Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

When linguistics was first established as an academic discipline in the nineteenth century, it was envisaged as an essentially historical study. Languages were to be treated as historical objects, evolving through gradual but constant processes of change over long periods of time. In recent years, however, there has been much discussion by historians of a 'linguistic turn' in their own discipline, and, in linguistics, integrationist theory has mounted a radical challenge to the traditional notion of 'languages' as possible objects of (...) inquiry. _Language and History_ develops the integrationist critique of orthodox linguistics, while at the same time extending its implications to the field of history. By doing so, it throws light on what is now recognized by many historians to be a 'crisis' in their own discipline. Underlying the post-modernist scepticism about traditional forms of historiography, the integrationist approach reveals a more deep-seated problem concerning the interface between philosophy of history and philosophy of language. With chapters from a range of leading international contributors, _Language and History _represents a significant contribution to the developing work of the integrationists. (shrink)