Aquinas,                    Alfarabi,                          Avicenna,         Averroes,              Maimonides  &    Albertus

Member News & Activities

Members listed alphabetically:

Henryk Anzulewiscz

I am currently preparing the critical edition of "De quattuor coaequaevis" (Summa de creaturis pars I) of the Albertus Magnus. Moreover, I am working on a bilingual, Latin-German edition of the texts of Albertus Magnus on Synderesis, Conscience and Practical Reason (for Herders Bibliothek der Philosophie des Mittelalters).  In July I will took part in the congress of the S.I.E.P.M. in Porto Alegre (Brazil) and give a paper entitled "Medieval anthropology in transition* The lesson about the vires motivae animae rationalis of Albertus Magnus". In addition, there are book reviews, reports, various small studies on Albertus Magnus, and advising of visiting scholars (now Paloma Hernandez Rubio from UNAM, México City). 

Amos Bertolacci

Some of my recent/upcoming presentations:

1) "Tra Categorie e Metafisica: la dottrina della sostanza in Avicenna", Giornate internazionali di studi di filosofia antica: la sostanza e il movimento in Aristotele con alcune riprese tardoantiche, arabe e medievali, Università dell’Aquila, 29-30 May 2017 (org. Angela Longo) 

 2) “Is God a Substance According to Avicenna?”, International Conference of the Aquinas and the Arabs International Working Group, Creation and Artifice in Medieval Theories of Causality, The Warburg Institute, University of London, 1-2 June 2017 (org. C. Burnett, R. Taylor)

3) “Il dialogo interculturale tra Europa e mondo islamico nel Medioevo: un modello per il presente?”, European Academy of Religion 2017 - Ex Nihilo Zero Conference Hosted by Fscire,
Bologna, 18-22 June 2017

4)  “Alessandro di Afrodisia nella Metafisica di Avicenna e l’origine del De Causis secondo Alberto Magno”, Alessandro di Afrodisia nel Medioevo e nel Rinascimento. Convegno internazionale in ricordo di Paolo Accattino, Torino, 27 -28 ottobre 2017 (org. P. B. Rossi)

5) "Migrazione in Occidente: sulle traduzioni arabo-latine di Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā, m. 1037)" Le Migrazioni Nell’alto Medioevo, LXVI Settimana di studio, CISAM, Spoleto, 5-11 aprile 2018

Deborah Black

I recently completed an article on “Averroes on Imagination (Takhayyul) as a Cognitive Power,” and of course there is the chapter for Adamson’s volume, Interpreting Averroes, called “Constructing Averroes’s Epistemology.” I also completed a chapter on “Averroes and Avicenna on Memory” for the Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Memory, and one on the Internal Senses (in the Latin West) for the Cross-Paasch Routledge Companion to Medieval Philosophy. I am currently finishing a chapter on Avicenna’s Epistemology for Lagerlund’s volume on Knowledge in Medieval Philosophy, and of course, trying to write the Islamic Philosophy Book for Routledge (who has taken over Acumen).

Cristina Cerami

On the Arabic side, I am currently working on an Arabic-French translation of Averroes' middle commentary on Aristotle's Generation and Corruption. I have also begin to work on Avicenna's De Caelo of the Shifâ', that I also intend to translate. On the Greek side, I pursue my work on Alexander's of Aphrodisias commentary on the Methaphysics, as well as on Aristotle's himself Metaphysics (book K).

Senior Research Fellow (CR1)

CNRS, Laboratoire SPHERE (UMR 7219: CNRS/Université Paris 1-Panthéon

Michael Chase:

Translation of Ammonius, Commentary on the Isagoge for Sorabji's series

(Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

Critical edition, translation and commentary of Avicenna's notes on the

Theology of Aristotle (with M. Geoffroy, M.; Sebti, J. Janssens.

Therese Cory

I am working on a book on Aquinas's metaphysics of intellect, studying the nature of intellectual and intelligible being and the implications of Aquinas's metaphysical approach to knowing, for problems concerning representation and intentionality. Some other current projects include the identity of intellect and intelligible in late antiquity, the nature of light and color in the Arabic and Latin traditions, and what it means to be an embodied knower in Aquinas.

Therese-Anne Druart

I am working on a new installment of my bibliography for Islamic Philosophy and Theology.  I am preparing a paper on the influence of the various versions of al-Faravbi's De scientiis on Medieval Latin philosophers, as well as another paper on the influence of Avicenna and al-Farabi on Roger Bacon's "philosophia moralis" section of his Opus maius.

Ann Giletti

I am currently working on a Marie Curie-funded project entitled Boundaries of Science:  Medieval Condemnations of Philosophy as Heresy.  The project examines why some late 13th-century Latin scholastics labelled as "heretical" the theories of the Eternity of the World and the Unicity of the Intellect, even though technically speaking the theories were not heretical.

Jeremiah Hackett

I am working on the following items in Bacon.  1) completion of Translation with Introduction and Notes of Bacon’s Moralis philosophia (with Thomas S. Maloney).  2)  Critical edition of De Scientia experimentali and related texts.  3)  Nature, Law and Reason in Bacon’s Metaphysics and Natural Philosophy.

Jari Kaukua

I have a couple of papers lined up for this term. The first one bears the tentative title “The concept of ḥuḍūr before and after Suhrawardī”, and I will read it at a conference on Post-Classical Islamic Philosophy and Theology that my research project will organise in at the Finnish Institute in Rome on December 16-17. More information can be found at our website, www.islamicepistemology.com. The second paper is called “Attention and self-awareness in Islamic philosophy”, and I will read it at a workshop called Virtues of Attention: Global Philosophical Perspectives, to be held at December 18-19 at NYU Abu Dhabi.

