Medieval Aristotelianism

What is the relationship between friendship and human flourishing? This is a central topic in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and one to which Maimonides also returned throughout his career. Despite the relative neglect of this topic in recent scholarship, I argue that friendship (philia) was an important link between moral and intellectual perfection for Maimonides. He identified Aristotle’s virtue friendship with the love between students and teachers and also interpreted many of the divine commandments as efforts to promote both family and virtue friendship among the Jewish people. Friendship was aligned thematically in Maimonides’ writings with topics like kinship and sexuality, circumcision, and the ethics of speech, all of which point in different ways to the unresolved tension between rational and sensual aspects of our human condition. This article therefore contributes to the investigation of the relationship between Maimonides’ legal and philosophical writing on social themes. While Aristotle clearly influenced his reading of biblical and rabbinic texts for example, I will also argue that Maimonides’ religious and communal commitments helped to push his reading of Aristotle in a broadly inclusive direction— both with respect to the range of different goods that are appropriate to an ideal human life as well as the potential accessibility of those goods to different classes of persons. I offer this article as a corrective to the exaggerated focus on seclusion and solitary contemplation that has characterized academic scholarship on Maimonides.

This study examines a number of different answers to the question: where does Avicenna demonstrate the existence of God within the Metaphysics of the Healing? Many interpreters have contended that there is an argument for God’s existence in Metaphysics of the Healing I.6–7. In this study I show that such views are incorrect and that the only argument for God’s existence in the Metaphysics of the Healing is found in VIII.1–3. My own interpretation relies upon a careful consideration of the scientific order and first principles of the Metaphysics of the Healing, paying attention to Avicenna’s own explicit statements concerning the goals and intentions of different books and chapters, and a close analysis of the structure of the different arguments found in the relevant texts of the Metaphysics of the Healing. I conclude that Avicenna’s explicit goal in I.6–7 is to establish the properties that belong to necessary existence and possible existence, which consists, not in a demonstration of God’s existence, but in a dialectical treatment of the first principles of metaphysics.

A cura di Massimiliano Lenzi, Olga L. Lizzini, Pina Totaro e Luisa Valente
🔗https://bit.ly/38AONTL
Sorgenti e fiumi, oceani e tempeste, navi e timonieri, naviganti, coste e porti, naufraghi e spettatori sulla riva costellano da sempre gli scritti dei filosofi, a volte nella loro dimensione di fenomeni naturali, spesso come immagini filosofiche e religiose. La duplice valenza dell’acqua come realtà e come metafora nella storia del pensiero antico, medievale e moderno è al centro degli studi raccolti nel presente volume, che, secondo prospettive e competenze molteplici, esamina il tema in una varietà di possibili implicazioni: scientifiche, antropologiche, metafisiche, etiche,
poetiche e religiose.
📚
M. Lenzi - O. L. Lizzini - P. Totaro - L. Valente, Prefazione. L’ACQUA COME REALTÀ FISICA E PRINCIPIO DI VITA. D. Quarantotto, L’universo liquido: Aristotele e la fisica nell’acqua – G. Zuccolin, L’umidità come principio di vita. Trasformazioni medievali di un tema classico tra medicina e filosofia – M. Nicoud, Le acque termali dei medici e dei filosofi medievali – P. Totaro, Le acque e la storia. Fossili e diluvio in Buffon. METAFORE DELLA NAVIGAZIONE. M. Lenzi - «Sicut nauta navis». Sailorly Elements for an Archeology of Late Antique and Medieval Aristotelianism – L. Valente, Tempeste e tria genera navigantium: metafore nautiche e filosofia nella tradizione latina tardoantica e altomedievale – M. Capozzi, «Instabilis tellus, innabilis unda»: il progetto di Kant di una stabile terra della verità e di acque navigabili per la ragione. METAFISICHE DEL FLUSSO E METAFORE DELL’ESSERE. F. Fronterotta, La metafora eraclitea del fiume e la sua interpretazione in Platone e Aristotele – R. Chiaradonna, Plotinus on Flowing Entities - O. L. Lizzini, A Flow, a Fountain of Life, a Vast Sea: Being and Its Metaphors in Arabic Philosophy. ACQUA E IMMAGINARIO RELIGIOSO. E. Norelli, L’acqua come frontiera tra spazio divino e spazio umano in apocalissi giudaiche e cristiane antiche – S. Pagani, «La perla bianca». L’acqua come sostanza e come metafora nel culto del Profeta – M. Mottolese, Hydraulic Imageries in the Kabbalistic Discourse. Metaphorics, Mythopoesis, and Ritual Context – A. L. Schino, Il diluvio come metafora dell’ira divina e la critica razionalistica di Agostino Nifo e Gabriel Naudé. POETICHE DELL’ACQUA. S. Gentili, Il «mare dell’essere» e il naufragio di Ulisse in Dante – H. Hohenegger, Metafore acquee e linguaggio in Goethe – L. De Fiore, Sirene a mare, ovvero «wo aber Gefahr ist, / wächst das Rettende auch!». Indice dei nomi.

