Collaborative Prospects

In academia, few experiences are as rewarding as the exchange of perspectives and interpretations. The primary arena for this intellectual interplay is shaped by conferences, volumes, and other collaborative frameworks, where the richness of philosophical research truly comes to life. On this page, you will find information about recent projects that I organised or co-organised – workshops, conferences, volumes, and summer schools. If you wish to learn more about any of these initiatives, feel free to reach out.

Glimpses of the Invisible: Visualising the Principles of Nature Before the Rise of Modernity

Workshop | Cordoba (ES) and Messina (IT), hybrid, 28-29 November 2024 | deadline: 30 June 2024

Call for Abstracts

In their historical course, philosophy and science have sought to understand the intrinsic functioning of the natural world. However, beneath the observable physical objects, these disciplines often envisioned a rich structure of unperceivable entities that were believed to constitute what we see in our world as either principles or basic constituents. This population encompasses series of physical objects too small to be seen (such as elements, atoms, and corpuscles), real entities lacking physicality (such as those maintained by late scholastic hylomorphism), onto-cosmological principles (such as 氣/qi, 理/li, and 太極/taiji in Chinese philosophy), as well as imaginary and abstracted objects of different kinds.

The workshop Glimpses of the Invisible: Visualising the Principles of Nature Before the Rise of Modernity aims to explore how premodern philosophers and scientists engaged with the visual representation of these principles and entities, as well as their interactions. These objects, being unperceivable, necessitated processes of abstraction (and sometimes, analogical transfer) from the manifold instances of physical bodies in which they reveal themselves. At times, this process resulted in the creation of explanatory diagrams, such as Zhou Dunyi’s 太極圖, whose impact transcended their initial clarificatory function to become self-standing theoretical devices. On other occasions, charts and schemes employed to elucidate the interconnections among abstract entities at times resulted in a reification of the entities they sought to clarify, as exemplified by the varied reception of Porphyry’s tree. Beyond abstraction, the study of how physical entities behave prompted the position of imaginary objects whose representation, as in the case of the celestial spheres, sometimes led to their ‘concretisation’ into new real entities.

Glimpses of the Invisible aims to shed light on the interconnection between theorisation and representation of the principles of nature. Whether these entities were considered as real, abstract, imaginary, or symbolic, the chosen means of representation often transcended their clarificatory function and laid the ground for new claims in ontology, natural philosophy, and science. By opening the discussion to various forms of visualisation (including diagrams, illuminations, charts, schemes, etc.) and diverse textual genres (from philosophical and religious commentaries to scientific treatises), the workshop seeks to start a global discussion on the interplay between abstract theorisation and graphic representation of natural principles in different linguistic and cultural settings. The goal is to foster a more nuanced appreciation of the impact that visualisations may have (and have had) on the theories they complement and their later interpretations.

Confirmed invited speakers
Dominique Demange (Paris) Xudong Fang (Shanghai) Yehuda Halper (Tel Aviv) José Higuera Rubio (Madrid) Giora Hon (Haifa) Lu Jiang (Guangzhou) Sara Salvadori (Florence) Tracy Wietecha (Berlin) Bichen Yan (Beijing).

Organisers
Serena Masolini, Universidad de Córdoba Nicola Polloni, Università di Messina.

Scientific Committee
Qinyong Fan (Yangzhou) Jules Janssens (Leuven) Shixiang Jin (Beijing) Katja Krause (Berlin) María del Carmen Molina Barea (Córdoba) Francesca Pentassuglio (Messina) Michela Pereira (Florence)

Practical information
The workshop will be conducted in a hybrid format on 28-29 November 2024, offering participants and attendees the option to either attend in person at one of the two venues (Cordoba and Messina) or join remotely via Zoom. Unfortunately, the organisers are unable to cover any expenses. Following a thorough peer-review process, accepted papers will be featured in a volume submitted to the book series Global Perspectives on the History of Natural Philosophy published by Routledge.

Submissions
Prospective participants are invited to submit a brief abstract (approximately 150 words) along with an image of the visual representation they wish to discuss to the workshop organisers, Serena Masolini (smasolini@uco.es) and Nicola Polloni (nicola.polloni@unime.it) by 30 June 2024.

