CALL FOR PAPERS
De intellectu: Greek, Arabic, Latin, and Hebrew Texts and Their Influence on Medieval Philosophy. A Tribute to Rafael Ramón Guerrero
University of Porto, 6th-7th February 2020
Philosophy changed radically during the Middle Ages as a result of the translation of a considerable number of texts by Aristotle and his followers from Greek into Arabic, Latin and Hebrew. As an example, epistemological and anthropological questions were rethought and substantively reshaped in the Latin world after the translations of Aristotle’s De anima by James of Venice and William of Moerbeke (from Greek), and by Michael Scot (from Arabic, together with Averroes’s long commentary on it), after it had been successively translated into Syriac and Arabic. This crucial and complex process followed an already long and parallel history of paraphrases and commentaries on this work in Greek, Syriac and Arabic.
The discussion of De anima III.4-5, on the intellect, was conditioned or driven by a large number of texts from different periods. Among those texts are the Greek commentaries or paraphrases on De anima by Alexander of Aphrodisias, Themistius, Simplicius, John Philoponus, and Averroes, alongside independent short treatises, such as Alexander of Aphrodisias’s De intellectu et intellecto, al-Kindī’s De intellectu, al-Fārābī’s De intellectu et intellecto, Averroes’ Epistula de connexione intellectus abstracti cum homine, and his son’s Epistula de intellectu. In several other works “intellect” plays a most pivotal role, such as in Plotinus’s Enneads paraphrased in the Arabic Theologia Aristotelis and in Proclus’s Elementatio Theologica epitomised in the Liber de causis. Other works added to the debate, such as Avicenna’s Liber de anima, al-Ghazālī’s Summa theoricae philosophiae, Averroes’s Long Commentary on De Anima, Maimonides’ Dux neutrorum, Isaac Israeli’s Liber de definicionibus, not to mention texts from the Christian tradition, such as Nemesius of Emesa’s De natura hominis and Sophonias’ commentary on De anima. A similarly radical change occurred in thirteenth-century Jewish philosophy through the translation into Hebrew of many of these same texts, at the same time that a very different change was taking place in Arabic philosophy.
“Nous” – rendered as ‘aql, sekhel, intellectus, and their vernacular derivatives – became a key philosophical concept in late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, being intimately connected to a wide range of issues in psychology, epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics. However, because of its centrality and the manifold conflicting interpretations and solutions accompanying it, “intellect” became a highly contentious problem, one that both authors and commentators tried to disentangle within the context of overlapping Platonic, Aristotelian, Neoplatonic, and Stoic traditions. The ways intellect was conceptualized in this long period influenced and shaped the discussions of fundamental philosophical problems, such as: the body-soul relationship, intuitive and abstract knowledge, mental content, intelligible forms, immortality of the soul, happiness and the highest end of man.
Celebrating the career and the scholarly contributions of Rafael Ramón Guerrero, we welcome a discussion of current research on texts and problems concerning the intellect within the four linguistic spaces in which Aristotelian theories played a central role. We also encourage the submission of contributions centred on the circulation and diffusion of these and other texts which the historical actors in the Greek, Arabic, Latin, and Hebrew spaces used to facilitate, shape, and turn specific debates on the intellect into predominant discourses in the history of philosophy.
Rafael Ramón Guerrero (Granada, 1948), Professor of History of Medieval and Arabic Philosophy in the Facultad de Filosofía of the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, along his career he has produced an outstanding contribution to teaching and research in Medieval Philosophy. He obtained his PhD in Madrid in 1979 under the supervision of José Antonio García-Junceda with a thesis entitled Contribución al estudio de la filosofía árabe: Alma e Intelecto como problemas fundamentales de la misma, which served as the basis for his book La recepción árabe del De anima de Aristóteles: Al-Kindi y Al-Farabi (Madrid 1993). This problem remained the focus of his attention in several publications, translations of Arabic philosophers, teaching, conferences, supervision of doctoral theses, and direction of research projects. His work is internationally renowned, and his academic activity is particularly influential in Spain, Portugal, and Latin-America. With this Conference, his students, colleagues and friends wish to honour the Professor, the Academic, the Scholar.
Call for papers
Open until October
30th, 2019. Send a proposal with name, institution, title, and an abstract up
to 300 words to email@example.com
Presentation: 20 minutes + discussion. Languages: English, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, German.
José Meirinhos, Celia López, José Higuera (Porto), Nicola Polloni (Berlin), Pedro Mantas España (Córdoba).
Amos Bertolacci (Pisa; Lucca), Alexander Fidora (Barcelona), Catarina Belo (Cairo), Charles Burnett (London), Cristina D’Ancona Costa (Pisa), Gregorio Piaia (Padova), Jean-Baptiste Brenet (Paris), José Luis Villacañas (Madrid), José Meirinhos (Porto), Josep Puig Montada (Madrid), Jules Janssens (Leuven), José Luis Fuertes Herreros (Salamanca), Katja Krause (Berlin), Luis Alberto De Boni (Porto Alegre), Mário Santiago de Carvalho (Coimbra), Steven Harvey (Bar Ilan), Thérèse Cory (Notre Dame).