This article examines two medieval thinkers—Averroes and Aquinas—on the kind of causation exercised by the agent intellect in “abstracting” or producing intelligibles from images in the imagination.  It argues that abstraction in these thinkers should be interpreted in causal terms, as an act whereby images in the imagination, through the power of the agent intellect, educe their intelligible likeness in a receptive intellect.  This Averroan-Thomistic causal approach to abstraction offers an intriguing alternative to the usual approach to abstraction as an epistemological content-sorting.  The article also demonstrates the extensive common ground uniting these thinkers’ cognition theories, despite Aquinas’s well-known rejection of Averroes’s theory of separate Intellects.

In this work, I argue that there is a non-trivial historical-theoretical context in which a sound, deductive argument for the immateriality of the human intellect can be given entirely based on Thomas Aquinas’s philosophical thought.

Aquinas presents several arguments for the immateriality of the human intellect. His preferred arguments for this conclusion are sometimes known as the two universality arguments, because they are based on the universal aspects of human intellectual cognition.

According to the argument from the universal scope of intellectual cognition, the intellect must be immaterial because it is capable of knowing the natures or essences of all material substances, which nothing material could do.

According to the argument from the universal mode of human intellectual cognition, the intellect must be immaterial because nothing material could cognize its objects in the abstract, universal mode of the intellect.

These two arguments have recently received critical scholarly attention. The scope argument is considered unsuccessful by nearly all of Aquinas’s recent commentators, whereas the mode argument has been frequently defended in the literature. However, the mode argument has also been criticized for an allegedly unjustified inference known as the “content fallacy”: just because something represents universally and thus immaterially, it does not follow that it is ontologically immaterial itself, unless further argumentation is provided.

Several replies have been given to the “content fallacy” objection, but these leave the matter inconclusive at best in my opinion. I think the "content fallacy" objection can be overcome, but this requires taking into consideration Aquinas’s views on how the intellect actively causes or abstracts the cognitive representations of the essences it cognizes. The resulting argument, which I call the causal universality argument, is nowhere found in Aquinas’s works in a dialectically satisfying form. However, it is an argument entirely based on Aquinas’s theoretical framework. Thus, even if it is an argument Aquinas never intended to make, it is an argument he could have coherently given without adding anything new to his philosophy.

Demonstrating the immateriality of the human intellect is important to Aquinas for several reasons. For example, it is a part of Aquinas’s larger project of trying to philosophically establish the incorruptibility and immortality of the human soul, which makes the resurrection of the human being at least a coherent possibility from a philosophical point of view. If the causal universality argument is sound relative to its proper theoretical context as I argue, then Aquinas has a good basis on which to argue for these further claims.

For Kant, Aristotle’s categories are arbitrary but brilliant and they don’t ultimately correspond to extramental reality. For Aquinas, however, they are rational divisions of extramental and real being. In this perennial and ongoing dispute the various positions seem to dissolve upon delving into the particulars of any one category. If, however, the categories are divisions of extra-mental being, it should be possible to offer plausible accounts of particular categories. I offer Aquinas’s unstudied derivation of the particular category quality as a test case to see how one could hold, and how Aquinas did hold, to a realism about Aristotle’s categories at a highly specific level. Although Aristotle divides quality into four species and some further subspecies, unlike Aquinas, he offers no reasons for these divisions. For Aquinas each accident is a particular mode of existing, i.e., it is a particular way that an accident exists in a substance. In the case of quality, this mode of existing follows substantial form and its real extramental causes or effects further divide it into four species. Aquinas’s account is both compelling and original, inspired by Aristotle but also un-Aristotelian. The paper concludes by comparing Aquinas’s account of quality with the best extant account of Aristotle’s quality, namely, Paul Studtmann’s.

