Logical Fictions in Medieval Literature and Philosophy
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 322
ISBN-13: 9781107068742
Subjects: French literature, history and criticism, to 1500; Latin literature, history and criticism; Literature, philosophy; Philosophy, medieval
Description: "In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, new ways of storytelling and inventing fictions appeared in the French-speaking areas of Europe. This new art still influences our global culture of fiction. Virginie Greene explores the relationship between fiction and the development of neo-Aristotelian logic during this period through a close examination of seminal literary and philosophical texts by major medieval authors, such as Anselm of Canterbury, Abelard, and Chretien de Troyes. This study of Old French logical fictions encourages a broader theoretical reflection about fiction as a universal human trait and a defining element of the history of Western philosophy and literature. Additional close readings of classical Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle, and modern analytic philosophy including the work of Bertrand Russell and Rudolf Carnap, demonstrate peculiar traits of Western rationalism and expose its ambivalent relationship to fiction"--