Please join Fordham's Center for Medieval Studies for a Zoom lecture with Professor Alison Cornish (NYU) on Monday March 7 at 5:00pm ET:
The Point of the Soul: Facts and values from Ulysses' quest to Dante's examination on love
One reason Dante called Ulysses' headlong pursuit of virtue and knowledge on the other side of the globe a "mad flight" (folle volo) might be the explorer's assumption that an examination of physical facts can yield an understanding of value; that he can traverse the "is-ought" divide associated with David Hume in the Enlightenment. From the vantage point of those very constellations of which Ulysses lost sight when he ventured beyond the known world into the southern hemisphere, Dante is asked the question: on what is your soul pointed? How is it that we determine what is of value? Does science tell us that? Or does language? and is that why the shipwrecked Greek hero burns in a tongue of flame?