Sociedad de Filosofía
Medieval (Salamanca – Córdoba) — Sociedade Portuguesa de Filosofia.
Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy TL – Instituto de Filosofia da Universidade do Porto.
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia; Universidade do Porto
Awesome conference on “Premodern Experience of the Natural World in Translation” organised by Katja Krause, Maria Avxentevskaya, and Droh Weil at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin.
A multiplicity of perspectives on a very special subject – medieval Toledo. The former capital of the Visigoths. One of the most prominent cities in al-Andalus and one of the most relevant reinos de taifa. For centuries, the most important town in Castile.
Organised by Yasmine Beale-Rivaya (Texas State University) and María José Lop Otín (Universidad de Castilla La Mancha), the conference “The Multi-Cultural Borderlands of Medieval Toledo” has been a unique occasion to discuss many aspects related to the uniqueness of medieval Toledo and its borderlands. Borders – political, cultural, and religious borders – that are superseded and rediscovered within a town that was perilous and illuminated, shelter and prison, heavenly and infernal at the same time.
A unique conference for a unique subject, fascinating and intriguing. More info at https://www.worldlang.txstate.edu/toledo/
As always, some photos of the conference and its awesome venue.
Amazing conference in Pisa. It was the Spring conference of the AAIWG—but bigger, juicer, and more impressive, if that’s possible. For four days, we have explored the intricacies of the philosophical tradition in its intertwining of languages and problems, shifts and ideas.
So many inputs in such a short time—something unique. I have reencountered many old friends (some for the first time in person after years of emails and Skype-calls) and made many more. New ideas have arisen and I will scrupulously nurture them. And new collaborations have started or are about to start—and you will see their outcomes hopefully soon.
For now, some photos of smart people (and I) having fun in different ways.
Last Friday, we were intensively discussing the many problems arising from the study of Early-Franciscan Psychology. Lydia Schumacher (KLC) gave a splendid talk on her research on this fascinating topic. And we all were eager in trying to understand the reasons behind a very intriguing reception of Avicenna’s theories of soul and knowledge.
A impressively fantastic conference on Aristotle’s Physics in the Middle Ages, with superb scholars (and I). I really had some great fun and amazing time in Rome! Looking forward to meeting again Irene, Anna, and “the Cecilias” very soon — maybe in Berlin?
Can’t wait to be back in the North East for this fantastic occasion to discuss many intricate points of Premodern epistemology of matter!
The second part of the Winter Semester reading group has started. Here’s the calendar:
11 Jan 2019, 10am, R241: POSTPONED TO JAN 18th!
18 Jan 2019, 10am, R241: [Vortrag] Nicola Polloni, Ibn Gabirol and Universal Hylomorphism. Ibn Gabirol, Fons vitae, book I,
28 Jan 2019, 2.30pm, R228: Ibn Gabirol, Fons vitae, book I, §1-13
1 Feb 2019, 11am, R228: Ibn Gabirol, Fons vitae, book I, §14-17
4 Feb 2019, 2.30pm, R228: Ibn Gabirol, Fons vitae, book II, §1-4
15 Feb 2019, 11am, , R228: Ibn Gabirol, Fons vitae, book II, §5-8 + Final Remarks
Looking forward to seeing you there and explore together the Font of Life!
Absolutely interesting conference at Freie Universität Berlin! It is going to be a complete immersion under deep Platonic water!
I just came back from the very first event organised by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation I participated in. Three days of meetings, discussions, brain-storming, and good time shared with so many colleagues from all over the world, all together in Bonn. That was fantastic! It just feels so good to be part of a network so huge and diverse, made of so many brilliant minds and sponsored by such a generous institution. Can’t wait to attend the next one!
Marvellous (and sunny) Dublin! Looking forward to the Ordered Universe Symposium starting tomorrow.
Conference in Mexico City
Spectacular conference on Arabic and Latin theories of vision in Florence in September, organised by Cecilia Panti.
Arabic and Latin Science of Vision and the Theory of Perspective in Early Renaissance Florence
27-29 September 2018
SISMEL, via Montebello 7, Firenze
You can download the programme here.
A fantastic conference is going to be held in Toledo (Spain, not Ohio) next year! Here’s the Call for Papers: I look forward to see many people there, it’s going to be amazing!
One of the best things of this line of work is the oneiric dimension of travel. It is not the travel in itself to be oneiric—even though, when one travels to the US or Canada, there’s always a sleepy state that goes on for days: nothing poetic, though, just jet-lag. The oneiric dimension happens when you fly away to attend a conference or a meeting and, suddenly, you are in a completely different academic environment. There, for just a few days, you can dream of living a different life working at a different university. From this point of view, America is unparalleled and the Ordered Universe project a sort of “Traumfabrik”! It was the OU that marked May 2018 with a long trip to Montreal and Kalamazoo, and a Chicago-ending.
