Though “semiotics” is a word coined only in the late 17th century—and used consistently and meaningfully beginning only in the late 19th—the study of signs and their actions goes back millennia. During those thousands of years, some of the most important contributions were made during the age often called “Medieval” (though it would be better termed “Latin”) and especially by the Scholastic thinkers. Listen to this two-part podcast as Brian Kemple joins Hunter Olson to discuss the key figures and ideas from this period.
And be sure to check out all the great interviews on the Dogs with Torches podcast!
Few, if any of us, go very long without hearing music. We have available to us more hours of streaming than ever we could hear in several lifetimes. It sits available through every device; it attends nearly every commercial, every television show. The quality of a movie may be greatly enhanced, or perhaps even ruined, by the accompanying score. But what is music? We may define it narrowly, that is, with respect to its form as such: some articulation of sound as organized with pitch or rhythm for the purpose of being heard… and find this dissatisfying.
Antiquity’s Approach to Music
As with many questions, we have much to learn from antiquity. Saints Augustine of Hippo and Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius both wrote treatises on music, and for both—as for Plato—music formed an integral part of education. Within its doctrines were contained not only vocal and instrumental performance but also lyrical meter for poetry. And perhaps much more important, and much more telling, was the intrinsic connection of the musical to the moral.
…since there happen to be four mathematical disciplines, the other three share with music the task of searching for truth; but music is associated not only with speculation but with morality as well. For nothing is more characteristic of human nature than to be soothed by pleasant modes or disturbed by their opposites. This is not peculiar to people in particular endeavors or of particular ages. Indeed, music extends to every endeavor; moreover, youths, as well as the aged are so naturally attuned to musical modes by a kind of voluntary affection that no age at all is excluded from the charm of sweet song. What Plato rightfully said can likewise be understood: the soul of the universe was joined together according to musical concord. For when we hear what is properly and harmoniously united in sound in conjunction with that which is harmoniously coupled and joined together within us and are attracted to it, then we recognize that we ourselves are put together in its likeness. For likeness attracts, whereas unlikeness disgusts and repels.
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius c.505 AD: De institutione Musica, lib.1, c.1, in the translation by Calvin M. Bower, p.2.
Perhaps, if we wish to understand what music is, we should recover and re-examine these classical sources. But perhaps we can draw on some other sources, as well.
The Poles of Feeling and Intellectuality
One such source, and far from the only contemporary thinker deserving of consideration with regard to this question, is the late John Deely, who once offered a definition that may provoke an interesting conversation. He wrote:
An idealized system of prospective audial experiences which will evoke, sustain, or counter within an Innenwelt basic elements of mood, emotion, or feeling. Within this prospective, in fact, there is an analog range between the asymptotic poles of sheer feeling vs. sheer intellectuality, along which the system can be formalized in an endless variety of relational patterns, according to emphasis within which definite types or styles can be conventionally constituted (“classical”, “folk” “Indian”, “African”, etc.).
As a quick explanatory note, the Innenwelt is “like a cognitive map that relates the self to the world of objects” (in the words of Kalevi Kull). To have asymptotic poles of feeling vs. intellectuality as evoked, sustained, or countered within the Innenwelt is to have one’s thoughts and feelings able infinitely to approach one another but never fully coalesce into a perfect unity; and conversely, to be repelled by one another, but never to be fully separated.
This definition hardly stands as definitive—and even in what it provides, there remains much to be clarified. But it is provocative nonetheless. As such, we would invite you to join us this evening for our Philosophical Happy Hour (from 5:45–7:15pm ET) to engage in a conversation about music: its nature, purpose, structure, value, and function in our human lives, from the mundane to the sacred and everything in between. Use the form below.
It has often been suggested, and not without ample reason and evidence, that the importance of a great thinker never finds itself as potently realized during the thinker’s own lifetime. The significance of truly great thoughts, that is, take not only decades but centuries to unfold. Thus, when it is claimed that John Henry Newman will be seen as the transitional figure between the modern and post-modern ages, much as Augustine was between antiquity and the medieval, it should be recognized that this claim points not to a past recognition but one dawning at this very hour. Certainly, Newman’s work carried weight in his own time, as did Augustine’s. Will Newman’s name grow to the same greatness?
Augustine’s Confessions, like Newman’s Apologia; his City of God, like Newman’s Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine; and his On Christian Teaching, like Newman’s Idea of a University, all show striking parallels between the writings of the two saints. But it is in their most systematic works that we find an even more remarkable parallel. Living a life contemporaneous with the early definitions of nature and person in theology, in On the Trinity, Augustine trained his genius on the ultimate mystery of the Triune God, easily the most challenging and the most fertile of all Christian doctrines.