[CLOSED] From Toledo to Gotha: New Perspectives on the Impact of Avicenna upon Sciences and Philosophy in Europe

Conference | Leuven (BE), 14-15 October 2022 | deadline: 31 July 2022

Call for Abstracts

Avicenna’s contributions have been pivotal for the development of knowledge in pre-modern Europe. Since the 12th century, his philosophical works had been made available in Latin and used to investigate metaphysical and natural problems, better understand Aristotle’s sometimes obscure doctrines, assimilate the reflections of thinkers like Alexander of Aphrodisias, but also to train generations of physicians to treat illnesses and grasp the fundamentals of embryology and the fabric of the human body. By focusing on the multilayered transfer of Avicenna’s theories to the Latin West, from the times of Domenicus Gundisalvi to the Europe of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and of the newly founded Academies of Sciences, From Toledo to Gotha aims to gather some of the most innovative researchers working on aspects of the “Avicenna Latinus”. What is the nature and precise extent of Avicenna’s impact on European thought? Is it possible to isolate a specific Latin “brand” of Ibn Sina’s thought distinct from and defined against its original, “Arabic” contents and system? Is it accurate to consider that – as it has been commonly written – the main Islamicate authority in Europe was Averroes instead of Avicenna? How deep Renaissance Avicennism reshaped the Platonic and Aristotelian legacies? Which are the characteristic features of the material transmission, translation, circulation, and reading of Avicenna’s (and Ps-Avicenna’s) writings throughout Europe on the eve of the Scientific Revolution?

A joint collaboration among KU Leuven, UCLouvain, and SOFIME, the conference will foster a general re-setting of the debate on the “Avicenna Latinus”, shedding light on some obscure aspects of his influence on European philosophy through an organic, longue-durée and inter-linguistic approach to his philosophical production. Avicenna’s role in the constitution of European philosophy and science will be examined by discussing a series of intertwined questions touching upon a plurality of domains and aspects, from the material production and circulation of the Latin translations of Avicenna’s works to the impact of the latter on philosophical doctrines and medical practices developed in Europe.

Keynote speakers
Brian Copenhaver (UCLA), Amos Bertolacci (Scuola IMT Alti Studi Lucca), Iolanda Ventura (University of Bologna), Raphaela Veit (University of Cologne).

Organisers
Cécile Bonmariage (UCLouvain), Sébastien Moureau (UCLouvain), Nicola Polloni (KU Leuven), Andrea Aldo Robiglio (KU Leuven).

Scientific Committee
Charles Burnett (The Warburg Institute), Silvia Di Donato (CNRS), Jules Janssens (Union Académique Intérnationale), Olga Lizzini (Université d’Aix-Marseille), Andreas Lammer (Radboud Universiteit), Pedro Mantas-España (Universidad de Córdoba), Cecilia Martini (Università di Padova), Gerd Van Riel (KU Leuven), Maarten Van Dyck (Universiteit Gent), Jacob Schmutz (UCLouvain).

Sponsoring Institutions
Sociedad de Filosofía Medieval (SOFIME), KU Leuven, UCLouvain, FWO (to be confirmed), FNRS (to be confirmed).

Submissions
In order to apply, please, send your abstract (around 250 words) to cdwm-isp@uclouvain.be by 31 July 2022. Feel free to contact the organisers for any further information. Pending funding, there may be possibilities to cover some of the participants’ expenses. More information will be provided soon.

Publication
All speakers will be asked to submit their papers to publication in a peer-reviewed volume that will be edited soon after the conference.

[CLOSED] Late Medieval Hylomorphism: Matter and Form, 1300–1600

Conference | Leuven (BE), 9-11 June 2022 | deadline: 31 January 2022

Call for Abstracts

Later medieval philosophers would claim that all bodies are compounds of matter and form. Yet, among themselves, their ways of conceiving of the two components tended to differ substantively. The conference “Late Medieval Hylomorphism” aims at disentangling the specificities of a long-lasting debate on hylomorphism, the scope and originality of which is still unknown. While hylomorphic issues in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century have received some scholarly attention, the later history of Scholastic hylomorphism is still to be explored. What were the main disputes concerning hylomorphism in the period? What were the main positions? Who were the interesting thinkers defending unusual points of view? These questions unfold at different levels of the ontological examination of substances. For instance, the debate about the modality of existence of prime matter conceived of as either a pure potency or an entity in act had profound impact on the later tradition up to the seventeenth century. In a similar manner, the contentious thirteenth- and fourteenth-century question of whether there is a plurality of substantial forms in any compound is present into the early modern period; but were new positions, arguments, and ideas develop over the course of the centuries? Moreover, an important view in thirteenth-century hylomorphic debates was the so-called theory of “universal hylomorphism”, which seems to disappear from the later debate; but is this in fact the case? A like question can be asked about the Augustinian notion of seminal reasons (rationes seminales). Additional central questions about the later medieval debate on hylomorphism ask about the ontological distinction between super- and sublunary matters, and the roles played by prime matter and substantial form in the process of substantial change. And underlying all these issues, thinkers had to address the lurking worry that no well-grounded reasoning on matter and form is possible when neither of the hylomorphic constituents can be known.

