Hearing in European thought, 18th century International Conference Centre d’Étude des Relations et Contacts Linguistiques et Littéraires Amiens, 9th-10th March 2017 The century of Enlightenment appears from many points of view as the century of sight. Its metaphorical lexical field, which the different European languages share, is based on the opposition between light (reason) and darkness (ignorance and superstition). Scientific observation developed, as shown by the illustrations of the Encyclopédie. Ophtalmology improved and cataract operations were successful, enabling blind people to see. Educated people frequently commented upon this at the time. It seems that Goethe was right, when he summed up in his autobiography Poetry and Truth the intellectual context of his birth with the words: “men opened their eyes” (Dichtung und Wahrheit, book 7). The international conference which is to be held in Amiens on the 9th and 10th of March 2017 proposes to shed a different light on this period by focusing on hearing in 18th century European thought.
Like the reflection on sight, the reflection on hearing is part of the systematic exploration of human perception which is dealt with in different fields, such as medicine, philosophy and arts theory, at a time when the “anthropological turn” occurs and put man with his physical and psychological aspects at the center. In the case of hearing in particular, the study of perception encounters the study of language in a phylogenetic perspective, in order to reconstitute its origin in the story of mankind, or in an ontogenetic perspective, in order to analyse its acquisition by the individual. The aim of the conference is to allow a confrontation between the different approaches to the hearing experience which were developed in Europe in the 18th century. The geographical boundaries of the project, initially, include the French, German and British cultural era. This framework can be extended depending on the proposals. The French protagonists of the debate, for instance Condillac, Diderot and Rousseau are well known. However, other people, like the Abbé Charles-Michel de l’Épée, who developed an instructional method for deaf mutes based on systematized signs, can also be addressed at the conference. On the German side, different traditions can be represented, such as the rationalists (Leibniz, Baumgarten), the empiricists (Mendelssohn, Sulzer, Herder) and the physicians Krüger and Haller. Finally, among the English speaking authors who wrote about the senses in the 18th century, Locke, Berkeley, Berham and Hume can be found.
The papers could possibly deal with the following issues:
– the path from perception to feeling: How do authors conceive the interaction between physis and psyche, body and soul, matter and mind? Do they agree that hearing perceptions release particularly powerful feelings?
– disability: What theoretical reflections and what practical suggestions develop concerning hearing impairment?
– the relationship between analysis and synthesis in the discourses on perception: Analysis means isolating each sense from the others in order to seek how it works and what it specifically contributes to perception. Synthesis shows how the senses cooperate so that the information that each one gives merge to one single mental representation of the object. How are these two approaches connected to each other?
Finally, the papers could ask whether the terms “rationalism”, “empiricism” and “sensualism” are pertinent and investigate the cultural transfer of ideas relating to hearing in 18th century European thought. Conference languages will be French, German and English.
The call for papers closes on 31th October 2016. Abstracts (about 15 lines) should be sent to Clémence Couturier-Heinrich (clem.heinrich@orange.fr). The proposals for papers will be examined by a scientific board composed of: Sylviane Albertan-Coppola, Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Geneviève Espagne, Université de Picardie Jules Verne, Élisabeth Décultot, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg Jean Mondot, Université de Bordeaux Montaigne Hans Adler, University of Wisconsin-Madison.