Newman, living amidst the modern world’s storms of doubt and confusion, along with its celebrated, and risky “turn to the subject,” directed his attention instead to a meticulous study of the very act of faith – that movement of the human intellect that enables it to assent to such teachings in the first place. What he discovered were insights of such uncommon luminosity that not only theology, but all knowledge – of whatever type – found itself newly vindicated. By showing the role that pre-rational belief plays in every venture of human knowing, and the complexities of assent in consolidating our opinions and certitudes, he seemed to be turning epistemology on its head. The result was easily his most demanding and in retrospect his most revolutionary book: The Grammar of Assent. To this book the seminar will direct a more focused attention. Also Newman’s oft misunderstood celebration of conscience can only be grasped from within the perspectives laid open by this book.
These initial comparisons between the two saints are being made only in the interest of portraying Newman as a kind of modern Augustine. It will be suggested that what Augustine meant for the subsequent medieval centuries, Newman represents for late modernity and post-modernity. It will be his four books that will be the focus of our study. Augustine’s thought has already been folded into the fields of Christian reflection during the long 15 centuries that separate the two men’s lives. Newman’s ideas, on the other hand, are just beginning to be fully appreciated. For most of our readings, we shall follow selections chosen from each of the four works in sequence: from the Apologia, the Essay, the Idea, and the Grammar.Access to the seminar, taught by Fr. Scott Randall Paine, PhD, begins on 1 April 2023. View the syllabus here.
Lecture 1: Overview of the Life, Work and Legacy of John Henry Newman Readings: » [Primary] Sheridan Gilley. “Life and Writings”. » [Secondary] Afterword to Ian Ker’s biography of JHN.
April 22
Lecture 2: Apologia Pro Vita Sua – “The Story of a Mind” Reading: » [Primary] Selected excerpts from the Apologia. » [Secondary] Ian Ker. John Henry Newman: A Biography. » [Secondary] Robert C. Christie. The Logic of Conversion: The Harmony of Heart, Will, Mind, and Imagination in John Henry Newman.
April 29
Lecture 3: Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine – From Seed to Fruit Reading: » [Primary] Selected excerpts from the Essay. » [Secondary] Bogdan Dolenc. “Newman’s Essay… Its Genesis and Enduring Relevance”.
May 6
Lecture 4: The Idea of a University – Newman’s Vision of Liberal Education Reading: » [Primary] Selected excerpts from the Idea. » [Secondary] Mark van Doren. “Liberal Education,” from Liberal Education. » [Secondary] Jarislav Pelikan. The Idea of a University: a Reexamination.
May 13
BREAK
May 20
Lecture 5: Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent I – Notional and Real Assent Reading: » [Primary] Selected excerpts from the Grammar, Part 1: “Assent and Apprehension.” » [Secondary] Michael Polanyi. “The Logic of Affirmation”, in Personal Knowledge.
May 27
Lecture 6: Grammar of Assent II – The Illative Sense Reading: » [Primary] Further selected excerpts from the Grammar, Part 2: “Assent and Inference.” » [Secondary] John Deely. “Knowledge” from Introducing Semiotic: Its History and Doctrine. » L.M. Régis. “Assent or Value Judgment About the Truth of First Principles,” in Epistemology.
June 3
Lecture 7: Newman and the Conscience Readings: » [Primary] Selected excerpts from the Grammar and other works. » [Secondary] Gerard J. Hughes. “Conscience,” in Cambridge Companion to JHN. » Bernard Dive. “Introduction” to John Henry Newman and the Imagination.
June 10
Lecture 8: Newman Today – A Church Doctor for the 21st Century Readings: » [Primary] Discourse and Homily for the Beatification of John Henry Newman, Pope Benedict XVI, 2010 » [Primary] Newman’s “Biglietto Speech,” 1879. » [Secondary] Erich Przywara. A Newman Synthesis, selections.
Registration
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Due to unforeseen yet gratifying work commitments, Professor Doctor Javier Clavere requested a postponement of the lecture entitled “Anthroposemiosis, Augustine, Poinsot, Peirce and Deely and the Production of Human Knowledge and Experience”, the date of which shall be made public as soon as possible.
To all of you we beg for understanding, and please be tuned to the Auditorium on our website (https://www.uc.pt/fluc/uidief/act/io2s/auditorium/) as well as our email announcements, especially but not only if you intended to participate in today’s session.