Recent critics of Aquinas’ discussion of the soul in question Ia.75 of the Summa Theologiae, Joseph Novak and Robert Pasnau, have charged that he commits a fallacy in a number of places in arguing for the various characteristics of the soul, a fallacy that Pasnau dubs the Content Fallacy. The fallacy consists in attributing to the vehicle or act of cognition the characteristics of the object of cognition. Novak charges that Aquinas does so in arguing for the incorruptibility of the soul from the incorruptible character of the objects of thought. Pasnau attributes it to Aquinas in a number of places, including arguments that the soul is incorruptible and that it is immaterial. John Haldane presupposes the criticism, but attempts to reply to the critics and salvage the argument for immateriality in Ia.75.5 of the Summa Theologiae in order to put it to use in opposing contemporary Physicalism in the Philosophy of Mind. Primarily considering Haldane’s efforts to fix the argument, I argue that the critics and Haldane are mistaken in attributing the fallacy to Aquinas and Ia.75.5 in particular. The critics and Haldane identify the object of understanding with an immaterial abstract univer- sal. If Aquinas’ arguments commit the fallacy, presumably Aquinas should also have argued that the soul is an abstract object and a universal. But he does not do so. In addition, the fal- lacy presupposes a theory of representation of intentional objects that Aquinas does not hold. Finally, Ia.75.5 is misread as arguing for immaterial subsistence in the effort to make it address Physicalism, and needs to be placed within the Aristotelian analysis of change from potency to act in cognition in order to properly understand what it is arguing for.

From the English edition of Nova et Vetera, vol. 12, no. 3, 2014: 837-861.  Responds to Norman Wells' charge that John Capreolus renders essence impervious to God's causality by the way C. explains the real distinction of essence and existence.  Wells' reading of C. is dependent on W. Norris Clarke's understanding of the formal object of metaphysics expressed in the latter's article, "What is Really Real?"

Pre-print. The essay focuses on vernacular Aristotelianism in Renaissance Italy, which began to gain currency in the 1540s, just as the vernacular was beginning to establish itself as a language of culture and the Counter-Reformation was getting underway. With over three hundred printed and manuscript works, the statistics of this phenomenon are impressive. Even so, the vulgarization of Aristotle in the Italian Renaissance has never received the scholarly attention it deserves. The paper examines (1) the identity of the recipients of Aristotle's vulgarizations, (2) the meaning of the process of vulgarization, and (3) the conception of knowledge that such writings brought to the culture of the Cinquecento. The purpose is to show that (1) vernacular renderings of Aristotle's works were aimed at the " people, " including " idiots " (men lacking culture or knowledge of Latin), " simpletons, " " ignorants, " and " illit-erates " as well as princes, men of letters, women, and children, (2) vulgarization was not simply a matter of disseminating, simplifying, and trivializing knowledge, and (3) vulgarization upheld the notion of widespread knowledge.

La rivista, che si avvale della collaborazione degli studiosi di tutto il mondo, accoglie edizioni di testi, anche inediti e poco conosciuti, e studi sul pensiero filosofico della tarda Antichità e del Medioevo, spaziando dalla cultura latina a quella greca, araba ed ebraica. Le annate 1-3 sono state pubblicate in fascicoli semestrali; dall'annata 4 il periodico ha scadenza annuale.
Pubblica articoli in lingua inglese e nelle principali lingue europee. Ogni articolo è corredato da un abstract in lingua inglese.
Tutti gli articoli sono sottoposti al giudizio di uno o più revisori anonimi. La decisione in merito alla pubblicazione spetta al direttore, tenuto conto del parere dei revisori.
"Documenti e studi sulla Tradizione filosofica medievale" è interamente consultabile on line al sito www.mirabileweb.it.

CENTRO DI STUDI SULLA FORTUNA DELL’ANTICO “EMANUELE NARDUCCI”

16° Giornata di Studi   
ASPETTI DELLA FORTUNA DELL’ANTICO
NELLA CULTURA EUROPEA

VENERDÌ 15 MARZO 2019
Convento dell’Annunziata, Baia del Silenzio - Sestri Levante

Ore 9.00 Indirizzi di saluto delle Autorità, del Dirigente Scolastico del Liceo ‘Marconi-Delpino’, prof.ssa Daniela Loero, e del Coordinatore del ‘Centro di Studi sulla Fortuna dell'Antico’, prof. Sergio Audano

Ore 9.30 Presiede GIOVANNI MENNELLA, Università di Genova

ALESSANDRO GHISALBERTI (Università Cattolica di Milano),
Aristotele e il cambio dei paradigmi filosofici nell'Occidente medioevale
ANGELA G. DRAGO (Università di Bari),
L’eroismo tragico dell’ultimo Leopardi e il recupero impossibile della classicità
GIULIO FIRPO (Università di Chieti),
Garibaldi tra dittatura degli antichi e dittatura dei moderni
Discussione