It was my first time in Montreal, Quebec. Sincerely, I couldn’t imagine what I was going to experience there (terrific food, more terrific food, beautiful people, awesome architecture, decadent landscapes, and much more). As always, companionship was amazing. Ordered Universe symposia and meetings are not only brilliant moments of theoretical discussion, but also great gathering of new and old friends. We always have such a good time together, and the Montreal symposium wasn’t different. We had days of incredibly fascinating and stimulating discussions on Grosseteste’s De motu supercelestium and De motu corporali et luce, the latter being one of my favourite works authored by Grosseteste. Hosted by Faith Wallis at McGill University, the workshop was ultimately fantastic, undoubtedly a success. Not to mention the extraordinary food we had there at a series of astounding restaurants!
Quebec cuisine has quite a reputation…. and it deserves it! I also had a chance to try again the famous poutine. After my Toronto experience, I had no expectations, as that very first poutine I ate was horrible. Nonetheless, the real Quebec poutine I had in Montreal was like an inspiring and overwhelming dream made of gravy, cheese, French fries, and smoked meat. Fantastic!
Aesthetically, Montreal is such a beautiful city. Relaxed, European, and safe. A fusion of contemporary architecture and old (at least for that continent) buildings. Walking my way down to the St Lawrence river has been quite an experience. But it wasn’t enough. Between the end of the symposium and the beginning of another brilliant meeting (the McGill-Durham graduate conference to which some of the best graduate students of both universities participated—with a lovely intruder from Oxford), I did what I usually do when I’m in those huge American conglomerates of people and buildings we call metropolises: I walked. And I went to Little Italy (sorry, “la petite Italie”), Mile End, walking my way down through the Plateau down to the river. A tremendous experience, in which I also discovered that bagels are actually made in dedicated bakeries (maybe “bageleries”?) by real people. I also tried a fresh-made one: it was superb. (As always, I have also taken a lot of pictures and I now realise that I need to enrol on some sort of photography social platform. Otherwise, no one will ever see the actual results of my long walks through Europe and America!)
The spectre of Kalamazoo was looming, though. Kalamazoo was not a problem, it was the 14-hour-long drive from Montreal! A group of seven people from Durham (well, actually six, as there still was the lovely intruder from Oxford, but it was like as she was from Durham) locked into a car, even if a good one, for such a long time and without smoking? It’s not a joke: it happened! And I can proudly say that I survived it! Maybe, for the sake of this blog, I should say that it was a great fun and we had an amazing time while we were trapped in there. It would be a lie: it was so boring, notwithstanding many attempts at having fun. We made it to Kalamazoo, though, and that’s what’s important.
Kalamazoo. The place, the Zoo. Amazing, but too short. I wasn’t able to meet with all the people I wanted to meet. Nevertheless, new friendships have begun, old friends have been met, new collaborations have been established, no disease from the dorms has been contracted, and knowledge has been shared: that’s the spirit of Kalamazoo! The two panels on medieval science organised by OU were terrific and we got some very positive feedbacks. I have understood that blue margaritas are not my cup of tea and I had a splendid stimulating time there. I definitely look forward to going back to Kalamazoo next year.
Before flying back to Europe, I had two days in Chicago. I love that town. Architecturally speaking, no other city is like Chicago, not even New York can compete with such an outstanding aesthetic exquisiteness. I slept my nights there laying literally in front of five huge lightened letters (they were T-R-U-M-P and, believe me, it was a sort of Mordor-like experience: next time, I will think it twice before booking my hotel).
I met with a fantastic friend who gave me a tour of the University of Chicago, I walked a lot, and I finally tried a Chicago deep-dish pizza!! Yes, I did so! It was since 2015, when I was at Notre Dame, that I wanted to try one. Problem is that I went to a restaurant (Labriola: gorgeous!) two hours before taking my taxi to the airport, and I couldn’t imagine that a Chicago deep-dish pizza was that… large! After two slices, I felt I was going to die. With six more in front of me, I decided to do what an American would do: ask for boxes. That’s how I had got a real Chicago deep-dish pizza in Europe.
International Conference: East-Western Transmission of Knowledge. An International Colloquium on Methods of Research, International Colloquium Convened by Forschungsstelle Philosophie- und Wissenschaftsgeschichte der griechisch-arabisch-lateinischen Tradition (Universität Würzburg) and Cordoba Near Eastern Research Unit (University of Córdoba), Cordoba, 3 April 2018.
At Casa árabe, in Cordoba, during the awesome colloquium Crossing Lands. Spreading knowledge in the Near East and the Mediterranean from Late Antiquity to Middle Ages, March 14th 2018.
I’ve just come back from a brilliant workshop in Pamplona! After months collaborating together on our project , the members of the research group ‘Hermenéutica patrística y medieval (LOGOS)’ (based at the Instituto de Estudios Medievales of the University of Navarra) finally met! What can I say? It’s been a marvellous day of study led by María Jesús Soto-Bruna: so many interesting talks, new tempting ideas, projects, collaborations… Just brilliant! So many good people there, can’t wait to the next meeting (and go back to Pamplona, hopefully!).
Such a long trip (more than three weeks!) would require, perhaps, a long and detailed report. Luckily for you, though, I really don’t have time to do so, and I’ll limit myself to some quick notes on a superb dissemination-and-research trip.
