'The Art of Judgement': Thinking and Writing in Early Modern France

我对DPhil的研究希望通过对早期现代“判断”概念的探索，为法国文艺复兴时期的修辞和哲学提供新的启示。判断的艺术是人文和艺术修辞学复兴的教学传统中的一个关键特征。与此同时，判断力的概念是16世纪作家如米歇尔·德·蒙田和纪尧姆·杜·维尔讨论的一个重要焦点。然而，知识分子和文学史学家往往忽视了法国思想的这两个方面。从这一观察中，我的研究将追寻以下启发性问题：早期现代法国作家是通过什么工具学会思考的？他们的理性标准是什么？他们在什么方面存在分歧，以及在哪些条件下存在分歧？《艺术修辞学》的话语与其他思维方式有何关联和区别？文艺复兴时期的“判断”为研究这些问题提供了一条未被充分研究的重要途径。哲学家路德维希·维特根斯坦解释说，“生命形式”是对我们的条件的“赋予”。它需要我们灌输到特定的社会智力实践中。因此，我们必然珍视某些事物，认为某些事物是理所当然的，服从某些权威，接受某些合理性标准，并采用特定的解释模式。反过来，思考和写作活动成为这种生活形式的延伸。采用这种方法论观点，该项目将调查由修辞学戒律塑造的一种共同的生活形式。为此，我将考察希腊和罗马古典修辞指南的接受度。这将使我们看到法国中小学和大学教育的教育理想和实践。北方人文主义者，如16世纪初的伊拉斯谟，把教育学的注意力集中在一个人的判断如何将“词”和“物”转化为可理解的“意义”的方式上。反过来，学生们接受了在思考和写作活动中具体运用他们的判断力的训练--在理解他们的世界的活动中。这种方法论的方法使我们能够重建人文主义的生活形式，以及这种形式如何塑造了早期的现代法国思想。从这里，我将调查判断工具是如何影响16世纪法国思想和写作中的哲学优先事项和焦虑的。对于蒙田、博丹、杜瓦尔和查伦等作家来说，一个反复出现的主题是个人判断与更广泛的集体判断概念之间的紧张关系。集体判断为认识论和政治思想设定了规范边界。然而，它也可能通过习惯的根深蒂固来破坏个人判断的独立性。对这些作家来说，另一个共同的重要主题是判断不稳定，无法产生准确的语言表达。对判断的一系列隐喻性和神秘性的解释意味着，对于判断是什么以及它是如何运作的，在概念上几乎没有什么精确度。反过来，这导致了人们对人们在多大程度上可以信任自己或他人的判断的怀疑。事实上，修辞学传统中的判断概念与文艺复兴时期斯多葛主义认识论的复兴之间存在重叠，在这种认识论中，判断在获得知识方面发挥着关键作用。这些主题直达我们最深刻的形而上学探索的核心。探索过去的人们是如何通过他们特定的有意义的活动使他们的世界变得可理解的，让我们停下来反思我们自己的智力实践和工具。

My DPhil research hopes to shed new light on French Renaissance rhetoric and philosophy through an exploration of the early modern concept of 'judgment'. The art of judgment was a critical feature in the revitalised pedagogical traditions of the studia humanitatis and ars rhetorica. At the same time, the concept of judgment was an important focus of discussion for sixteenth century writers such as Michel de Montaigne and Guillaume du Vair. However, intellectual and literary historians have tended to overlook these two aspects of French thought. From this observation, my research will pursue the following motivating questions: through what instruments did early modern French writers learn to think? What were their criterion of rationality? What did they disagree about, and on what terms? How did the discourse of the ars rhetorica relate to, and differentiate from, other modes of thinking? Renaissance 'judgement' provides an important understudied avenue for investigating these questions into a shared early modern 'form of life'.The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein explains that a 'form of life' is the 'given' to our condition. It entails our inculcation into particular social-intellectual practices. Thus, by necessity, we value certain things, take certain things for granted, defer to certain authorities, accept certain criterion of rationality, and adopt particular modes of interpretation. In turn, the activity of thinking and writing become extensions of this form of life. Adopting this methodological standpoint, the project will investigate a shared form of life shaped by the precepts of the ars rhetorica. To do this, I will examine the reception of classical Greek and Roman guides to rhetoric. This will allow us to see the pedagogical ideals and practices of school and university education in France. Northern humanist such as Erasmus in the early sixteenth century focused pedagogical attention on the way in which one's judgment transformed 'words' and 'things' into intelligible 'sense'. In turn, students were trained in a specific use of their judgment in the activity of thinking and writing-in the very activity of making sense of their world. This methodological approach allows us to reconstruct the humanist form of life and how this shaped early modern French thought.From here, I will the investigate how the instrument of judgment informed the philosophical priorities and anxieties in sixteenth century French thinking and writing. One recurring theme, for writers such as Montaigne, Bodin, Du Vair and Charron, was the tension between individual judgment and a broader notion of collective judgment. Collective judgment set the normative boundaries for epistemology and political thought. However, it could also corrupt the independence of individual judgment through the engraining of habit. Another important theme common to these writers was the instability of judgment to produce accurate linguistic representations. The series of metaphorical and mystical explanations of judgment meant there was little conceptual precision as to what it was and how it worked. In turn, this led to doubt as to the extent to which one could trust their judgment or that of others. Indeed, there is an overlap here between the notion of judgment in the tradition of rhetoric and the Renaissance revival of Stoic epistemology where judgment plays a key role in the attainment of knowledge. These themes reach straight to the heart of our deepest metaphysical enquiries. Exploring how people in the past made their worlds intelligible through their specific activity of making sense leaves us to pause and reflect on our own intellectual practices and instruments for making sense.