Ore 13.00  Intervallo e ristoro

Ore 15.00 Presiede GIOVANNI CIPRIANI, Università di Foggia

ALFREDO CASAMENTO (Università di Palermo),
Dimenticare(?): come finisce una guerra civile. Un tema retorico e politico tra antico e moderno
GRAZIA MARIA MASSELLI (Università di Foggia),
Ariovisto il 'tudesco'. Il tema della vanagloria in Carlo Emilio Gadda
LUCIA PERRONE CAPANO (Università di Foggia),
Riscritture: “Die Schutzbefohlenen” (I rifugiati coatti) di Elfriede Jelinek e “Le Supplici” di Eschilo

Ai sensi della legge 107/2016 il Liceo “Marconi-Delpino” è soggetto
accreditato per la formazione del personale della scuola. Il convegno è
pertanto valido come aggiornamento per i Docenti che vi partecipano. Verrà rilasciato attestato di partecipazione.

El presente artículo propone una nueva interpretación de la filosofía de Avicena y su problemática relación con la mística. En dos de sus enciclopedias filosóficas, Avicena introduce algunos problemas referidos a la verificabilidad de las afirmaciones empíricas y al conocimiento del Primer Principio (es decir, el Existente Necesario). Teniendo en cuenta los límites del conocimiento especulativo tanto para el plano empírico como el metafísico, Avicena menciona diferentes modos de vida práctica para relacionarse con dicho Primer Principio: la profecía o legislación (nubūwa), la observancia religiosa de la ley (ʿibāda), el ascetismo (riyāḍa) y la filosofía. Veremos que una práctica filosófica superior (exclusiva para los ʿārifūn, conocedores o gnósticos, y caracterizada por el desprendimiento del mundo físico) diverge radicalmente de aquellos otros caminos prácticos y políticos para relacionarse con el Existente Necesario.

This study offers a new interpretation of Avicenna's philosophy and its problematic nexus with mysticism. In two of his philosophical summae, Avicenna develops some problems concerning the verifiability of empirical statements and the knowledge of the First Principle, i.e., the Necessary Existent. Considering the limits of speculative knowledge regarding both the empirical and the metaphysical domains, Avicenna ponders different practical ways of relating to the First Principle: prophethood or lawmaking (nubūwa), the religious observance of law (ʿibāda), ascetism (riyāḍa), and philosophy. We will see that a higher philosophical practice (distinctive of the ʿārifūn, knowers or gnostics, and characterized for the detachment of the physical world) strongly diverges from the rest of those traditional ways of practical and political life.

Questo articolo fornisce una nuova interpretazione del pensiero di Avicenna e del suo problematico legame con la mistica. In due delle sue enciclopedie filosofiche, Avicenna espone alcune difficoltà riguardanti la verificabilità delle asserzioni empiriche e la conoscenza del Primo Principio, vale a dire, dell’Essere Necessario. Dunque, considerando le barriere della conoscenza speculativa in rapporto al mondo empirico ed al mondo metafisico, Avicenna esamina diverse forme di relazione pratica con il Primo Principio: la legislazione o profetismo (nubūwa), l’osservanza religiosa della legge (ʿibāda), l’ascetismo (riyāḍa) e la filosofia. Osserveremo che una più alta pratica filosofica (distintiva dei ʿārifūn, conoscitori o gnostici, e caratterizzata per il distacco intellettuale del mondo fisico) contrasta decisamente dal resto dei modi tradizionali di vita pratica e politica.

