- Islamic Philosophy, Philosophy of Physics, Aristotle's Commentators, Simplicius, Ancient Philosophy, Philosophy of Time, and 38 morePhilosophy of Science, Philosophical Biology, Henry Stapp, Medieval Philosophy, Neoplatonism, Complexity, Edgar Morin, Pierre Hadot, Jean Petitot- Phénoménologie naturalisée, Philosophy as a Form of Life, Stuart Kauffman, Pavel Alexandrovich Florensky, Philosophy As a Way of Life (Hadot), Graeco-Arabic translation movement, Graeco Islamica, Esp. Galenism, Classical' Arabic and Persian Geographical and Travel Literature, Nâser e Khosrow & Fatimid Ismailism, Ayyubid Historiography and Literature, Pre-eternity, Nemesius of Emesa, Organizations as complex adaptive systems, Complexity Science, Evagrius Ponticus, Porphyry, Proclus, History of Philosophy, Al Razi, Vernadsky, François Jullien, Bernard d'Espagnat, Theologia Aristotelis, Philosophy As a Way of Life Pierre Hadot, Berndt Radtke, Max Tegmark, Lee Smolin, Roger Penrose, Giulia Sfameni Gasparro, and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäckeredit
- Michael Chase (PhD EPHE, Ve Section, Paris-Sorbonne 2000) is, since 2001, Senior Researcher (Chercheur) at the Centre... moreMichael Chase (PhD EPHE, Ve Section, Paris-Sorbonne 2000) is, since 2001, Senior Researcher (Chercheur) at the Centre Jean Pépin (UMR 8230-École Normale Supérieure-PSL) of the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris-Villejuif, France. He is also Adjunct Professor in the Department of Greek and Roman Studies at the University of Victoria, Canada and Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany, Working Group “Premodern Science”, 2020-2025edit
- Philippe Hoffmannedit
Includes dicussion of *theôria* in Greek thought, *mushahada* in Avicenna, mindfulness and its neurophysiological correlates, mysticism, Pierre Hadot and PWL, Buddhism. C.F. von Weizsäcker, and the possible links between quantum physics... more
Includes dicussion of *theôria* in Greek thought, *mushahada* in Avicenna, mindfulness and its neurophysiological correlates, mysticism, Pierre Hadot and PWL, Buddhism. C.F. von Weizsäcker, and the possible links between quantum physics and consciousness.
Research Interests:
Notes on PWL, quantum physics and epistemic modesty. Since Pierre Hadot's work began to become better known in the English-speaking world in the mid-1990s, the philosophical orientation that has come to be known as "Philosophy as a Way of... more
Notes on PWL, quantum physics and epistemic modesty. Since Pierre Hadot's work began to become better known in the English-speaking world in the mid-1990s, the philosophical orientation that has come to be known as "Philosophy as a Way of Life" (PWL) has now become a well-established field in academia. Among the most pressing issues in the study of Philosophy as a Way of Life (PWL) is the problem of updatng: to what extent must the views of ancient Greco-Roman thought be modified to make them appropriate for life in the twenty-first century? Some aspects of quantum physics, such as the room it seems to leave open for free will, might be thought to reinforce key concepts of PWL. Others, such as the notions of objectivity and disinterestedness, seem to be challenged by at least some interpretations of the findings of quantum physics.
Research Interests:
Studies our tendency to become habituated to the world, leading to taking it for granted and ceasing to perceive its miraculous qualities. Beginning with ancient testimonies, I then proceed to examine the neurophysiological correlates of... more
Studies our tendency to become habituated to the world, leading to taking it for granted and ceasing to perceive its miraculous qualities. Beginning with ancient testimonies, I then proceed to examine the neurophysiological correlates of this phenomenon, before considering two suggestions by Pierre Hadot on how to recapture the experience of seeing the world as if for the first time: concentration on the present and aesthetic percetion. Finally, I suggest that mindfulness meditation may provide a third option.