First destination: Boston. My very good friend, Katja Krause, had organised an outstanding workshop at Harvard on a fascinating theme: science and religion. It was my first time in Massachusetts, and it has been such a splendid experience. Boston is incredibly European: so much history, everything is clean-and-polished, public transportation is perfect, no Walmart on sight (with my profound disappointment). It was like not being in America at all! The workshop went marvellously well (and how could have not been so, with such a brilliant host, Katja): different perspectives and approaches (theology, history of science, philosophy) on a delicate matter such as the relation between religion and scientific knowledge from the Late Antiquity to the Early Modernity. From Byzantine alchemy to Galileo’s astronomical observations, passing through the Arabic and Latin traditions, the workshop has been incredibly interesting, opening new lines (and collaborations) to be carefully explored.
Second destination: Toronto. My first time in Canada, too, my first time participating in a HSS meeting: curiosity, eagerness, anxiety were the traits depicting my mood when the aircraft landed at Pearson. Toronto is just so different from what I was expecting: I thought I would have been landing in a kind of Switzerland of America, with Toronto as a sort of Zurich or Bern. To the contrary, Toronto is like New York, as if they were twin sisters separated at birth and raised in two different, but not far-away, villages. Beauty and contradictions, luxury and poverty, all condensed in one big and freezing city: outstanding aesthetical instantiation of human existence, with tall buildings and British shades all over the place. The History of Science Society meeting was hosted right at the centre of the city centre – nothing more central! – at the Sheraton. Hundreds of historians of science presenting their research, approach, problems, and doubts on that long history of scientific reflection which mostly corresponds to the history of human progress. A fascinating, formative, brilliant experience, which was crowned by our panel on the limits of science (Late Antiquity to Early Modernity). That was the exquisite fruit of such beautiful minds (Steven, Katja, Yehuda, and Vincenzo) filling a ‘medieval gap’ with incredibly interesting contributions. Perhaps, the best academic moment of my trip to America, a trip which was loaded of outstanding academic moments. And yes, I did find time to quickly go to Niagara Falls (there are no words to describe that!).
No time to rest, and I was on my way to the third destination of my trip: Dallas. Another first time, here: Texas, the wild land with lots of guns, and its ‘come and take it!’ echoing far away. I was totally ready to see those landscapes I imagined to be filled with oil extraction plants, people with Stetson cowboy hats, and money flowing all over the way… As often happens, though, I soon realised that my expectations were the outcome of unsound mental constructions (let’s just call them prejudices). Coming from Toronto (1 C°) to Dallas (28 C°), the first days were marked by a real and enveloping thermal shock. Moreover, Dallas is a rather peculiar city, very different from New York or Chicago, and far away from European Boston. There is no actual ‘downtown’, or better, for sure there is one, but it is not a real place to walk down (apart from Thanksgiving Square). It reminded me a lot of Indianapolis, which is not a bad place, but is ‘different’. I was very lucky, though, for in Dallas I met with two of my best adventuring companions, my very good friends Therese and David. As a consequence, Texas has been simply and utterly amazing! The ACPA meeting was superb: shifting from the history of science to philosophy (in a very strict sense) has been like coming back home (from a short trip, though), and the ACPA people are so friendly, interesting, and brilliant scholars! I was very happy to participate in the Dallas meeting, and I have to admit that I learnt many things and discovered new valuable approaches. A remarkable experience mingled with jalapeño margaritas, the best barbecue I’ve ever tasted (brisket, what a discovery! If you have the occasion to do so, go to Pecan Lodge in Dallas!), the rodeo in Fort Worth (unbelievable!), corn-and-pineapple-covered-with-paprika lollypops (yes, they exist to demonstrate that Hegel was wrong: what is irrational is real, too!), the G.W.B. Presidential Library, and many other splendid things. But time runs fast, and the final destination of my trip was looming up already. As soon as the meeting was over, Therese, David, and I rent a car to San Antonio, passing through Austin (outstanding museum of Texas there!) while listening to Johnny Cash.
The few days I spent in San Antonio were like a dream. I still happen to think on those days wondering whether they were real or not. San Antonio is such an oneiric, relaxing, awesome place, with its River Walk, the Alamo, the Missions, wildlife for free, and delicious restaurants. I went to Southern Texas to meet with two amazing colleagues from Texas State University, Yasmine and David. Medieval Iberia in Texas! We decided to start collaborating on new projects and, you will see, this is going to be terrific, for impressive things have been planned (no spoilers, though, although I can’t wait for them).
Another walk through downtown San Antonio, and it was time already (?!) to go back to Europe, academically and personally enriched by this magnificent trip, with so many plans and even more things to do. And a beautiful surprise, too: I’ve been awarded a Humboldt Fellowship in Berlin, starting on September 2018!
History of Science Society
Toronto, Canada, 9-12 November 2017
Two talks on Roger Bacon:
Elly Truitt (Bryn Mawr College), “Roger Bacon’s Speculative Technologies”. Panel: Thinking with Preindustrial Machines, 13.30, Friday, 10 November 2017.
Nicola Polloni (Durham University), “Sciences of Matter? Knowledge of the Material Substrate in the Two Bacons”. Panel: Pre-Modern Experiences and the Limits of Science, 9.00, Saturday, 11 November 2017.
