argumentativa. Em seguida, apresento uma breve genealogia da noção de theatrum philosophicum em sua relação com as configurações assumidas pela tópica do theatrum mundi no final do medievo e início da modernidade. Por fim, apresento como esta relação nos fornece uma via de acesso para explicitar a poética e a dramaturgia do fazer filosófico elaborada por Platão nos Livros V-VII da República, mostrando assim que minha proposta de metafilosofia é contemporânea, mas tem sua gênese neste texto clássico. (shrink)

Seit über 30 Jahren gibt es in den deutschen wie französischen Kultur- und Geisteswissenschaften das Bestreben, den Begriff der »Lesbarkeit« von seiner engen Bindung an den geschriebenen Text zu emanzipieren. Die vorliegende Ausgabe von Trivium lässt einige der maßgeblichen Stimmen in dieser Debatte zu Wort kommen. Auf der gemeinsamen Schnittfläche von Mikrohistorie, Semiologie, Psychoanalyse, Kulturgeschichte, Physiognomie und Mantik zeichnet sich ein neues und zugleich altes Verständnis des Lesens ab. Wenn sich in der Moderne die Frage nach dem Lesen von (...) Spuren – und damit im weiteren Sinne von Indizien, Symptomen, Vorzeichen etc. – neu stellt, so wird damit an eine archaische Praxis des Lesens neu angeknüpft, welche uns vor das unabschließbare Problem der Lesbarkeit der Welt stellt. -/- Lire. Voilà une chose que ne réfléchissent plus les sur-alphabétisés que nous sommes, habitués à ingérer les signes sans y prendre garde. Repenser la lecture et l’investir d’une fonction critique suppose de méditer la lettre en revenant à son antériorité : se souvenir que, de tout temps et avant tout livre, il y a eu des lecteurs. Des lecteurs – littéralement – avant la lettre. L’art de la lecture réunit le chasseur lisant les déjections des animaux dans les forêts, l’astronome babylonien scrutant les cartographies stellaires, le pêcheur hawaïen lisant les courants marins en plongeant dans l’eau sa main et l’amant déchiffrant aveuglément le corps de l’aimée. On apprend à lire non seulement des textes, mais encore des partitions de musique, des tableaux de peinture, des cartes à jouer, des notations chorégraphiques, des sillons dans la terre, des tourbillons dans l’eau, des gestes révélateurs ou bien des rêves. (shrink)

Logic is an ancient discipline that, ever since its inception some 2500 years ago, has been concerned with the analysis of patterns of valid reasoning. Aristotle first developed the theory of the syllogism (a valid argument form involving predicates and quantifiers), and later the Stoics singled out patterns of propositional argumentation (involving sentential connectives). The study of logic flourished in ancient times and during the middle ages, when logic was regarded, together with grammar and rhetoric (the other two disciplines of (...) the trivium), as the foundation of humanistic education. (shrink)