calls

CFP: “Language in the Age of Enlightenment. Linguistic Theories in 18th-Century Europe”, «Lo Sguardo», XXXVII, 2023

Giulia La Rocca // May 3, 2023

We are glad to give notice of the call for papers Language in the Age of Enlightenment. Linguistic Theories in 18th-Century Europe, «Lo Sguardo», XXXVII, 2023. The volume is edited by Marco Costantini and Pierluigi D’Agostino.

Accepted Language: Italian, English.

Deadline for submission of papers: December 20th, 2023.

Procedure: Please submit a paper, complete in all of its parts (max. 50-60.000 characters, including the list of references), with an abstract (1000 characters / 150 words) and 6 keywords, to the following email address: callforpapers@losguardo.net. Papers should be written in accordance with the editorial guidelines of the journal. All papers will undergo two double-blind review.

Please find below the text of the call.

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Lo Sguardo’s 37th issue aims to investigate theories and accounts of language in the century of Enlightenment. Besides treatises on grammar, in which language was explicitly thematized, 18th-century philosophy reflected on linguistic topics in various contexts, only rarely making it a subject of a unitary inquiry. Disciplinary fields that will be treated in the present issue of the journal are semiotics, logic, theory of knowledge, and anthropology. The issue, on the one hand, aims to adopt a wide perspective on the period of the Enlightenment, especially in light of the French debate on language (see, among others, Condillac, Maupertuis, de Brosses, Rousseau) and the theories of language that are found in the Encyclopédie (written, among others, by Beauzée, Turgot, Diderot), but also by considering other highly influential figures of the 18th-century European linguistic thought, in particular Vico and Lord Monboddo. On the other hand, the issue aims to focus on the linguistic theories in 18th-century Germany, with particular attention to post-Leibnizian philosophies (e.g., Wolff, Baumgarten, and Meier), Kant’s Critical and Pre-Critical thought, besides also authors belonging to the aetas kantiana, such as Lambert, Herder, Hamann, and Mendelssohn.

Researchers and scholars are invited to contribute to the issue by sending a paper on one or more of the following themes:

  • Semiotics: the general theory of signs, the distinction in the types of signs and in the semantic relations that different kinds of signs have with their mental and objectual referents, the importance of writing, its relation to thought and speech.
  • Logic and theory of knowledge: the relationship between language and its use, and the development of the cognitive faculties of the human mind, e.g., understanding, memory, and imagination, the figurative capacity of language, its origin and cognitive potentiality.
  • Anthropology: the theories of the origin of language, the relation between common use and non-common (technical) use of language, and the relation between language, culture, and society, the poietic-creative force of language.

For further information, please visit the website of the journal.

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