Educating desire in “Medieval” epistemic spaces

L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle
Dante, Paradiso, XXXIII 135

Le comparatisme ne devrait être qu’un point d’aboutissement car s’il est conçu comme un point de départ théorique, il est condamné à construire des objets, des artefacts.
Anne Cheng

Many [medieval] philosophers supposed that every act of cognition was preceded by a kind of ‘love’ or ‘natural appetition’ of the knower for the object.
M.-L. Von Franz, Aurora Consurgens

Religions do travel. Philosophies, sciences, crops and styles do travel. More critically, stories and frames of references do travel, do expand, do interoperate. As these elements travelled across the Mediterranean, the Arabic Sea, and along the Silk Road, they contributed to a web of interrelated intellectual concerns nourished, to a point, by the same sources. In this perspective, traditional cultural borderlines along religious or linguistic divides may prove arbitrary if the larger space within which they occur is not considered.

The panel calls for a discussion of comparative methodology of analysis of this space in the “Medieval” period. It is proposed to test whether a cross-cultural ‘epistemic space’ may be a useful framework for “comparative” analysis of cultural products in Pre-Modern Eurasia. It aims at a discussion of the viability of the concept and the methods of study it calls.

This space would be outlined by shared features of the cultural production of Eurasian (including a large part of Northern and Eastern Africa) societies for approximately a millennium, roughly from Late Antiquity to the Scientific Revolution. Shared forms of thought are proposed to characterise this intellectual environment across traditionally recognized civilizational boundaries.

The notion of basic unity of being, knowledge, and sensibility is suggested to represent the most significant shared feature, as expressed in a significant part of “Medieval” philosophical, religious, literary and artistic output. These expressions do bear a societal and pedagogical significance at once. Love and intellect are supposed to proceed together, and are allowed to express themselves both through philosophical reflection and literary metaphor. The relevance of ontological unity to epistemic understanding and ethical agency alike seems to be reflected on the social dimension of intellectual endeavour. On this basis, this call offers to scrutiny the notion of education of desire (as defined by Ruth Levitas) as an underlying basic feature.

This framework could offer a way to give the very ill-defined chronological label of “Medieval” an actual content in intellectual history. In other words, this may be considered an attempt to discuss what makes a cultural product “Medieval”.

This frame of reference would cross both traditional disciplinary and cultural boundaries, covering the history of philosophy, science, theology, literature, and art produced in a variety of Old World societies. It would furthermore challenge entrenched assumptions about areas of civilization as discrete entities and stress their interconnection, calling for a reflection on the methods to study them.

Education of desire is steeped in analogies and homologies that affect form, content and function of texts, where analysis may be able to trace its structures and variations through the vast cultural web whose contours have been very roughly sketched here. In this web, in this shared, diverse epistemic space, a common drive motivates the disciplines and cultures, offering the room for understanding and cross-influence, together with conflict and debate.

The questions that the panel would address are summarized as follows:
Is the concept of “Medieval epistemic space” a valid instrument to understand cultural realities?  Which, if any, are its possible areas of meaningful application?
Which tools and methods would be required to define it and study its manifestations, taking for granted that these are to be at least partly comparative in nature?
Is it correct to take the concept of “education of desire” as a central defining element, if not the central element, of this cultural field?
Is it possible to understand something about the emergence of Modernity through this approach?

Defining and refining conceptual tools is important to visualize and study this supposed “Medieval” epistemic space; tools where a different way to do “comparison” is a probably necessary early step.
Said tools that may prove to be ones of understanding more than analysis. Possibly, it implies becoming a little more “medieval”; educating our own desires while studying the education of others’.

Love and knowledge parted their ways long ago, but like a Medieval poet, this call would like to be able to conclude, although in a different sense: Amor, che nella mente mi ragiona.

More info can be found here.

Practical information

The panel will be part of the Coffee Break Conference, to be held in Rome, from Sept. 17 to 19, 2015.
Please send a brief proposal (about 300 words) to Marco Lauri (marco.f.lauri@gmail.com) by March 15, 2015. The language of the conference will be English.
The panel is conceived as place of open, collaborative discussion. Confirmed participants will be asked to circulate an advanced draft in some time before the conference in order to foster discussion.