Philosophy and the Language of the People

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In this book Lodi Nauta offers the first comprehensive examination of a vital issue in the rivalry between Renaissance humanists and medieval philosophers which still has considerable resonance in modern academe: the advantages and disadvantages that accrue to philosophy from employing a special technical vocabulary to discuss philosophical problems. In the Middle Ages, philosophy had become a highly technical discipline, with its own vocabulary and methods. The humanist critique of this technical language has often been dismissed as purely literary and philosophically superficial, but Nauta shows that it makes a philosophically important point: philosophical problems arise from a misuse of language. Nauta goes on to charts the influence of this critique on early-modern philosophers such as Hobbes and Locke. In showing the crucial role of language critique in the downfall of medieval Aristotelianism, this book will be valuable for any historian interested in the transition from medieval to modern philosophy.--