[ES] El principal centro intelectual y de traducción en la península ibérica en los siglos XII y XIII sin duda fue la Escuela de Toledo o también llamada Escuela de Traductores de Toledo. Jourdain fue uno de los primeros que se percató de la importancia de ella, y de ello dio cuenta en los resultados preliminares de sus investigaciones en 1819. Las referencias a la Escuela de Toledo, desde entonces, y, en especial, las controversias sobre su significado, existencia e importancia no han cesado y tampoco hay acuerdos sobre ciertos aspectos básicos, debido sobre todo a una mezcla de intereses intelectuales, políticos, sociales e identitarios. Naturalmente en este trabajo no pretendo solucionar dichas controversias, sino tan sólo ofrecer algunas precisiones históricas y semánticas relativas al significado de la noción Escuela de Toledo. Así, en primer lugar, contextualizaré el origen de la denominación Escuela de Traductores de Toledo, para ello analizaré las contribuciones germinales de Jourdain y Rose; luego describiré la recepción de estas nociones en Renan y Menéndez Pelayo, y finalmente, ofreceré unas notas para la comprensión de la noción de Escuela de Toledo, que estarán centradas en examinar: (1) la importancia de Toledo; (2) la existencia de una escuela formal; y (3) la actividad realizada en Toledo.
[EN] The main intellectual and translation center in the Iberian Peninsula in the twelfth and thirteenth century, without a doubt, was the School of Toledo, or also called School of Translators of Toledo. Jourdain was one of the first to realize the importance of it, and he gave an account in the preliminary results of his research in 1819. Since then, references to the Toledo School, and, especially, disputes over its significance, existence and importance have not ceased, and so, there are no agreements on certain basic aspects, due above all to a mixture of intellectual, political, social and identity interests. Naturally, in this work I do not intend to solve these controversies, but only to offer some historical and semantic precisions regarding the meaning of the School of Toledo notion. So, first, I will contextualize the origin of the denomination School of Translators of Toledo; for this, I will analyze the germinal contributions of Jourdain and Rose; then, I will describe the reception of these notions in Renan and Menéndez Pelayo, and finally, I will offer some notes for the understanding of the notion of Toledo School, which will be focused on examining: (1) the importance of Toledo; (2) the existence of a formal school; and (3) the activity carried out in Toledo.

An essential challenge of Aristotle’s Politics arises from the juxtaposition of contrasting and competing arguments in favour of virtuous monarchy, on the one hand, and the collective superiority of “the many”, on the other. This paper examines the purely theoretical reception of this contrast in the writings of some late medieval Aristotelians by focusing on a key section in Politics Γ (1280a8–1284b34). After reviewing Aristotle’s problematic position, the paper discusses its interpretation in the commentaries of Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas/Peter of Auvergne and Walter Burley, as well as its use in the works of Giles of Rome, John of Paris and Marsilius of Padua. On that basis, finally, the paper outlines some general trends with regard to how medieval scholars dealt with Aristotle’s idea of the rule of the many as opposed to that of one or few virtuous persons.

Alexander the Great has been used as a positive and negative archetypefor Ethics of European kings. These pages are focused in the pseudo- Aristotelian doctrine that the Libro de Alexandre spreads. transmits. Three virtues which are specifically required for kings (and nobles) have been
chosen: liberality, magnificence and magnanimity. These virtues are essential for a good ruler, in order to run the kingdom properly. These virtues also strengthen the royal legitimacy. The purpose of this paperis to analyse how
the Aristotelian advices have been considered in the Hispanic and Christian context of the Thirteenth Century in which the Libro de Alexandre was written. The analysis is directed to prove if Alexander´s «fall» is a consequence of his disobedience to the Philosopher´s advices or, on the contrary, it is the consequence of an incompatibility between the Aristotelian Ethics and the Christian Doctrine about the wealth and fame.

In defense of the immortality of the soul Thomas Aquinas uses body-soul-hylomorphism  in a way that seems to be quite different from the Aristotelian paradigm.

„Thomas von Aquin zum Verhältnis von Leib und Intellekt”, in: U. Meixner/ A. Newen (Hgg.), Seele, Denken, Bewusstsein. Zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Geistes, Berlin/New York: De Gruyter 2003, 124-152.

In the De sensu et sensato, VI Aristotle asks whether sensible qualities are infinitely divisible in the same way as bodies are infinitely divisible, as is proved in Physics, VI. Defending the continuity of sensible qualities, he affirms that they are infinitely divisible and that beyond the apparent minima sensibilia all the parts in which a thing and its qualities can be divided are still potentially sensible. But what does it mean to be « potentially sensible » ? Aristotle seems to say that beyond a certain threshold a part cannot continue to exist with the same sensible form. So, beyond the minima sensibilia parts are only potentially sensible as long as they are parts of a bigger whole. This assertion became a puzzle for commentators in Late Antiquity. In the 14th Century, the French philosopher John of Jandun treats this puzzle in three distinct quaestiones on the De sensu and sensato and develops an original point of view inspired by Alexander of Aphrodisias. According to him, it is conceivable that very small sensible things continue to exist on their own without being sensed by any kind of cognitive faculty. Therefore, these minute parts are not « potentially sensible » because they could be cognized by the senses in other circumstances, but only because they are sensible by nature though never sensed. But to affirm this is certainly not for John of Jandun a concession to the Atomist theory of sensible qualities. This paper endeavours to reconstruct the complex reasoning behind this medieval conception of the sensible world.