Our conference aims to bring together scholars working on hylomorphism especially between the early fourteenth and the early seventeenth century. We encourage submissions on any aspect of hylomorphism in the period.

Topics may include (but are not limited to) the following: the potency of prime matter; super- and sublunary matter; spiritual/universal hylomorphism; the unity or multiplicity of substantial forms; intension and remission of substantial forms; matter, form, and quantity.

Confirmed Speakers
Richard Cross, Helen Hattab, Thomas Jeschke, Kamil Majcherek, Sylvain Roudaut, Adam Wood

Practical Information
The conference, at this point, is planned to take place in hybrid mode. Participants who wish to attend in person are responsible for arranging travel to and accommodation in Leuven.

Sponsor
KU Leuven Internal Fund, grant C14/20/007

Submission
Please send abstracts of no more than 500 words to hylomorphism2022@gmail.com Deadline: 31 January 2022. Notification of Acceptance: 15 February 2022.

[CLOSED] Hylomorphism into Pieces: Elements, Atoms and Corpuscles in the Late Middle Ages (1400–1600)

Conference | Hybrid, Leuven (BE) and Stockholm (SE), 7-8 April 2022 | deadline: 30 October 2021

Call for Abstracts

Hylomorphism, the doctrine claiming that physical bodies are metaphysically composed of matter and form, was among the most successful, widespread, and influential theories in the later Middle Ages. Yet hylomorphism had its fair share of problems, which gradually arose during the later Middle Ages. In the 17th century, it became common to claim that the principles of matter and form are unnecessary to explain natural processes and the structure of beings. Like many conceptual shifts in the history of philosophy, detachment from the Aristotelian framework was in many respects the final result of a gradual evolution in the way in which matter and form were conceived and applied as speculative devices.

Important aspects of the strong oppositions to hylomorphism in 17th-century philosophy have been object of recent studies. Nonetheless, the story of how this doctrine and its associated concepts proper to Aristotelianism gradually declined in the late Middle Ages still has to be properly assessed, especially in consideration of the fundamental theoretical developments of the 15th and 16th centuries. Organised by Sylvain Roudaut (Stockholm) and Nicola Polloni (Leuven), the conference “Hylomorphism into Pieces: Elements, Atoms and Corpuscles in the Late Middle Ages” aims to fill this gap by studying the major steps of this story from the late 14th century to the late 16th century.

The rejection of hylomorphism as explanatory device for the constitution of natural bodies was drastically facilitated by the influence of competing justifications of the internal structure of bodies. The rediscovery of Lucretius’ De natura rerum in the early 15th century, together with new translations of other materials from Antiquity, generated new ideas about the structure of bodies and the type of explanation required for natural processes. But how were those new theories of matter received and integrated into the still dominant Aristotelian vocabulary of the time in the first place? To what extent did philosophers of the 15th and 16th centuries—including scholastic thinkers—try to reconcile hylomorphism and these new theories of matter?

Another crucial point of discussion is the theme of minima naturalia, which was originally discussed within the scholastic framework and in connection with problems proper to Aristotelian natural philosophy (such as the problems of spatial and temporal limits). But is it legitimate to regard late medieval theories of minima naturalia as corpuscularist or pre-corpuscularist conceptions of matter? To what extent did those theories pave the way for more radical corpuscularist conceptions of nature?

Finally, in Aristotelian natural philosophy, hylomorphism was accompanied by another theory of composition, taking bodies as elemental mixtures—those two types of composition being notoriously hard to reconcile. In what way did atomism affect the relation between those theories and benefitted the bottom-up approach typical of elemental composition? Similar questions can be asked about the notions of act and potency, which were increasingly detached from Aristotelian hylomorphism due to the development of corpuscularist accounts of motion.