Research Interests:
Studies the threefold hierarchy of certainty, from its origins in Mahāyāna Buddhism, through Islam, to 17 th century China. This tripartite scheme may be traced back to the ancient Buddhist scheme of the threefold wisdom as systematized... more
Studies the threefold hierarchy of certainty, from its origins in Mahāyāna Buddhism, through Islam, to 17 th century China. This tripartite scheme may be traced back to the ancient Buddhist scheme of the threefold wisdom as systematized by Vasubandhu of Gandhāra in the 4th-5th centuries CE. Following the advent of Islam in the 8th century, it was combined with Qur'anic notions of certainty (al-yaqīn). Initially taken up by early Islamic mystics such as Sahl al-Tustarī and al-Ḥākim al-Tirmiḏī (late 9th-early 10th centuries), the notion of yaqīn was gradually systematized into the three-level hierarchy of "knowledge or science of certainly" (ʿilm al-yaqīn), "essence" (literally "eye") of certainty (ʿayn al-yaqīn), and "truth or reality of certainty" (ḥaqq al-yaqīn), a hierarchy that bears a distinct resemblance to the Buddhist threefold path of wisdom as discussed by Marc-Henri Deroche. Half a millennium later, this threefold hierarchy of levels of certainty, remotely inspired by Buddhism and integrated into the philosophical Sufism of Ibn ʿArabī and his Persian disciple Jāmī, this complex of ideas may have resurfaced in 17 th century China.
Research Interests:
This chapter studies the conflict between reason and experience in Greek thought, from the Presocratics, through the Greek rationalists (Plato, Aristotle and his Peripatetic successors, the Stoics), to Galen and his reception in the... more
This chapter studies the conflict between reason and experience in Greek thought, from the Presocratics, through the Greek rationalists (Plato, Aristotle and his Peripatetic successors, the Stoics), to Galen and his reception in the Arabic tradition. Special attention is paid to the Empirist tradition of Greco-Roman medicine, as an example of “memorism” (Frede) or “epistemic modesty.” In response to the Aristotelian doctrine of definition and demonstration, which denied that individual things, persons, and events are susceptible of true “knowledge,” some doctors, craftsman, and “mystic” schools such as the Islamic Sufis, and even Avicenna in some of his works, had recourse to alternative traditions that stressed the importance of experience, emphasizing the value of first-person “witnessing” over rationalist theorizing. In this sense, it is argued that empiricism may be compatible with some forms of “mysticism.” Thus, problems of translation, the limits of language and the ineffability of individuals, and the complementary tension between different types of “knowing,” are closely linked throughout the epistemological history of the West.
Research Interests:
Title says it all
Research Interests:
Following insights by Pierre Hadot, I suggest that although explicit discussions of practices of breath control and other psychosomatic techniques of contemplative attention management are conspicuously absent in early Greek thought,... more
Following insights by Pierre Hadot, I suggest that although explicit discussions of practices of breath control and other psychosomatic techniques of contemplative attention management are conspicuously absent in early Greek thought, there are some signs that analogous practices did exist, perhaps as early as Socrates. The combined evidence of Aristophanes and Plato suggests that Socrates may have engaged in a practice that has key features in common with meditative practices and experiences as attested in Zen Buddhism. This technique consists in two stages: an initial practice of top-down, voluntary, egocentric focused meditation resulting in a state of “absorption” or abstraction from all sensory input, followed by the practice of a more bottom-up, open, other- centered (allocentric) form of meditation, intended to provide a more global or universal perspective, in which the practitioner situates herself as a part of the cosmos. This paper includes discussion of “withdrawal” into oneself as a contemplative practice in Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Evagrius Ponticus, and Gregory Palamas.
Keywords: meditation; neurophysiology; contemplative studies; Plato; Socrates
Keywords: meditation; neurophysiology; contemplative studies; Plato; Socrates
Research Interests:
After a brief introduction, surveys the history of the global development of PWL, followed by an account of the key features of this philosophical orientration. I then discuss some outstanding issues in the current PWL studies, with... more
After a brief introduction, surveys the history of the global development of PWL, followed by an account of the key features of this philosophical orientration. I then discuss some outstanding issues in the current PWL studies, with particular emphasis on the central but problematic notion of objectivity on the thought of Pierre Hadot. I conclude with an introduction to and brief summary of the other contributions to this issue of the Bollettino.
