14 October 2026, 11 am | San Francesco Complex - Classroom 2 | online at imt.lu/aula2

Abstract | My talk will be divided into two parts, one historiographical and the other historical. In the first, I shall revisit the judgements made by scholars of kalām regarding whether or not this discipline is philosophical in nature. I take issue with the tendency amongst modern Orientalists to refuse to regard kalām as philosophy, and I align myself with Leibniz’s interpretation, who had discerned, between the lines of Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed—and despite the latter’s own views—the philosophical nature of kalām. In the second part, I’ll draw a parallel between Leibniz on the one hand, and Abū al-Huḏayl and al-Naẓẓām on the other, by showing that on two occasions—first in the 9th century in Baghdad, then in the 17th century in Paris—the same use was made of Sextus Empiricus’s discussion on the possibility of motion. This leads to the argument that, if kalām is to be regarded as ‘philosophical’, it is not simply because of the technical and conceptual eminence of its authors, but also because this discipline, following Epicurus, asserts and develops an intuitionist doctrine of truth. Avicenna, as we shall see, had sensed the importance of the Epicurean intuitionist model for understanding kalām.

19 May 2026, 10 am | San Francesco Complex - Classroom 2 | online at imt.lu/aula2

Abstract | In this communication, I wish to highlight the reception of a well-recognized problem of propositional semantics and to explore the ways in which the tradition of the late logic text of the Muslim tradition, the Sullam al-ʿulūm, tried to resolve it.  The text in question was written by the seventeenth-century philosopher and legal theorist, Muḥibballāh al-Bihārī.  In the training circuits of Muslim South Asia, it quickly became the most advanced text in the discipline and garnered about 100 commentaries in Arabic, Persian, and Urdu in the course of some two hundred years.  The work is pithy and allusive and follows a curatorial logic and leads its future commentaries into the resolution of aporiae by means of an economy of hints.  The problem I intend to discuss here is one such case.

The issue under consideration is whether a suitable interpretation can be offered that would allow affirmative propositions with empty subject tags to be valid.  Such tags can refer to that which is impossible or, in the case of existential propositions, to that which does not exist.  Three principles appear to lie at the crux of the matter and are productive of the difficulties.  I explore these principles below and then turn to the solutions offered.

12 May 2025, 5 pm | San Francesco Complex - Classroom 1 | online at imt.lu/aula1

Abstract | This talk will explore the lexicon of partition (kitāb, book, maqāla, treatise, fann, section, taʿlīm, teaching, ǧuzʾ, part, ǧumla, whole) in Avicenna's oeuvre (with a specific focus on the Šifāʾ and the Qānūn) as a vantage point to unravel the criteria he uses to conceive the internal organization of his works and how these criteria reflect his partition of philosophy and his idea of philosophical practice.

3 April 2025, 3 pm | San Ponziano Complex - Conference Room | online at imt.lu/conference

Abstract | Graeco-Arabic Lexicography. What is it about? ― What can it contribute to traditional Greek and Arabic lexicography? ― How can editors of ancient Greek or medieval Arabic philosophical and scientific texts benefit from it?

20 March 2025, 4 pm | San Francesco Complex - Classroom 1 | online at imt.lu/aula1

Abstract | Can woman be defined? Is it possible to identify characteristics intrinsic to her nature that would render her a subject of distinct definition, or does she, like man, belong to the human species, sharing in its definition in every respect? If the latter is the case, how then should one interpret the biological and social differences that distinguish her?

This lecture seeks to examine the response provided by Averroes, the Andalusian philosopher of the twelfth century, to these fundamental questions. By weaving together metaphysics, biology, and political thought, Averroes argues that woman fully partakes in humanity while being marked by variations that may influence her access to her ultimate realization. Through an analysis of his commentaries on Plato’s Republic and Aristotle’s Metaphysics, we shall elucidate the ontological and biological foundations upon which Averroes challenges the socio-political restrictions imposed upon women and articulates a vision that, while acknowledging differences, rejects their essentialization.

27 January 2025, 2.30 pm | San Francesco Complex - Sala della Botte | online at imt.lu/saladellabotte

14 October 2024, 5pm | San Francesco Complex - Classroom 2 | online at imt.lu/classroom2

Abstract | The seminar will first survey the historical losses of manuscripts in recent times and the current situation of manuscript trafficking in Afghanistan. Then pictures of manuscripts that have been stolen in the last three years and successfully confiscated will be shown. In the end, based on the examples proposed, an analysis will be proposed of the tricks that smugglers use to hide that a manuscript is stolen and to sell manuscripts through auction houses.