The University Ca' Foscari of Venice has won 15 'Marie Curie' individual research fellowships, placing it among the top 10 European Universities for winning these scholarships, and setting a new Italian record. Ca' Foscari has set a benchmark for what can be seen as the 'Erasmus programme' for researchers. This European programme is named after the renowned scientist, Marie Skłodowska-Curie, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize. It carefully selects and finances the most gifted and talented minds by offering them the opportunity to lead their own scientific research moving between institutions and countries. The results of the competition were announced by the European Commission, which received over 9 million projects from scholars from all over the world and chose to fund the 1348 best applicants. The overall grant for Ca' Foscari amounts to 3.2 million euros. The rector of Ca' Foscari University of Venice Michele Bugliesi stated, " After the recognition of the Ministry of Education of the University of Research in the departments of excellence, this new outcome affirms our position among the best universities in the country, and places us among the top 10 European universities for Marie Curie Individual Fellowships. The funding that we have been given by the Marie Curie 2017 programme will bring 15 new profound researchers to Ca' Foscari, coming from ten different countries. With their research, they will contribute to the scientific development of the university and contribute to Ca' Foscari's increasingly international scope. It is the confirmation that our actions to improve the quality and appeal of our University are going in the right direction, and it is an incentive to continue investing in broadening our international scope in order to get even better. " The researchers that chose Ca' Foscari come from ten European countries including the UK; Germany; Spain; Poland and Romania, but also outside of Europe; the United States; Azerbaijan; Bangladesh and Costa Rica. The work of Costa Rican Alexander Araya testifies how a 'Marie Curie' can be a turning point in the career of a researcher. Araya, a sociologist who achieved his doctorate in Berlin, has lived as a freelance translator for three years, whilst keeping his dream of pursuing a research career alive by participating in competitions in Europe, the US, and Latin America. Eventually the idea of the 'Marie Curie', announced that it would reserve funds for young talented minds that intended on returning to research after a period of interruption in their career. " After a first unsuccessful attempt, I decided to contact Ca' Foscari proposing research in tourism, social movements and local communities and we started working on the project " he tells us. The study will focus on Venice, Barcelona and Amsterdam and will last for two years and will be conducted under the supervision of Professor Francesca Coin at the Department of Linguistic and Comparative Cultural Studies. There will be two returning researchers to Ca' Foscari. We also have Andrea Berardi, an expert in finance, who halted his research in favour of a managerial position in a Swiss pharmaceutical company, taking care of the stock exchange. Despite this, his passion for research never died and now he will deal with the bonds in the euro-area with Professor Monica Billio at the Department of Economics at Ca' Foscari. The Venetian University has successfully managed to win as many as 7 of the 137 Global Fellowships (which allow for two years of research outside of Europe, followed by a year within Europe), and 8 of the European Fellowships, which finance researchers during a two year period at Ca' Foscari. Of these scholarship holders, there are two philosophers. The first, Marco Faini, currently in England, will go to the University of Toronto. Whilst the second, Caterina Tarlazzi will go from Geneva to Indiana. The Polish sociologist, Anna Kordasiewicz, will study domestic work comparing Italy and the United States at the University of Massachusetts. The Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage will welcome the Spanish aesthetic researcher Carlos Vara Sànchez and Carlotta Minnella currently at Oxford. The German economist Nicole Tabasso will study information diffusion in networks, whilst the Bangladeshi Animesh Gain, currently in Germany, will go to the San Giobbe Campus after two years at the famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he will deal with an interdisciplinary approach to water resources. Ahmad Guliyev, from Azerbaijan, will deal with relations between the Middle East and Venice in the Department of Asian and North African Studies. The British classicist Thomas Coward (supervisor Ettore Cingano) and the Romanian historian Andrea-Bianka Znorovsky (supervisor Flavia De Rubeis) will work on their projects in the Department of Humanities. All areas of discipline at Ca' Foscari have achieved recognition from the Marie Curie Global Fellowship. TheDepartment of Environmental Sciences, Informatics and Statistics will welcome the paleontologist Elena Ghezzo, and glaciologist Pascal Bohleber from the University of Heidelberg. "This outcome is the result of the work of a talented close-knit team, which improves its results year after year, always offering effective support for European planning and develops coordinated actions for brain circulation", comments Dario Pellizzon, manager of Area Ricerca. "I remember the measures launched in recent years such as the 'Brain Gain' programme, 'Careers+', and the 'HRS4R Excellence in Research Award', all initiatives which have contributed to making both Ca' Foscari and Venice a place of international standing in the field of research, with competitive standards within the European stage. For this, we have the pleasure of thanking our wonderful team: Fiorella Giacometti, Claudia Bertocchi and Silvia Zabeo, who are of course already at work preparing the contracts of the 15 new Marie Curie researchers ". The Marie Curie Individual Fellowship The Marie Curie Individual Fellowship is part of the European programme for research and innovation, 'Horizon 2020'. This year, the European Commission has dedicated 248 million euros to the cause, an increase of 30 million from the last one. Of the 1,348 scholarships, 78 went to scholars that will finish their research in Europe, 46 for people returning to research after a pause in their career, and 137 are Global Fellowships (a period outside Europe, then re-entry). The Marie Curie scholarships fund experienced and talented researchers who intend on pursuing their own research project in an institution of their choice in a country other than the one they currently work in. It therefore encourages researchers to move around the globe and promotes the inter-university collaboration all over the world.