With a hybrid format, Hylomorphism into Pieces will take place on 7-8 April 2022 in both Stockholm and Leuven, as well as in anyone’s laptop via Zoom. Interested participants should send their proposal (short abstract and title) to Sylvain Roudaut (sylvain.roudaut@hotmail.com) and Nicola Polloni (nicola.polloni@kuleuven.be) by 30 October 2021. Acceptance of the proposals will be announced by 15 November 2021. Please, contact the organisers for any query you might have.

[CLOSED] Fragmented Nature: Medieval Latinate Reasoning on the Natural World and Its Order

Volume | Editors: Mattia Cipriani and Nicola Polloni | deadline: 10 January 2020

Call for Papers

Human reflection has always looked to the natural world in search of images of complete, structured and accomplished perfection. Since Greco-Roman Antiquity, the conceptualization of nature has been a central aspect of intellectual and religious thought in the Euro-Mediterranean area. As a result, it has been studied, used, replicated, constructed and widely disseminated.

Thanks to Greek- and Arabic-to-Latin translators, the Latinate audience was given access to an impressive number of new authorities of various provenance, most of which referred to the Peripatetic notions of nature. Nonetheless, conceptual tensions and doctrinal differences emerged from this vast and innovative set of sources. New disciplines and traditions were grounded on notions of nature that were intimately ‘other’ than those used and developed by philosophers and theologians. Meanwhile, descriptive and operational approaches to nature, as well as efforts to understand and ‘return to’ a state of natural perfection, were being discussed by medical and pharmacological treatises. While alchemists were attempting to reproduce ‘in laboratory’ the natural perfection of the body, producing the craved elixir. Based on Aristotle’s notion of ‘mas occasionatus’, medical and philosophical texts also started to propose images of female bodies as ‘unperfected reproductions’ of male bodies, giving origin to crucial tensions between theology and biology. Following a different approach, astronomical and astrological texts thematised yet another concept of nature meant to resolve the duality of super- and sublunary worlds, bonding them together into a cosmic natural unity.

Related to Aristotle, but marked by contrasting aims and procedures, this plurality of epistemic accesses to nature led to a wide richness of ideas and concepts about the natural world, what it was and how it worked. The Latin Middle Ages were therefore uncommonly characterised by a profusion of images and representations of nature, applied and developed in relation to the disciplinary requirements of each episteme. Considering their multifaceted and heterogeneous characters, scopes, and purposes, these divergent images of the natural world were however open to mutual tensions. Medieval thinkers perceived the emergence of the vast array of approaches and tried in different ways to smooth and resolve the manifold disagreements and contradictions that resulted. Intricacies and inconsistencies were perceived within the Aristotelian discussion of nature, as well as between Aristotle and other specific auctoritates (starting with Ptolemy, Galen, Averroes and Avicenna), and between the combination of all these new authoritiesand the personal experience and access – both direct and indirect – to the natural world of the medieval authors. As a result, the long process of developing, evaluating, expanding and reshaping the idea of nature would later culminate, in Early Modernity, in a new concept of nature, mainly characterised by human manipulability and mathematizable regularity.

Within this plurality of approaches, two main tendencies seem to characterise the medieval conceptualisation of nature. On the one hand, medieval thinkers saw the natural world as a created reflection of God’s utmost perfection, teleologically ordered and structurally harmonious. On the other, the natural world was also considered as an enmattered and degraded version of the true perfection of the spiritual realm – a world of ideas, separate substances, and celestial movers.

The volume focuses on this tension between perfection and bleakness, order and randomness of the natural world in the Middle Ages. The rich plurality of epistemes of nature grounded on this tension raises a multitude of questions. Some are related to the bigger picture: How did medieval thinkers perceive this duality within nature? What terms and characteristics described nature as such in relation to both its positive and negative considerations? Other questions are connected to sources, reasoning, and practices of the encounter with nature of individual authors and traditions. Which features of nature were inherited by Aristotle and which provided a common framework to medieval reflection? What patterns and strategies were shared by some scientific and philosophical approaches and left aside by others? How did medieval scholars rely on a practical dimension of the natural world in order to expand their scientific and philosophical knowledge? And finally, given that fundamental, naturalistic sources and theories were proceeding from diverse linguistic and religious niches (Greek, Arabic, and Hebrew), how were they received by and integrated into a Christian-based, Latin tradition? How did medieval scholars and thinkers use nature to achieve their scientific and/or theological goals?