6 May 2024, 4pm | San Francesco Complex - Sagrestia | online at imt.lu/sagrestia

Abstract | The aim of this talk is to critically analyze the “essential/substantial (dhātī)-descriptional/qualitative (waṣfī)” distinction in Avicennian logic, which is often claimed to exist in modern Islamic logic studies in the context of categorical propositions, and to question the possibility of obtaining a consistent essential - descriptional distinction about categorical propositions. To this end, in this talk, first, the types of necessary propositions in Ibn Sīnā (d. 428/1037) will be explained since they are largely taken as the basis for the explanations of essential - descriptional distinction in contemporary Islamic logic studies, and then two interpretations of general absolute propositions, which have critical importance in this context, will be introduced. After that, the explanations in the secondary literature on the distinction between essential and descriptional propositions will be analyzed in the center of Tony Street’s views on the subject, who has authored pioneering studies in Islamic logic. The main claim of the talk is that in Avicennian logic it is not possible to make a consistent essential-descriptional distinction that covers all categorical propositions and, as a result, the explanations of this distinction in the secondary literature are misleading.

12 April 2024, 2pm | San Francesco Complex - classroom 2 | online at imt.lu/aula2
Watch here

Abstract | Albertus Magnus’ interest in alchemy is a topic that has attracted the attention of modern scholarship for some years now. All studies dedicated to this topic have depicted Albertus’ positive attitude towards alchemy and the possibility of alchemical transmutation by referring to his De mineralibus. Specifically, in the ninth chapter of the third book of the De mineralibus, the Dominican master explicitly states that “alchemical transmutation is possible if a metal is reduced first to prime matter” and thus this statement has offered ample ground for affirming and arguing for Albertus’ favorable position towards alchemy. Yet, this Albertian statement (taken from Avicenna to be more accurate) is far from conclusive on the matter since it creates new questions that need to be answered. Namely, on the one hand, one may ask how it is possible for “prime matter” to stand without a form and, on the other, how and if an alchemical transmutation can really take place.

This presentation aims to provide answers to these questions by exploring the natural-philosophical and metaphysical implications of Albertus’ alchemy. In particular, I will deal with three topics: firstly, I will show what is the notion of “prime matter” in Albertus’ alchemy and how it connects to the Aristotelian elemental theory and the doctrine of “symbola”. Then I will discuss the metaphysical aspects of the Albertian alchemy by dealing with the “problem of substantial form” and its connection with the notion of “formative power” (virtus formativa). Finally, I will explore a connection between Albertus’ alchemy and epistemological-metaphysical issues by dealing with the question of what kind of knowledge is needed by an alchemist in order to perform an alchemical transmutation and how such knowledge can be attained?

25 January 2024, 4pm | San Francesco Complex - Sagrestia | online at imt.lu/sagrestia

25 January 2024, 9am | San Francesco Complex - Sagrestia | online at imt.lu/sagrestia

8 November 2023, 10am | San Francesco Complex - classroom 2 | online at imt.lu/aula2

Abstract | While Aristotle considered, in De caelo iii, that geometry could only support continuism (i.e. the doctrine of the infinite divisibility of magnitudes), in the 9th century each of the two camps relies on geometry. The upholders of the continuum appealed to the infinite divisibility implied by the incommensurability of the side and the diameter of the square, while the supporters of infinitesimal thresholds (beyond which matter could no longer be divided) also looked to Euclid for arguments in their favour. We shall try to explain this new situation by taking new texts into account.

26 October 2023, 5pm | San Francesco Complex - classroom 1 | online at imt.lu/aula1

Abstract | In De interpretatione 9 Aristotle argues that an unrestricted application of a certain logico-semantic principle to declarative sentences about the future leads to a kind of determinism or fatalism. I show that the principle at stake is the Principle of Bivalence and discuss the text and structure of Aristotle’s argument from this principle to determinism.

6 June 2023, 5pm | San Francesco Complex - classroom 1 | online at imt.lu/aula1

Abstract | The thought experiment of the Flying Man, which Avicenna (d. 1037 CE) develops in several works, is controversial among scholars. But interestingly, the difference in interpretations has less to do with the content of the Flying Man than with its function. The dispute revolves around the question of what the Flying Man is for, what argumentative function it has, what Avicenna wants to show. By providing a critical edition of the psychology chapter from Avicenna's treatise 'The Easterners', I would like to shed new light on this question and show that the Flying Man is not an answer to the question of the nature of the soul. But neither is he a bridge to the discussion of substantiality that follows. What is he then?