Katja Krause

I recently accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at the Science, Religion, and Culture Program at Harvard Divinity School. Her fellowship is funded by the Leopoldina, Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina — Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften.

Olga Lizzini

Here  below you can find the titles of my main future publications: an article about historiography; an essay about prophecy (the introduction to J.B. Brenet's translation of Epistle on prophecies ascribed to Avicenna) and  the volume of the proceedings of the conference that J.B. and I organised in Paris in 2013:

 «L’Hippocrate, l’Aristote des Arabes [...] l’homme le plus extraordinaire que cette nation ait produit». Autour de l’historiographie avicennienne (et de l’historiographie de la pensée arabe) in C. König-Pralong et al., Outsiders and Forerunners (Proceedings of the Memophi Conference, Freiburg in Breisgau, May 2016), Brepols 2017 [in press].

«Le Langage de Dieu: autour de la 'Révélation' et de la prophétie chez Avicenne», in Jean-Baptiste Brenet / O. Lizzini (eds.), Avicenne. Epître sur la prophétie, translated by Jean-Baptiste Brenet, [coll. Translatio] by Vrin (Paris) [in press].

 La philosophie arabe à l’étude (with J.B. Brenet), Proceedings of the International Conference Studying Arabic Philosophy. Meaning, Sense and Limits of a Modern Discipline, Paris, 4-7 September 2013.

Luis Lopez-Farjeat

I am preparing the volume "Islamic Thought: A Philosophical Introduction" for Routledge, and a piece on Averroes' philosophy of religion for the Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Religion. I just finished a book on reasons, beliefs and arguments in Islamic philosophy, that will be published in Spain by the end of the year. I am going to Lebanon to present on Aquinas, Ghazali and Maimonides, and to introduce our work in that country. In November I am going to Princeton to a colloquium on Islamic Philosophy organized by Anver Emon. 

Pedro Mantas

I’m nearly finishing my research on the topic I presented in our meeting last year in Córdoba: The Latin and Muslim roots of the Mozarabic treatise “Trinitizing the Unity (of Godhead)”. To my surprise in the Latin side of the questions not only Peter Abelard’s Trinitarian conception but also Hugh of Saint Victor’s triad and doctrine is more perceptible than expected.

Isabelle Moulin

Finishing the edition of a new book about Beauty and the Beautiful in the Middles Ages; working on a book about Art and Beauty.

Tim Noone

Most recently, I have been editing, along with my colleagues Joshua Benson and Mark Clark, texts from book II of the Sentences commentaries of Hugh of St. Cher, Jean de la Rochelle, and Odo Rigaldus, while having an eye to what Albert and Thomas say at the same places.  What is emerging is the influence of Avicenna and Averroes on the entire discussion along with the surprising importance of John Damascene in framing some of the issues.

Catherine Peters

I am a doctoral candidate at the Center for Thomistic Studies (University of St. Thomas, TX) working on Avicenna's natural philosophy. My dissertation is on "The Causality of Nature in Avicenna's Physics of the Healing" under the direction of R. E. Houser

Nicola Polloni

6-7 November 2017, I will participate in the workshop “Pre-Modern Sciences and Religions” at Harvard Divinity School organised by Dr Katja Krause.

9-11 November 2017, I will be in Toronto for the History of Science Society meeting, giving a talk titled “Sciences of Matter? Knowledge of the Material Substrate in the two Bacons” on November 11th.

16-19 November 2017, I will be in Dallas for the American Catholic Philosophical Association meeting, giving a talk titled “Accordance and Strife: Encounters with Modernity at the Beginning of the 13th Century” on November 17th.

16 January 2017, I will participate in the conference “Explicatio y ratio naturae. Comprensiones medievales sobre el origen del universe” at the University of Navarra, giving a talk titled “Dominicus Gundissalinus and Daniel of Morley on the Establishing and Conserving Causality of the Universe”.

January-February 2018, I will be in Pamplona with as Visiting Scholar at the University of Navarra, where I will give a seminar on the History of Natural Philosophy.

10-13 May 2018, I will be in Kalamazoo, giving a talk titled “Roger Bacon on Matter, Between Aristotle and Experience”.

I am preparing a session for the British Society for the History of Philosophy congress, which will be held in Durham in April. The congress topic is ‘habits’, and I’d like to propose a session on habitus/habitudo in Medieval Philosophy (cross-cultural and interdisciplinary). If anyone is interested, please, contact me asap.

Carl Still

I am writing a historical overview of conscience among medieval thinkers and will then pursue further the issue of why conscience (sometimes) binds even when erroneous. My other project concerns the rationality and intelligibility of faith in Bonaventure and Aquinas.

I will be attending the ACPA meeting in Dallas in November and am planning to attend the International Congress in Kalamazoo next May. I look forward to hearing papers in AAIWG sessions at both conferences and to seeing members of the working group.

Richard Taylor

I seem always to be working on the Liber de causis, Averroes and Aquinas. I am on sabbatical for the 2017-18 academic year to complete a readable for non-specialist and specialist alike on Five Key issues in Aquinas for which the Arabic tradition was essential. I am teaching on this at Leuven in the Fall and Pisa in the Spring thanks to a Fulbright Global Flex Fellowship.