Research Interests:
Studies the place of cosmic consciousness and spiritual exercises within Pierre Hadot's notion of Philosophy as a Way of life. Includes discussion of some of his contemporary critics, and the possible relevance of some recent studies on... more
Studies the place of cosmic consciousness and spiritual exercises within Pierre Hadot's notion of Philosophy as a Way of life. Includes discussion of some of his contemporary critics, and the possible relevance of some recent studies on meditation and the physiology of the brain (AKA “neural Buddhism”)
Research Interests:
2020, the year the coronavirus pandemic spread globally, marked the twenty-fifth year since the publication of Pierre Hadot’s work Philosophy as a Way of Life (translated by co-author Michael Chase). In that time, what began as the... more
2020, the year the coronavirus pandemic spread globally, marked the twenty-fifth year since the publication of Pierre Hadot’s work Philosophy as a Way of Life (translated by co-author Michael Chase). In that time, what began as the research specialization of just a few scholars has become a growing area of philosophical and metaphilosophical inquiry, bringing together researchers from around the globe. Hadot’s key ideas of spiritual exercises, and the very idea of PWL, have been applied to a host of individual thinkers from across the history of philosophy: from the Hellenistic and Roman-era philosophers of direct concern to Hadot, through renaissance thinkers like Petrarch, Lipsius, Montaigne, Descartes, or Bacon, into nineteenth-century thinkers led by Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche.In more recent years, more global reflections on the “very idea” of PWL have begun to emerge, as well as dedicated journal editions. In these more recent PWL studies, some of the manifold research questions have begun to be explored, which were opened up by the studies of Pierre and Ilsetraut Hadot, as well as its reception in Michel Foucault’s later work.
What implications, after all, does understanding the history of PWL, and the predominance of this metaphilosophical conception in the history of Western thought, have for how we understand the practice(s) of philosophy today? Does recovering the alternative understandings of philosophy as a practice in history necessarily lead to a criticism of contemporary, solely academic or theoretical modes of philosophizing, or is the idea of PWL one which has only historiographical force?
What implications, after all, does understanding the history of PWL, and the predominance of this metaphilosophical conception in the history of Western thought, have for how we understand the practice(s) of philosophy today? Does recovering the alternative understandings of philosophy as a practice in history necessarily lead to a criticism of contemporary, solely academic or theoretical modes of philosophizing, or is the idea of PWL one which has only historiographical force?
Research Interests:
Part Two of my Hadot obituary, published in the blog of Harvard University Press
Research Interests:
Part One of an obituary of Pierre Hadot I wrote for the blog of Harvard University Press.
Research Interests:
An presentation of a recent book by Ilsetraut Hadot on Seneca and spiritual guidance
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Beginning with a sketch of Pierre Hadot's concept of ancient philosophy as a way of life, consisting of a series of spiritual exercises intended to transform the practitioner by changing the way she looks at the world, I ask whether it's... more
Beginning with a sketch of Pierre Hadot's concept of ancient philosophy as a way of life, consisting of a series of spiritual exercises intended to transform the practitioner by changing the way she looks at the world, I ask whether it's still possible to identify with the cosmos, as the Stoics recommended.
Research Interests:
Paper to be delivered at a seminar in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, September 2015
Research Interests:
– A translation from the Greek with Introduction, Indices, and Appendix of Variant Readings
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Studies the implications of the recent discovery of close parallels between Calcidius, In Tim. and the newly-edited Syriac On Principle and Matter. After surveying the history of scholarship, I argue in the first part of this paper that... more
Studies the implications of the recent discovery of close parallels between Calcidius, In Tim. and the newly-edited Syriac On Principle and Matter. After surveying the history of scholarship, I argue in the first part of this paper that Porphyry's influence on Calcidius can no longer be denied. In second part, however, a close study of Calcidius ch. 302-304 suggests that Calc. In Tim. ch. 302-320 and On Principle and Matter §§17-67 do not derive directly from Porphyry's Commentary on the Timaeus, but from a summary of that work.