Poster picture by Danninx, under a Creative Common License

5 June 2023, 5pm | San Francesco Complex - classroom 1 | online at imt.lu/aula1

Abstract | This seminar challenges the current trends in the field of global microhistory, especially the use of biography. Rather than the biography of a global go-between, this seminar offers an intensive contrastive microanalysis of ego-documents, mainly letters. It focuses on the letters exchange between the Moroccan Muhammad Bulghaith Al-Darāwi, imam of Livorno’s prisons between 1661 and 1666, and the Moroccan Jesuit Balthazar Loyola Mandes (1631-1667), Al-Darawi’s mentor during the process of Al-Darawi’s release and conversion to Catholicism. A comparative microanalysis of Al-Darawi’s letters in Arabic and the translations into Italian that Loyola Mandes penned for the Jesuits in Rome let us enter the gray-zones of Mediterranean captivity and unpack Loyola Mandes’s use of translation as a tool of self-fashioning across the Jesuit order and the Medici court. This close comparative observation of Arabic and Italian ego-documents and conversion narratives urges us to reflect on the relationship between ethnocentrism, multilingualism, and archival research.

21 March 2023, 5pm | San Francesco Complex - classroom 1 | online at imt.lu/seminar

Abstract | This talk will focus on the ‘zoological enterprise’ that Avicenna embarks on in his Book of Animals (Kitāb al-Ḥayawān, Liber de Animalibus), his only writing on this topic. In this regard, I will aim to answer two questions: 1) What is Avicenna’s goal in writing this book? 2) How does Avicenna reach his goal? In answering these questions, it is essential to consider the composition of the whole Book of the Cure/Healing (Kitāb al-Šifāʾ), to which the Book of Animals belongs, and its complementarity with the Canon of Medicine (Qānūn fī l-ṭibb). The anatomy and physiology of the organic body, that is, of the proximate matter of the living organism, is the field where (natural) philosophy and medicine interact, overlap, and conflict. According to my interpretation, in zoology as the philosophical study of the organic body, Avicenna aims to overcome the tensions between (Aristotelian) philosophy and (Galenic) medicine and to reconcile the two traditions and their different authorities (Aristotle and Galen) of which he is the heir. To reach his goal, Avicenna makes use of three different modalities: 1) explicit refutation of Galen’s arguments and defence of Aristotle (e.g. in the case of the origination of blood vessels and nerves and the issue of cardiocentrism); 2) explicit refutation of Galen’s arguments but concomitant adherence to and silent use of parts of his arguments (e.g. in the theory of the two semina and the development stages of the embryo); 3) insertion of medical principles within an Aristotelian theoretical framework (e.g. in the theory of humors within the exposition of the three levels of composition of the organic body). The thematic contexts in which these three modalities emerge have not been arbitrarily chosen. On the contrary, they represent areas of investigation that go beyond zoology and intersect other fundamental natural sciences such as psychology and meteorology.

10 October 2022, 5pm | San Francesco Complex - classroom 1 | online at imt.lu/seminar

Abstract | I propose that new materials from the Muqābasāt of al-Tawḥīdī should be attributed to the Arabic treatise On the Soul, which I argue is an extract from an authentic work by Porphyry. These materals contain indications of doctrines on the origin, nature and function of the union (ittiḥād) between the human soul and the divine Agent Intellect that are unattested in Porphyry’s extant Greek works, but may help to shed light on Avicenna’s hitherto unexplained violent reaction to and dismissal of Porphyrian noetics.

22 April 2022, 11am | San Francesco Complex - classroom 1 | online at imt.lu/seminar | in collaboration with MoMiLab

Abstract | Si ritiene in genere che la prima teoria scientifica delle maree sia quella di Newton. In questa presentazione, si mostra invece che: 1) Newton arrivò alla sua sintesi attingendo in modo essenziale a due tradizioni apparentemente contrapposte: quella che attribuiva il fenomeno della marea ai moti della Terra (sostenuta, tra gli altri, da Cesalpino, Sarpi, Galileo, Baliani e Wallis) e la teoria luni-solare, giunta a Newton attraverso Marcantonio De Dominis. 2) Entrambe le teorie precedenti trasmettevano aspetti parziali e complementari dell’antica teoria ellenistica delle maree, che Newton in larga misura ricostruisce.