FQNS2018

Call for Papers

Participants are encouraged to focus on various fields which formed quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy) and on other disciplines devoted to the study of nature (medicine, optics, meteorology, timekeeping, alchemy, etc.). We welcome submissions focusing on issues discussed since the 10th century and following continuities (or discontinuities) up to the 17th century. Proposed framework offers range of intertwining topics, which may include: 

• Variable position of quadrivial disciplines through the centuries or an original utilization of specific discipline by individual scholars. 

• Revisiting the traditional narrative inherent to the intellectual history of medieval philosophy and modern science (e.g. “scientific revolution of the 17th century”).

 • Procedural inclusion of otherness: The emergence of new texts and translations, which provided new impulses for further inquiries into nature, or the influence of scientific and academic pursuits on lives outside of universities and vice versa.

 • Diverse motivations (theoretical and practical) behind the pursuit of knowledge concerning the nature. Observing vs. conquering nature. Realism vs. instrumentalism, ontological commitments of scientific theories. Did premodern scholars perceived their theories as descriptions of reality or practical models (e.g. epicycles and eccentrics). 

• The wisdom of quadrivial disciplines or natural sciences and the wisdom of philosophy.

 • Status of quadrivial disciplines relative to other intellectual pursuits (e.g. trivium, natural sciences, theology, mysticism, etc.) and shifting boundaries of the fields in question (e.g. the use of arithmetic in mechanics or pharmacology, geometry in astronomy or optics, or the status of the so-called scientiae mediae in general).

 • The place and importance of natural science or quadrivium in the hierarchy of knowledge and philosophy. Encyclopaedism: the struggle for the completeness of knowledge. The changes in the classification of knowledge. How many liberal arts are there? New approaches to classification based on new translations of Arabic and Greek texts in the high Middle Ages and Renaissance.

 • The methods of scientific approach: observation and experience, deductive reasoning, intuition, mysticism or the role of experiment during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in scientific as well as philosophical endeavours. 

Confirmed speakers:

 Jari Kaukua (University of Jyväskylä) 

Marco Sgarbi (University of Venice) 

Henry Zepeda (Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities) 

Ovanes Akopyan (University of Innsbruck)

Steering committee: 

David Černín (cernin.d@gmail.com), University of Ostrava 

Lukáš Lička (lukas.licka@outlook.com), University of Ostrava; Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences 

Tomáš Nejeschleba (tomas.nejeschleba@upol.cz), Palacký University Olomouc