Focusing on the duality of idealisation and degradation of nature, the volume will provide a cutting-edge profile of the doctrinal and semantic richness of the medieval idea of nature and a glimpse into the myriads of images and shadows of the natural world as elaborated in the later Middle Ages. The volume will also display the structural interconnection among learned and scientific disciplines in the Medieval Period, stressing the fundamental bond linking together science and philosophy, on the one hand, and philosophy and theology, on the other.

Confirmed Contributors
Isabelle Draelans, Bernd Roling, Iolanda Ventura, Emanuelle Kuhry, Gregory Clesse.

Submission
Abstract (250/300 words) should be sent to Nicola Polloni (pollonin@hu-berlin.de) and Mattia Cipriani (mattia.cipriani@fu-berlin.de). Abstract submission deadline: 10 January 2020.

[CLOSED] Structuring Nature: An Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Summer School

Summer School | Berlin, 28 July – 3 August 2019 | deadline: 15 May 2019

Call for Applications

Does the structure of nature inform the structure of our knowledge of nature, or do our own (artificial) divisions of science affect the way in which we divide the natural world? Questions concerning the structure of nature, and the structure of our knowledge of the natural world have long occupied philosophers and scientists working in the Western tradition, up until the present day. Especially in the ancient, medieval and early modern periods, Greek, Arabic, and Latin writers have developed a variety of approaches to construct ordered, rule-based frameworks to divide and study nature in all of its complexity.

As a result of enduring interest and continual developments, in both theoretical and practical knowledge of nature, various thinkers from these traditions have introduced novel criticisms to these systems, and others have shown through experiment and observation that long-standing preconceptions about the natural world, and our knowledge of it, do not stand up to scrutiny.

Over the course of one week, this interdisciplinary summer school will provide a conspectus of some of the many historical and modern problems associated with any attempt to formalise boundaries between minerals and other inert substances, plants, animals, and humans. It will also consider how some thinkers pushed the epistemological limits of natural science, attempting to fit new abstract theories and mathematical approaches to the study of the natural world.

“Structuring Nature” brings together a wide range of experts from ancient and medieval philosophy, classical philology, and the history of science, whose research addresses these problems in a number of language traditions, across a wide historical range. These experts will introduce students to the foundational thematic and methodological reflections on the structures of nature from antiquity to early-modern philosophy and science.

By bringing together historians of the scientific and philosophical traditions that have developed on the shores of the Mediterranean Basin, the summer school will provide the students with a unique opportunity to appreciate the historical contingencies of approaches, methods, and perspectives in the human attempts at understanding the structure of nature. In the closing discussions of each day, students will have the opportunity to critically reflect on ways of combining different methods and approaches that may eventually overcome current fragmentations and departmentalisations in the academy.

As of July 28, the summer school will be hosted in Berlin, where the students will benefit from direct access to scholars at the three organising institutions, the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, the Freie Universität Berlin, and the Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte.

The Summer School program will officially start two weeks earlier, on Monday, 15 July 2019. At this time, articles and other relevant materials will be circulated to provide the students with the background necessary to take an active part in the activities of the summer school. A final assessment of the students’ progress will be given to their presentations on Friday, 2 August 2019, as well as to their active attendance in all activities offered by the School.

Application Process
Graduate and undergraduate students are welcomed to apply. Interested students must submit an updated CV and a short cover letter describing their research, methods, and aims by 15 May 2019 at the following email address: structuring.nature@yahoo.com. Applicants who plan on applying for external funding should specify that on their applications.

Price and Attendance
Attendance to the summer school is free. Students whose application is successful are meant to participate to the entire length of the summer school and to give a talk at the final workshop. Exceptions can be made in consideration of qualified reasons. Participants will be provided with a certificate of attendance (or, upon request, any other paper certifying her/his attendance) at the end of the summer school in order to allow students a positive recognition of credits from their home institutions.

Please note that the organising institution will not offer meals or lodging to the participants. Students are therefore invited to apply to funding and studentships at their home institutions.

Participants will be updated about changes to the programme via email, but they are also invited to consult the summer school webpage at the following link: http://structuringnature.wordpress.com. For any further question, you can reach the organisers at the following email address: structuring.nature@yahoo.com.

Organisers and Sponsoring Institutions
The summer school is organised by Nicholas Aubin (HU Berlin), Vincenzo Carlotta (HU Berlin), Mattia Cipriani (FU Berlin), Katja Krause (MPIWG), Nicola Polloni (HU Berlin). Sponsoring Institutions are the RTG “Philosophy, Science and the Sciences,” the Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, and the Alexander-von-Humboldt-Stiftung.