Research Interests:
Argues that Porphyry’s Treatise on the Soul, as well as the closely related “New Material” (hereafter NM) from the Muqābasāt discussed here, may shed light on the previously unexplained fact that Avicenna violently rejects what he... more
Argues that Porphyry’s Treatise on the Soul, as well as the closely related “New Material” (hereafter NM) from the Muqābasāt discussed here, may shed light on the previously unexplained fact that Avicenna violently rejects what he identifies as the Porphyrian doctrine of the conjunction or union (Arabic ittiḥād) of the human and the divine intellect, even though, apart from these new materials I no text by Porphyry has yet been identified in which he explicitly maintains this doctrine.
Research Interests:
A discussion of some Platonically-inspired themes in the work of Porphyry, including substance, creation, matter, free will and providence.
Research Interests:
Paper presented March 17 at the workshop
Structures génériques (3). Réception des Catégories, Université Paris Diderot, 10 rue Alice Domon et Léonie Duquet, 75013 - Paris
Structures génériques (3). Réception des Catégories, Université Paris Diderot, 10 rue Alice Domon et Léonie Duquet, 75013 - Paris
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The question of the origins of the ensemble of works known as the Plotiniana Arabica (hereafter: PA) is still a matter of controversy, despite decades of excellent work on the subject. The works known under this title are, of course,... more
The question of the origins of the ensemble of works known as the Plotiniana Arabica (hereafter: PA) is still a matter of controversy, despite decades of excellent work on the subject. The works known under this title are, of course, paraphrastic translations, containing a large number of After sketching the nature, origin, and doctrines of the corpus of medieval Arabic pseudepigraphical works known as the Plotiniana Arabica, this chapter focuses on the doctrines, characteristic of these writings, that the First Principle creates by its being alone and that it does so instantaneously. Attempting to identify the problems to which these ideas were intended to provide a solution, I then argue, contrary to the scholarly communis opinio, that they can be traced back to the Neoplatonic philosopher Porphyry of Tyre (ca. 234–ca. 310 CE).
Research Interests:
Published version.
Research Interests:
Studies the Arabic paraphrase of a passage from Plotinus (Ennéad IV. 4 (28), 1-5), showing how the Adaptor comes up with an original doctrine on potentiality and actuality to try to explain Plotinus's confusing usage of the terms dunamis... more
Studies the Arabic paraphrase of a passage from Plotinus (Ennéad IV. 4 (28), 1-5), showing how the Adaptor comes up with an original doctrine on potentiality and actuality to try to explain Plotinus's confusing usage of the terms dunamis and energeia.
Research Interests:
My contribution to an online discussion of Olga Lizzini's Yaḥyā ibn ʿAdī, Trattato sull’unità /Maqāla fī l-tawḥīd. L’uno, il molteplice et l’unità di Dio, to be presented at an online discussion orgnized by Dragos Calma (U. Dubline)
Research Interests:
I argue that Nazzām derived most of his characteristic doctrines from Anaxagoras, rather than Aristotle or the Stoics He knew these doctrines through a translation (Arabic? Persian?) of the Philosophos Historia of Porphyry of Tyre (c.... more
I argue that Nazzām derived most of his characteristic doctrines from Anaxagoras, rather than Aristotle or the Stoics
He knew these doctrines through a translation (Arabic? Persian?) of the Philosophos Historia of Porphyry of Tyre (c. 234-c. 310 CE)
Partly at least from from Anaxagoras, Naẓẓām inherited a “proto-scientific” approach to the study of the natural world.
He knew these doctrines through a translation (Arabic? Persian?) of the Philosophos Historia of Porphyry of Tyre (c. 234-c. 310 CE)
Partly at least from from Anaxagoras, Naẓẓām inherited a “proto-scientific” approach to the study of the natural world.