To you all, we extend our heartfelt gratitude for what is proving to be a breathtakingly rewarding year of joint learning on semiotics and celebrating the memory of John Deely.
Godspeed, semioticians.
On 12 November 2022 at 11am ET (see event times around the world here and join the live Q&A here), Javier Clavere will present on “Anthroposemiosis, Augustine, Poinsot, Peirce, and Deely”. Dr. Clavier holds the Mary W. McGaw Endowed Chair in Music at Berea College, and is an award-winning performer and scholar that crosses over the worlds of keyboard performance, music theory, music technology, sacred music, and semiotics. As a polymath, his research interests include semiotics, systems theory, entrepreneurship and the arts, semioethics, Stoicism and Christianity, sacred music and signs, popular music and semiotics, Foucault studies, semiotics and globalization, multi-modality, and the semiotics of educational processes. As an artist, Javier has performed in many prestigious concert series across the United States, South America and Europe performing with orchestras, in solo recitals and chamber music.
His research in educational leadership includes peace and conflict resolution-transformation through the arts, as well as leadership in systemic change, diversity and inclusion, higher education administration, assessment in higher education, and strategic program design. He is a member of the Diversity Scholars Network (DSN) and the National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID), as well as a fellow at the University of Michigan, the New Leadership Academy, the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education, and the Salzburg Global Seminar’s “Culture, Arts and Society programs”, (Conflict Transformation Through Culture: Peace-building and the Arts), Salzburg, Austria.
In 2019, the government of his hometown, Rosario, Argentina, along with the state senate, recognized his professional accomplishments with a lifetime achievement award as a “Distinguished Musician.” The legislature, in an official governmental motion, ratified the award by vote and awarded Clavere at the Espacio Cultural Universitario of the National University of Rosario, Argentina.
Commentary will be provided by António Manuel Martins, Full Professor at the University of Coimbra and a member of both the Institute for Philosophical Studies and the Institut International de Philosophie. His main area of activity is Philosophy. His main research interests are: theories of justice; Ancient Philosophy; ethics; and epistemology. Expertise in: Philosophical Systems; Greek Philosophy; and Theory of Justice. Presently he is working on: Hellenistic Philosophies; Aristotle; Causality; and Categories. His book Logic and Ontology in Pedro da Fonseca (in Portuguese), jointly published in 1994 by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the now dissolved National Board for Scientific and Technological Research (Junta Nacional de Investigação Científica e Tecnológica), remains a seminal source for the latest studies on the Coimbra philosophical tradition.
Join the Live Q&A here.
2022 International Open Seminar on Semiotics (IO2S) | Website
This collaborative international open scientific initiative and celebration is jointly organized by the Institute for Philosophical Studies of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra, the Lyceum Institute, the Deely Project, Saint Vincent College, the Iranian Society for Phenomenology at the Iranian Political Science Association, the International Association for Semiotics of Space and Time, the Institute for Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Semiotic Society of America, the American Maritain Association, the International Association for Semiotic Studies, the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies and the Mansarda Acesa with the support of the FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education of the Government of Portugal under the UID/FIL/00010/2020 project.
The Latin Age of philosophy was one of the most productive, systematic, and insightful times of intellectual inquiry in human history—despite the oft-given reductive and willfully-ignorant treatment that labels all between the fall of Rome and the rise of the Renaissance as the “Dark Ages”—for which the first major figure was Augustine of Hippo. Most well-known for his Confessions and City of God, works both of a deeply spiritual yet profoundly philosophical nature, Augustine was a contributor the tradition in many other ways, including but not limited to his definition of the sign and distinction of signs into natural and given.
On 15 January 2022 at 11am ET (4pm UTC – check times around the world here), Dr. Brian Kemple (Lyceum Institute) will give a lecture on Augustine’s contribution as well as his errors, and discuss what Augustine’s work provides us both in its historical significance and its overall importance for an understanding of semiotics. Dr. Remo Gramigna will provide commentary. This presentation is open to the public and can be watched below (live as well as recorded).
2022 International Open Seminar on Semiotics (IO2S) | Website
This collaborative international open scientific initiative and celebration is jointly organized by the Institute for Philosophical Studies of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra, the Lyceum Institute, the Deely Project, Saint Vincent College, the Iranian Society for Phenomenology at the Iranian Political Science Association, the International Association for Semiotics of Space and Time, the Institute for Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Semiotic Society of America, the American Maritain Association, the International Association for Semiotic Studies, the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies and the Mansarda Acesa with the support of the FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education of the Government of Portugal under the UID/FIL/00010/2020 project.