SMRP sponsored session at the American Catholic Philosophical Association
Friday, November 17, 2017, 10a.m.-12 noon
The Westin Dallas Downtown
Causation and Science in Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy
Organizer & Chair: Gloria Frost, University of St. Thomas, MN
Speaker 1: David Cory, The Catholic University of America; Notre Dame
“Is Digestion Fully Material? Aquinas on Matter and the Vegetal Soul”
Speaker 2: Zita Toth, Conception Seminary College, MO
“Durand of St.-Pourçain on Causal Interactions after the Day of Judgment”
Speaker 3:Nicola Polloni, Durham University
“Accordance and Strife: Encounters with Modernity at the Beginning of the Thirteenth Century”
Just a few more days… On June 5th-6th, Katja and I will be hosting the awesome conference on ‘medieval experience’ in Durham. If you cannot come to Durham, but you really would like to participate in the conference, no worries: we have prepared a dedicated Facebook page and the entire conference will be streamed live there! New technological means for a conference that we are confident will add precious contributions to the ongoing scholarly debate on the concept of experience in the Middle Ages.
Here’s the link to the FB page…
…and here’s the programme!
What is the role of experience in medieval encounters with nature, self, and God? The Aristotelian sciences, such as astronomy and meteorology, zoology and botany, as well as other medieval disciplines such as medicine, alchemy, and magic drew on experience in different ways and to different degrees. Their applications range from singular references to experience in different arguments to collected works of experience, such as the medical literary genre of the Experimenta that focuses on medical remedies. Yet the same concepts—tajriba, nissayon, experientia / experimentum—are also used in the encounter with the self; more specifically in the realms of epistemological inquiry, internal reflection on experience of the natural world, or the question of conscience. A third prominent area where experience plays a central role in medieval discourses is encounters with the divine through rapture, prophecy, the practice of magic and necromancy—discourses in which the concept of experience finds its very limits.
Despite their diversity of applications, all three encounters of experience with nature, self, and God seem to share a twofold approach: on the one hand, ‘experience’ is discussed as a noetic object to reflect upon epistemological and psychological questions; on the other hand, ‘experience’ is used as noetic tool to increase, correct, and corroborate the knowledge acquired in the different disciplines. What seems to underlie all encounters with experience and approaches to it, however, are questions of ‘translation’ on the three levels of the conceptual, the linguistic, and the material—translations that cross not only cultural and religious boundaries, but also from the real world to that of parchment.
The aim of our first conference on the vast topic of experience in the medieval world is to explore some fundamental basics in order to begin to conceive of medieval experience in a more nuanced fashion. Among the questions we would like to explore are those concerning three different perspectives:
(1) Experience as a tool of knowledge: How did medieval thinkers draw on experience in these three different encounters of nature, self, and God? Does experience assume different roles and functions within the different disciplines?
(2) Experience as an object of knowledge: Was experience conceived of differently in the two realms of the empirical and the non-empirical? Or was experience thought to involve some common core—a core concept that could be ‘translated’ from one encounter to another and from one realm to another?
(3) The aspect of ‘translating’ experience: How did medieval thinkers negotiate linguistic translations of experience from one scholarly language to another (Arabic, Latin, and Hebrew)? To what extent did these linguistic translations involve trans-cultural and trans-religious translations of experience in theory and practice? How and why did medieval thinkers translate experience from technical and difficult language to a simpler and easy-to-understand language? And last but not least, how did material translations—the very activity of writing experienced events onto parchment—affect the medieval understandings and applications of experience found in their texts?
The conference is sponsored by the Department of History and the Department of Theology of Durham University, the Institute for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (IMEMS), with the support of the Society for Medieval Philosophy (SOFIME) and the Italian Society for the Study of Medieval Philosophy (SISPM).
More info at https://ordered-universe.com/aspectus-and-affectus/
Bibliography (Primary sources):
- Gundissalinus, De processione mundi, English translation by J.A. Laumakis, The Procession of the World, Milwaukee 2002.
- Ibn Gabirol, The Font of Life, English translation by J.A. Laumakis, Milwaukee 2014.
- Avicenna, The Metaphysics of the Healing, English translation by M.E. Marmura, Provo 2005.
- Hermann of Carinthia, De essentiis, critical edition and English translation by Ch. Burnett, Leiden 1982.
Filosofia Medieval: em curso e em toda a extensão
Porto (PT), 12-14 January 2017
You can find the conference programme HERE
Finally, the ‘Gundissalinus World Tour’ comes to an end. After the awesome days in Milwaukee, I flew to DC, where I enjoyed the wonderful weather and the restored Capitol dome (amazing!) for a couple of days, working on the next meetings. Then, a 10h30-long train trip to Columbia, SC: in a dream-like atmosphere, I drifted along brown-and-yellow woods, tiny lakes, small towns, chatting with nameless people for just the time of a coffee while the train passes the border between Virginia and North Carolina.