Research Interests:
On the views on nature and science of the early Mu‘tazilite philosopher al-Naẓẓām.
Research Interests:
In a way that bears comparision with the attitude of Albert Einstein, Naẓẓām was both a realist and a neo-Eleatic: he was a neo-Eleatic, because he sought to banish radical change from the world of natural phenomena. Unlike some of his... more
In a way that bears comparision with the attitude of Albert Einstein, Naẓẓām was both a realist and a neo-Eleatic: he was a neo-Eleatic, because he sought to banish radical change from the world of natural phenomena. Unlike some of his predecessors and contempories, for whom all phenomenal change was an instance of coming-into-being of the new and destruction of the old, Naẓẓām insisted all apparent generation and perishing was merely a rearrangement of pre-existing ingredients. Far from believing in continuous creation, as has sometimes been claimed, Naẓẓām’s entire ontology was constructed in order to rule it out. Yet Naẓẓām was also a realist, in that wished to ensure a world ruled by the laws of an autonomous, predictable Nature, free from the incomprehensibility and capriciousness of divine intervention. Instead, Naẓẓām, like Einstein, held that it was the world’s perfect rational structure and lawlike regularity that allowed us a glimpse into the mind of the Old One.
Research Interests:
Examine les liens possibles entre les quatre questions aristotéliciennes (Secondes Analytiques APo II, 1, 89b23-25) et les origines de la théologie négative en Islam, notamment chez Ḍirār ibn ʿAmr et Jahm ibn Ṣafwān
Research Interests:
On souligne queques-unes des divergences et des ressemblances entre les doctrines eschatologiques de ces deux penseurs. Article qui fera l'objet d'une communication à la Journée d'Etudes «L' au-delà dans l'Antiquité Tardive», Paris, 14... more
On souligne queques-unes des divergences et des ressemblances entre les doctrines eschatologiques de ces deux penseurs. Article qui fera l'objet d'une communication à la Journée d'Etudes «L' au-delà dans l'Antiquité Tardive», Paris, 14 mai 2019, organisée par A. M. Lemnaru-Carrée et par moi-même
Research Interests:
On the posterity of the Four Questions from Book Two of Aristotle's Posterior Analytics in Islam, and the way they were used to bolster negative theology. English version of a talk given in French (Troyes, January 2019)
Research Interests:
Studies the Proclan (and Porphyrian?) antecedents of a theological doctrine found in early Arab Christian writings. Revised version of a paper presented at Vienna in November 2018
Research Interests:
Like Damascius' ἅλματα or leaps, al-Naẓẓām's (died ca. 849 ce) doctrine of the leap (Arabic ṭafra) seems to be an attempt to respond to Zeno's paradoxes of motion. After a survey of these paradoxes and Aristotle's responses to them, I... more
Like Damascius' ἅλματα or leaps, al-Naẓẓām's (died ca. 849 ce) doctrine of the leap (Arabic ṭafra) seems to be an attempt to respond to Zeno's paradoxes of motion. After a survey of these paradoxes and Aristotle's responses to them, I discuss some points of resemblance between the physical doctrines of Damascius and al-Naẓẓām. To explain them, I adopt Richard Sorabji's suggestion of an historical influence by Damascius on al-Naẓẓām. After surveying objections to Sorabji's thesis, I make use of new paleographical discoveries to suggest that after Justinian's closure of the Platonic School of Athens, the last Neoplatonic philosophers may have taken the library of the School of Athens-including the ancestors of the core manuscripts of the Collection Philosophique-to the court of Ḫosrow I Anūšīrwān at Ctesiphon ca. 531 ce, where some texts that were the models of this Collection-which includes works by Damascius-may have been translated into Persian. This provides a new possible avenue by which al-Naẓẓām and other early Islamic theologians may have had access to some elements of late Greek philosophy even before the beginnings of the great translation movement sponsored by al-Maʿmūn (r. 813-833 ce).
