Talk:Dunce

Reorganizing
The overview section gets into the etymology of the word, and then the first section says the same thing without really expanding on it... reads like two different authors. Can I suggest removing the second paragraph from the overview? I would do it myself, but I don't know if we want to keep the part about Samuel Johnson vs. Richard Stinhurst (which seems to beg for a citation). Did Johnson explicitly disagree with Stinhurst? Or did he just not have an answer to the question? Brymc210 (talk) 23:48, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

Suggestion
Could this page be combined with Dunce Cap? They say almost the same thing. -- Preceding unsigned comment added by Mice (talk o contribs)  30 November 2006, 00:55 (UTC)

Question
The term "New learning" is mentioned as 16th century, but the example given is the King James translation of the Bible, which he commissioned after receiving the Kingship of England in 1603.72.66.52.91 (talk) 07:56, 28 December 2012 (UTC) Albert Rogers

(Discussion on Question)

First, I totally agree that the King James Version of the Bible in 1611 comes a century or so after the "Modernists v. Dunsmen" controversy that evidently led to the pejorative sense of "Dunce."

Actually the "New Learning" very likely refers to the outlook of the late 15th-century and early 16th-century "moderns," notably including Erasmus of Rotterdam and St. Thomas More, with their anti-Scholastic orientation (Duns Scotus being a Scholastic's Scholastic, so to speak). Erasmus was already satirizing those who held to a Scholastic approach -- and often feared the new Christian humanism -- in his Encomium Moriae or "Praise of Folly" (also a play on the name of his friend Thomas More) of 1514, notably three years before Luther's posting of his Theses in 1517 that is often taken as one benchmark for the Reformation.

In other words, "the New Learning" is synonymous with what traditional historiography calls the 15th-16th century Renaissance. Medievalists often correctly point to some earlier "Renaissance" movements, including the Carolingian Renaissance around 800 (hailed at the time by Charlemagne's scholarly friend Alcuin as a "rebirth" of Classic knowledge and literature); the Ottonian Renaissance of the 10th century, and the great "12th-century Renaissance" which also gave birth to the sophisticated Scholasticism that the "New Learning" around 1500 considered reactionary "obscurantism."

Interestingly, in this era of the early 16th century when "Dunce" took on its pejorative meaning, Bible study and Bible translations were at issue -- but often not vernacular translations, but rather Greek language sources and editions.

To many traditionalists, the Vulgate of St. Jerome was synonymous with Catholic orthodoxy. To go back to the Greek sources and perhaps produce new Greek editions, as Erasmus did, was at least suspicious, if not the quick way to dangerous heresy! Thus Catholic humanists oriented to moderate reform, such as Erasmus, More, and Bishop John Fisher, were under suspicion for their Greek studies and desire to trim back on certain popular devotions or liturgical customs which they saw as too close to "superstition."

This "Modernists vs. Dunsmen" conflict should not be equated with the controversies of Reformation and Counter-Reformation which follow it, and indeed overlap with it in the period after 1517.

Thus the "modernist" Erasmus refuted Luther's theology by asserting the traditional Catholic doctrine of free will. St. Thomas More notably assisted King Henry VIII's defense of the Pope and Church in the immediate wake of Luther's challenge (winning Henry the title Defensor Fidei, or "Defender of the Faith"), and of course in 1535 himself was beheaded, with Bishop (now Cardinal) Fisher meeting the same fate, for refusing to recognize the King as the "Supreme Head" of the Church (as mandated by the Supremacy Act of 1534) rather than the Pope.

This is not to say that the "New Learning," originally a movement for Catholic renovation and reform, did not become associated with Protestantism as the Reformation took shape, whether as a positive or negative association. One saying had it that "Erasmus laid the egg, and Luther hatched it."

However, this was not the intent of Erasmus and More themselves! On the matter of Bible translations, interestingly, More's position in the early 1530's was that translations might usefully be made, and then be placed in the hands of the bishops, who could decide which laypeople could safely read the English Bible with spiritual benefit, and which might be led astray, and so should be denied access.

By 1611 and the King James or Authorized Version, of course, the Catholic Counter-Reformation had also produced an English Bible: the New Testament of Rhemes (or Rheims) in 1582, and the Old Testament of Doway (or Douay) in 1609.

In writing these impressions, I realize that distilling this down to what is relevant for the "Dunce" article and making it NPOV is an added task; my purpose is only to continue the discussion.

Margo Schulter, 26 November 2014

Where in Europe?
"A dunce cap, also variously known as a dunce hat, dunce's cap or dunce's hat, is a pointed hat, formerly used as an article of discipline in schools in Europe" - where in Europe? It's a big place. The only specific country named in the reference that I saw is England. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.142.182.242 (talk) 00:02, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

"A dunce is a person considered incapable of learning."
The first sentence is: "A dunce is a person considered incapable of learning." This can't be right. If it were, anyone who is thought to be incapable of learning, by some number of people, would fall under this definition and so would *objectively* be a dunce. But of course, that's mistaken. No one is objectively a dunce, any more than anyone is objectively a hunk or a dickhead. Objectively speaking there are no dunces, hunks, or dickheads. Instead what exists are the concepts 'dunce', 'hunk', and 'dickhead', and words that express these concepts. (Concepts are bits of thought we use to think. They are not written or spoken, as words are.)

There is another problem. What someone means when they call someone a dunce isn't that this person is *considered* to be incapable of learning. What they mean is, at least, that this person *is* incapable of learning. They probably also mean that the person is worthy of ridicule for it. Note that the OED does not hedge with the word 'considered'; they have "A person who is slow at learning or of low intelligence; a stupid, dim-witted person; an idiot." But this article cannot simply say "A dunce is a slow, dim-witted person" or the like because that would imply that there is, according to the neutral perspective of an encyclopedia, a group of people who are dunces, just as there are people who are firefighters.

Perhaps the article could focus on the five-letter word "dunce", rather than dunces (who are not themselves words, but people thought to exist). The article could begin: "Dunce is a mild insult in English meaning an unteachable person."

Then again, perhaps I am quite wrong, and a dunce for making these suggestions. It would be fitting if I were deemed a dunce for my admittedly Scholastic approach. 67.193.78.205 (talk) 17:51, 10 April 2021 (UTC)