BMCR 2009.05.04: Response by O'Daly on Hunink on Emmanuel Bermon (ed.), La signification et l'enseignement

O'Daly on Hunink on Emmanuel Bermon (ed.), La signification et
l'enseignement.   Response to BMCR 2009.02.49


Response by Gerard O'Daly, University College London
([email protected])
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To read a print-formatted version of this response, see
http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2009/2009-05-04.html
To comment on this review, see
http://www.bmcreview.org/2009/05/20090504.html
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Vincent Hunink's review (2009.02.49) of Emmanuel Bermon's book on
Augustine's De magistro regrettably fails to engage with the details of
B.'s study. I should declare a connection with B.'s work: I was a
member of the international panel of scholars that examined an earlier
version of it as part of his habilitation dossier in 2005, and we have
regularly discussed our individual Augustine projects since then. I do
not offer here an alternative review of B.'s book, merely draw
attention to its scope and importance.

It is an account, unparalleled in detail and depth, of the formation
and development of Augustine's views on semiotics, and language and
learning theory against the background of earlier ancient philosophy of
language, especially in Plato, the Stoics, and Varro. This would be
interesting in itself: Augustine's is the most sustained analysis of
language that we have from Greek and Roman antiquity. But more than
that, through its serious, critical comparison between Augustine and
Wittgenstein -- starting from Wittgenstein's reaction, in Philosophical
Investigations, to Augustine's account of a child's language learning
in the Confessions -- it focuses, not merely on similarities and
differences between the two, but on enduring issues and problems in
theory of language (medieval as well as modern theories other than
Wittgenstein's, including Bertrand Russell's, are discussed). It takes
into account Augustine's technical interests in grammar and dialectic,
and in the role of language in teaching, and, as in B.'s earlier book
Le Cogito dans la pense/e de saint Augustin (2001) -- where comparisons
were made with Descartes and Husserl -- a wide range of texts and
arguments, ancient and modern, is examined with historically informed
attention to terminology, linguistic usage, and the structure and
development of arguments. And, for all the wealth of technical detail,
the book is written in a clear, accessible, and elegant style.