The critique of language in the philosophy of the Later Middle Ages, Renaissance and the Twentieth Century. Patterns of conceptual similarity in philosophical argument

The present research programme is designed as a study of the aims, nature and development of the critique of language. The perspective to be adopted will be unconventional and innovative, transcending the disciplinary boundaries that still exist between the study of medieval logic and scholastic thought on the one hand and the study of Renaissance scholarship on the other. This perspective is informed by developments in twentieth-century analytical philosophy. While fully admitting the differences in historical and intellectual contexts, twentieth-century analytical philosophy can offer possibly illuminating parallels to the changes in approach towards the role of language, especially as a vehicle of criticism of philosophical theories, in late medieval and early modern thought.