Chapter 1 - Mechanisms of Belief

Summary

It is a given that Jean de Meun, like many other medieval authors of vernacular works received a university training in philosophy. This chapter’s aim is to reconstruct Jean de Meun’s implicit epistemology, i.e. to identify how the classic concepts of medieval epistemology are mobilised to give an account of the cognitive phenomena that are treated by the Rose’s different protagonists. Insofar as Jean subscribes to a classically Aristotelian framework marked by the difficulty of getting to grips with belief, particular importance will be given to the analysis of uncertain cognitive phenomena, especially in its anthropological dimensions, focusing notably on the famous passage concerning Dame Habonde. The aim of these analyses, finally, is to determine if Jean’s writing strategies are, in one way or another, linked to his epistemological choices.