Las Siete Partidas de Alfonso X el Sabio representan uno de los primeros intentos de compaginar la ética aristotélica, entendida en su sentido más amplio, con los postulados del derecho romano justinianeo y, aún más, de convertirla en un elemento racional y vertebrador de una nueva forma de entender la ley, la justicia y el poder político. Conceptos como la ineludible interdependencia entre ética y política, el origen y la necesidad del poder político, la naturaleza del alma y la virtud ética, la sociabilidad del ser humano y la amistad como factor de cohesión social y de convivencia armoniosa, la prudencia política del legislador y los múltiples peligros de los regímenes tiránicos, entre otros, trascienden el ámbito estrictamente académico y escolástico para integrarse en un debate jurídico, social y político.

2-4 de noviembre de 2017, Casa de Velázquez, Madrid

En el aniversario de los 2400 años del nacimiento de Aristóteles, las áreas de Historia y Filosofía del Instituto de Ciencias de la Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento organizan un evento conmemorativo en el marco de las “Iras Jornadas Multidisciplinarias sobre el Mundo Antiguo y Medieval”, las cuales pretenden abrir un espacio de discusión e intercambio entre especialistas de las diferentes áreas.

La temática en esta ocasión propone reunir un conjunto de reconocidos especialistas para pensar y discutir tanto la obra de Aristóteles como los alcances de la misma durante estos 2400 años. La influencia de su obra es tan amplia y profunda que no requiere argumentos para justificar su importancia. No obstante, la oportunidad de revisitarla nos invita a examinar los fundamentos hermenéuticos, las proyecciones filosóficas, así como implicancias políticas para nuestro tiempo respecto de un legado intelectual tan vasto.

Las Jornadas tendrán lugar en la sede del Campus de la Universidad Nacional de General Sarmiento (Los Polvorines, Buenos Aires), el día jueves 18 de Agosto de 2016, Aula 103 (Módulo 1).

La presente investigación tiene por objetivo exponer algunos elementos de las filosofías de Ibn Gabirol y Maimónides que, a nuestro juicio, constituirían una puesta en tensión general del ejercicio especulativo-deductivo con el judaísmo (entendido como una condición psicohistórica concreta y determinada por un texto sagrado y la vida en diáspora de su comunidad), aspecto que conllevará en última instancia a un importante distanciamiento del itinerario filosófico respecto de la defensa de ciertos problemas y tesis fundamentales para esta forma de credo monoteísta, entre las cuales conviene destacar 1) la cognoscibilidad de la esencia divina, 2) la trascendencia de las almas individuales y 3) la creación ex nihilo del mundo. De este modo veremos, en primer lugar, que Ibn Gabirol le otorgará a la materia un lugar privilegiado en su cosmología al hacer de ella un principio y sustrato indeterminado, infinito e incausado –semejante a Dios– del cual toda entidad dependerá para existir; y, en segundo lugar, que Maimónides formulará una serie de tesis que nos permitirán concebir al mundo creado según una cierta autosuficiencia que se expresará tanto en el orden de los fenómenos cósmicos como en la vida ética de los individuos, dando paso así a un singular posicionamiento de una filosofía que prescinde del cuestionamiento por la trascendencia.

This article aims to expose some elements of the philosophies of Ibn Gabirol and Maimonides, elements which suppose, as we will see, a tensioning between the speculative-deductive exercise and Judaism (understood as a concrete and specific psychohistoric condition which refers to a sacred text and a specific life as a community in diaspora), something that will ultimately generate a major abandonment in the philosophical activity of certain key issues and doctrines of this monotheistic creed, including the questions of the knowability of the divine essence, the immortality of individual human souls and the creation ex nihilo. In this context, we will first describe the privileged place of matter in the cosmology of Ibn Gabirol, element that will be outlined (as well as God) as an indeterminate, infinite and uncaused reality from which every being depends for its existence; and, secondly, we will see that Maimonides formulates a group of theses that will allow us to conceive the physical world as an ontologically autonomous dimension that expresses this condition both in the order of cosmic-natural phenomena and the order of ethical life, leading thus philosophy to a secularization of his activity.