Columbia is just as I imagined the capital of South Carolina following the sweet descriptions my friends gave me last year: a calm, tidy, green town, with an effervescent atmosphere. The real surprise has been the USC campus: it’s not a campus, it’s like a huge and vast garden, or possibly an open museum surrounded by trees and flowers. I can’t imagine a better place for a student to spend his/her years at the university! The buildings, with their colonial style outside joined to a high-tech modern style on the inside, well, they were just astoundingly beautiful. The crowded streets, with hundreds of students, don’t spoil the sense of friendly order you can perceive throughout the whole campus; and the Horseshoe, with its benches and historical buildings – with their columns, windows, flags, and porches – gives you the rare sense to breathe the very history of that marvellous country.
Just this experience would have been enough. The best part of the week I spent in Columbia, though, has been the people with whom I stayed: Jerry and Lilla Hackett. It’s extremely difficult to summarise in just a few words how beautiful, exciting, stimulating, and unique those days have been for me. Jerry and Lilla are wonderful people, with such a kindness and fondness – so rare in these times – that I truly felt like home since the very first moment. And besides chatting and working on Gundissalinus and Bacon, we had a memorable week marked by unforgettable moments. Let me mention two of them, just to give you a taste of that week: the presidential election of Donald J. Trump and the concert of Bob Dylan, to which Jerry and Lilla invited me. Two moments I won’t ever forget, for different and contrasting reasons…
And then my talks. I had the occasion to briefly present to the USC Philosophy Department Grosseteste and the work the Ordered Universe Project is pursuing. Trying to explain to the colleagues the running of the project is so difficult: it’s a strange alchemy of people and skills, philosophy and science, laws of refraction and Aristotle’s physics… a joining of perspectives that works just perfectly. And it is always a pleasure to see how interested the people are regarding this pioneering project that, beside of producing so many crucial contributions to our understanding of Grosseteste, is also providing an example of how an interdisciplinary approach to humanities can and should be developed.
Nevertheless, the most amazing and intriguing event has been the workshop on Gundissalinus and Ibn Daud organised by Jerry. Only the warm air of South Carolina and the genius of Jerry could have thought on a meeting of this kind in America: and the outcomes have been astounding!! Four scholars – Jerry Hackett, Katja Vehlow, Caleb Colley, and I – talking about the role played by Gundissalinus and Ibn Daud in the history of medieval philosophy. And so many ideas, perspectives, new data and sources, Aquinas and Bacon, Peckham and Gundissalinus: simply amazing, extremely useful, just perfect! I won’t spoil anything (the proceedings are likely to be published soon, for the very high level of the discussion): just wait and see!
With the colloquium, the American part of the tour came to an end, and I had to fly back to Europe, with the usual sadness I feel when I have to leave the US. Next destination: Barcelona, where the VII congress of the Sociedad de Filosofía Medieval (i.e., SOFIME) was about to begin. Barcelona, or better, Cerdanyola del Vallés, the small town where the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona is located, and where I spent some fruitful months working on my dissertation during my PhD. It’s always like coming home: the streets, the concrete buildings, tapas y cañas. And my magister, the person who gave me method, knowledge, and perspective: Alexander Fidora.
The congress went perfectly well: many people, old friends and new ones, a lot of fun as only the Spanish academia is able to provide. My talk on the authorship of the De immortalitate animae received many interesting questions, and I have to say that some of them, as well as the overall acceptance of my hypothesis, were quite unexpected. Also regarding this point there will be some surprises, since it’s not just the De immortalitate animae but also another anonymous writing that is going to be hopefully attributed to Gundissalinus (a point that I clarified thanks to the ‘World Tour’ and the many discussions I had in the US). But no spoilers: just give me a couple of months and I’ll tell you exactly what I mean.
There’s no need to underline how interesting were many of the talks and lectures delivered in Barcelona: possibly, that’s normal (but not obvious) in such a prestigious gathering. What I should mention here is that the SOFIME assembly asked me to become Editor Assistant of the Revista Española de Filosofía Medieval and, also, person in charge of the digital communication of the society. It will be a honour and a great pleasure for me to contribute to the society with my skills, accompanied by a lot of humility. It has been such a great surprise, and I can’t describe how astounded I was in that moment (and even now). Let me just thank again my Spanish colleagues for their trust in me.
There would be many other things to say and write, new collaborations and projects, the agreement for a new introductory monograph on Gundissalinus’s thought (to be published next Spring), and the many interesting people I’ve met here. But I have to admit to myself (and to you) that I’m beginning to be quite tired, after almost a whole month travelling from a place to another every few days. On Monday, I will finally fly back to Durham: the ‘Gundissalinus World Tour’ is over, but the many outcomes of this trip will have a long-lasting effect on my work and my research. And beside that, this month has been just amazing.
Gutta cavat lapidem.
The first ten days in the US have passed: two lectures and many precious moments of enrichment, reflection, discussion and (often quite underestimated) fun. It all began in a very bad way: the journey Durham – South Bend lasted 45 (you’re not misreading: forty-five) hours, a time during which I had the occasion to cultivate a crucial and painful virtue: patience (a vast amount of it). But once the plane did land in Chicago, and I entered the train to South Bend, all the stress and the fatigue of the long trip suddenly disappeared.
Notre Dame is a strange place. A golden campus in the middle of nowhere, a peculiar geographical position thanks to which the Winter is so cold that once, when I tried to visit the campus (and even heading downtown: how foolish of me), I had to run home very fast since I couldn’t feel my feet and hands anymore. And all that after just 15 minutes at -23! It was February 2015, and I was there for my SIEPM fellowship, a crucial moment, I can see that now, looking backwards to my PhD. In those months spent in South Bend, Indiana, I had the occasion to make friends with the squirrels and learn from prestigious scholars; I tasted my first pineapple pizza and my first grapples; I saw the contradictions of the American welfare state and the astonishing wonders of the American dream. I loved it, and sometimes I hated it: but going back to South Bend has been like going home and meet with old good friends (and I do not mean the squirrels).
The return to Notre Dame could have been just great, but spending those day with Therese and David Cory has been more than brilliant. They had arranged a true American experience for me, from the typical eggs-bacon-jam breakfast to pumpkin carving and trick-or-treating, yummi dinners, excursions to multi-coloured farmer’s markets, and… football! What an astounding experience, being there, the crowded stadium, the golden helmets, an exciting game whose outcomes were uncertain till the very end. And a good one for the Fighting Irish!
Then, the day of my lecture finally came. I was a bit concerned, for the topic (epistemology) and the authors I had to deal with (Augustine, Isidore, Hugh of St Victor, and Gundissalinus): in such a prestigious university, considering the extremely high level of both faculty and students of the MI, what could I expect to be asked about? And again, the magic of Notre Dame – fondly required, especially with a paper on alchemy and necromancy – converted the very substance of that lecture in one of the best moments of discussion and debate ever, comparable only to what came a few days later (spoiler!). We spent a lot of time discussing the implications that astrology has on the human free will, the ‘political problem’ arising from alchemy as aurifiction rather than aurifaction (but in both cases it was a huge problem), the overall epistemological problems of Gundissalinus’s classification of sciences, and how these border-line disciplines survived the condemnations by the Church.
After Notre Dame, I moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, right on the other side of Lake Michigan. Marquette University, one of the most prestigious academic institutions in America for medieval philosophy (and beyond). A bit anxious for the ‘big happening’, I was so eager to know what the people at Marquette think about the first reception of Avicenna in the Latin West. And the two days I spent in Milwaukee have been, by this viewpoint, definitely astonishing! Indeed, it’s always a pleasure to discuss your research with scholars dealing with topics related to yours, especially when they are so great scholars as Richard Taylor. But the discussion after my talk had something else, something difficult to define or describe (so Plotinian). A two-hours discussion, talking with Richard Taylor, David Tweteen, and the other members of the Mid-West seminar on the sources of Gundissalinus’s epistemological system, its peculiar merging of al-Farabi and Avicenna, the cosmological derivation of the universe and the influence of Abraham ibn Daud on this peculiar aspect of Gundissalinus’s reflection. But we also had the chance to discuss the intriguing treatise On the Peregrinations of the Soul in the Afterlife, a curious writing describing the ascent and descent of the soul after its separation from the body. One of the most precious moments of discussion, in general, and whose outcomes could be crucial under many respects for our understanding of the dynamics by which Avicenna and ‘the Arabs’ became part of the Latin philosophical tradition.
The days I spent in Milwaukee were then crowned by two further events. The first one is my attendance at Richard Taylor’s graduate course, where I met Marquette’s graduate students. They are so prepared and working on many interesting issues, and it is awesome to see how philosophy and research perpetuate themselves into the new generations – and the spirit of Avicenna appeared. Philosophy and knowledge in general have a development similar to what the Persian philosopher stated (following another friend of us) on the individuals who perpetuate the species through their offspring. But we often forget that when we give to anyone even just a glimpse of reflection (a lecture, a lesson, or just a few words), we are performing a maieutic operation, so important and so precious. The second event in Milwaukee is quite unrelated to academia or medieval philosophy, but not less historical: the Chicago Cubs won the World Series, and that’s a sort of ‘huge happening’ that I am so proud to have witnessed, even if just watching it on TV. Baseball is such a mental game – I’d even say, the ‘perfect’ game – and its discovery has been one of the best gifts I received by the period I spent in Notre Dame last year. As a chess game with a different ‘spirit’, baseball is like a medieval disputatio: you have to possess a vast knowledge of the authorities, reflect carefully, perform efficiently… and also have a bit of luck!
From Milwaukee I flew to Washington DC (with another flight cancelled and rebooked!), where I am now, revising my paper for the Colloquium at the University of South Carolina. Tomorrow afternoon, a long train trip (10:30h) will take me to Columbia, SC: I am sure I will have many things to add to this short update very, very soon. And in three days: presidential election!
You can view the video recording of this lecture HERE
Let the ‘Dominicus Gundissalinus Tour’ begin!
I’ll be giving a couple of talks in the US in October/November on Gundissalinus and the problems of cross-cultural exchanges of philosophical knowledge during the Middle Ages. Everyone is welcome!