The time frame covered by this article goes from 1548 to 1606, i.e., the year of the foundation of the Collegium Artium by King John III of Portugal (1502–1557) to the year the last commentary on Aristotle was published. The main focus is given to the period from 1555 onward, when the college was entrusted to the Jesuits. A detailed study on the pedagogical discussions leading to the Jesuit Ratio Studiorum and the link to the Cursus Conimbricensis on the main works of Aristotle is then disclosed. The structure of the commentaries combining the Aristotelian text, a prose comment and up-to-date quaestiones on philosophical issues, creating thus a hermeneutic circle, a Corpus Aristotelicum Interpretumque, is explained, as well as the development it led to. Although the Jesuits chose to edit these commentaries as a group of authors, they could partly be identified. Finally, the legacy of these commentaries on the main European philosophical traditions up to the twentieth century is summarized.

This dissertation addresses the function of the scientific first principles in the overall argument of Avicenna’s (Ibn Sīnā, 980-1037) Metaphysics of the Healing (al-Ilāhiyyāt aš-Šifā’). Avicenna takes metaphysics to be an Aristotelian science whose many demonstrative arguments are rooted in its first principles. In order to set in relief the function of these first principles in the central argument of Avicenna’s metaphysics, this study’s first part commences with Avicenna’s theory of a demonstrative science in his logic. After establishing that Avicenna takes concepts to be the most fundamental kind of principle for any philosophical science, the dissertation turns to the primary concepts proper to metaphysics. Avicenna holds that the most fundamental philosophical concepts are being, thing, one, and necessary. This thesis tracks how Avicenna employs these four concepts to work out his grand metaphysical vision of reality, causality, and the existence and nature of God. The second part of the dissertation locates these primary concepts among the subject, principles, and objects of inquiry proper to metaphysics. The third and fourth parts of the thesis explicate at length Avicenna’s understanding of being, thing, one, and necessary and elaborates the way his philosophical exploration of these concepts ultimately leads to the conclusion of the central argument of the metaphysics, namely, that the study of being as being leads to metaphysical knowledge of God as the Necessary Existence in Itself. The dissertation concludes that the concept necessary is the most fundamental scientific first principle in Avicenna’s metaphysics, because it performs the most important function in the central argument of his metaphysics.

This doctoral dissertation was defended on December 5th, 2014 before:

Dr. R.E. Houser, Center for Thomistic Studies, University of St. Thomas, Co-director
Prof. dr. Andrea Robiglio, Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven, Co-director
Dr. Thérèse-Anne Druart, School of Philosophy, The Catholic University of America
Dr. Thomas Osborne, Jr., Center for Thomistic Studies, University of St. Thomas
Dr. Mary C. Sommers, Center for Thomistic Studies, University of St. Thomas

J’ai montré dans cet article que c’est sur une lecture qualitative de la physique aristotélicienne, dans laquelle le mélange joue un rôle crucial, qu’Averroès reconstruit la doctrine de l’accroissement proposée en DGC I 5 et nie l’existence en acte de parties indivisibles dans les corps vivants . L’accroissement, en effet, ne repose pas sur la juxtaposition d’une partie à une autre, mais sur le mélange de deux corps, i.e. la nourriture et la partie du corps nourrit, qui produit une nouvelle quantité douée de la même forme/qualité que le corps homéomère qui grandit . L’accroissement est d’abord possible par l’existence d’une même forme/qualité dans ces deux corps, à savoir l’humidité, qui demeure tout au long du processus et du point de vue de laquelle l’accroissement se produit . Cette qualité qui demeure ne suffit toutefois pas à expliquer le mélange et donc l’accroissement, car elle ne suffit pas à elle seule à rendre raison du fait que les parties agrandies deviennent tantôt des chair tantôt des os. Il faut en effet postuler qu’il y a une autre qualité active, une force (ﻘﻭﺓ) (qu’Averroès identifie à la chaleur naturelle ) qui agit sur la détermination qualitative de l’humidité, et qui produit, en suivant différentes proportions, tantôt un corps homéomère tantôt un autre. Cette force, précise pourtant Averroès, ne suffit pas, elle non plus, à expliquer le phénomène de l’accroissement, car il faut préciser que si elle peut agir comme cause agente, c’est seulement parce qu’elle est l’instrument de la seule véritable forme substantielle de l’individu : l’âme.