31 October 2016 – Lecture, University of Notre Dame: Translation and Appropriation: Necromancy, Astrology, Alchemy, Notre Dame (IN), United States.
Abstract: The early-medieval traditional articulation of knowledge was based on the division between trivium and quadrivium expounded, posited under the authority of authors like Boethius and Martianus Capella. The human knowledge, thus, found its development through the seven liberal arts—grammar, rhetoric, dialectic, arithmetic, geometrics, music and astronomy. The seven liberal arts were accompanied, in the mind of any early-medieval scholar, by the twofold division of philosophy in theoretical and practical; and by the mechanical arts, from agriculture to architecture, to cynegetics and navigation, discussed by a vast number of classical and early-medieval sources, among which one has to remember at least Macrobius, Isidore of Seville, Augustine, Priscianus, and the Roman authorities such as Virgil’s and Vitruvius’s. Notwithstanding their undeniable bond with the classical (and pagan) authorities, in these medieval systems of knowledge there is no place for bizarre disciplines like astrology or divination, or demoniac arts like necromancy, while others were simply unknown, like science of gold-making that will be called alchimia. This situation will abruptly change in the second half of the twelfth century as a direct consequence of the translation movements from Arabic and Greek into Latin, a change of perspective that constitute the topic with which we are going to deal today. We will take into account two articulations of knowledge, the system proposed by Hugh of St Victor in his Didascalicon and that expounded by Gundissalinus in his De divisione philosophiae, pointing out how the scenario changes with the arrival of the ‘new’ sciences in the Latin West.
2 November 2016 – Lecture, Marquette University: Gundissalinus, Avicenna, and the Road to Paris, Milwaukee (WI), United States.
This talk is part of the Midwest Seminar in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, and you can find more information on my contribution HERE.
Abstract: Together with two further, anonymous works, the De causis primis et secundis and the Book on the Peregrinations of the Soul in the Afterlife, Gundissalinus’s writings mark the theoretical and even material path that will lead to the great receptions and criticisms of Avicenna and the other ‘Arabs’ in Paris and Oxford during the thirteenth century and beyond—from John Blund to Albert of Cologne, Thomas Aquinas, Roger Bacon, and Duns Scotus. Today we will try to cast some light on this very first stage of ‘theoretical appropriation’ of Avicenna’s doctrines in the Latin West.
11 November 2016 – Talk: Dominicus Gundissalinus and the Renovation of Medieval Philosophy, Colloquium: Translation and Philosophy: Gundisallinus and Ibn Daud in 12th Century Spain, University of South Carolina, Columbia (SC). Abstract: Gundissalinus’s contribution is crucial and developed in a twofold way. On the one hand, indeed, the translating activity pursued by Gundissalinus and his participation to the ‘Avicenna project’ with Abraham Ibn Daud made available to the Latin public texts whose relevance is undeniable for the subsequent Aristotelization of medieval philosophy: and this is the case of Avicenna’s De anima and Liber de philosophia prima. But Gundissalinus’s choice to translate also peculiar writings like al-Kindi’s De radiis or Ibn Gabirol’s Fons vitae had permanent consequences on the reflections of many philosophers, like Grosseteste or Bacon. On the other hand, the second and even more important contribution by Gundissalinus is his original philosophical speculation as it is offered in the treatises he wrote. With those writings, Gundissalinus tried to fill the gap in the Latin philosophical framework in which he received his education, and thus, in the first place, Chartres. He tried to exceed the limits of the Timaic Platonism, criticising the doctrine of primordial chaos in a Gabirolian basis; refusing the theory of the demiurge following Avicenna’s doctrine of necessary being; revising the cosmological Platonism of Hermann of Carinthia’s De essentiis by putting them under a crypto-Aristotelian natural lens. The very same effort can be seen at work on Gundissalinus’s elaboration of a new articulation of science, the De divisione philosophiae, where he proposes a lay system of knowledge that could be able to integrate the new disciplines whose knowledge was made available thanks to the translation movement. And finally, a very similar scenario is provided by the consideration of his De anima, and his theoretical effort at assimilating the great news of the time, that is, Avicenna’s psychology.
15 November 2016 – Talk: Gundisalvo, Guillermo de Auvernia, y el problema de atribución del ‘De immortalitate animae’, VII Congreso Internacional Iberoamericano de la Sociedad de Filosofía Medieval De relatione, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Barcelona (ES), 14-16 November 2016.
Abstract: Entre las obras atribuidas a Gundisalvo, el tratado De immortalitate animae pone algunos problemas de primaria importancia. De hecho, existen dos versiones de la obra, con dos diferentes tradiciones manuscritas que atribuyen el tratado a Gundisalvo y a Guillermo de Auvernia, aspecto que ha suscitado, en las últimas décadas, la refutación de la paternidad gundisalviana del De immortalitate por muchos autores. En esta contribución se tomarán en cuenta los datos presentados a favor y en contra de la atribución a Gundisalvo y a Guillermo, con particular atención a la ontología en que se basa en tratado y a la posible historia del texto. Por último, se intentará proponer una hipótesis de investigación que pueda contribuir a la vexata quaestio sobre la paternidad de esta obra muy peculiar.