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Alexander and Philoponus on Physics VII.2. A case study 0. Introduction As is the case for several of his works 1 , John Philoponus' Commentary on the Physics has a complementary tradition in Greek and In Arabic. The Commentary on Books... more
Alexander and Philoponus on Physics VII.2. A case study 0. Introduction As is the case for several of his works 1 , John Philoponus' Commentary on the Physics has a complementary tradition in Greek and In Arabic. The Commentary on Books I-IV is extant in Greek, but that on Books V-VIII is lost. Scholars have had recourse to two kinds of sources for the reconstruction of the lost second part of Philoponus' Commentary on the Physics. One of these is the scholia to various Byzantine manuscripts of Aristotle's Physics. Vitelli had already published extracts from three such manuscripts 2 , while very recently Andrea Rescigno and Marwan Rashed, working independently, have published a substantial number of additional fragments 3. The other source for our knowledge of Philoponus' Commentary on Physics V-VIII is the Arabic tradition. The whole of Philoponus' commentary was well-known in the Arabo-Islamic world 4. The first four books are said to have been translated into Arabic by Quṣtā b. Lūqā, and the last four by Ibn Nāʿima al-Ḥimṣī5, translator of the Theology of Aristotle. The latter translations is not extant, but extracts from Philoponus' commentary on Physics V-VIII are preserved in Arabic translation in the so-called Baghdad Physics (ms. Leiden Or. 583) 6. In this contribution, I will focus on one fragment of Philoponus' comments on Physics VII.2 that have been preserved in Arabic translation, which gives an exposition of Aristotle's division of types of motion. In order to try to identify characteristic features of Philoponus' exegetical approach to Physics VII, I will compare this fragment with some aspects of the commentaries on the same section by Alexander of Aphrodisias and Simplicius. Rather than an exhaustive overview of Philoponus' interpretations of Physics VII, this contribution will be a kind of Leseprobe, intended as a preliminary to a more thorough study of Philoponus' exegesis of Physics VII-VIII. It will turn out that some of the striking differences between the commentaries of the two great rivals Philoponus and Simplicius can be explained, at least to a certain extent, by the fact that they seem to have made use of different works by Alexander, or perhaps different sections of the same work.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Studies the doctrine of a supra-rational faculty of the soul, enabling haumn beings to contact the divine, in Hermias, Proclus and Hohn of Scythopolis
Research Interests:
A search for the origins of the Peripatetic doctrine of the formation of universal concepts leads backto a period when Academic, Peripatetic, Stoic, and Epicurean views still shared many doctrinal elements, although they were struggling... more
A search for the origins of the Peripatetic doctrine of the formation of universal concepts leads backto a period when Academic, Peripatetic, Stoic, and Epicurean views still shared many doctrinal elements, although they were struggling to demarcate themselves from one another. In logic, the notion of“summation” (kephalaiôsis, sunkephalaiôsis) appears in the scheme of analysis and synthesis, where it served to designate the “upward path” of synthesis, by which species discovered through analysis or division are “summarized” or “recapitulated”, and then added to the genus in order to form a definition of the essence of an object. In epistemology, the same terminology could be used to denote the way in which individual sensations, memories and experiences are somehow “summed up” and “recapitulated” by the rational faculty in order to form universal concepts. There are
some reasons to believe this may have been the case for the medical sect of the Empiric physicians as well.
some reasons to believe this may have been the case for the medical sect of the Empiric physicians as well.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
A paper that goes over some old material, but tries to come to some newish conclusions about the difference between creationism and emanationism in Late Ancient and Medieval thought
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Starting out from a passage in the Life of Plato by Ibn abi Usaybia, studies (1) Greek, Latin and Arabic interpretations of the creation of the world soul in the Timaeus, and (2) myths of weaving in Greek philosophy and mythology,... more
Starting out from a passage in the Life of Plato by Ibn abi Usaybia, studies (1) Greek, Latin and Arabic interpretations of the creation of the world soul in the Timaeus, and (2) myths of weaving in Greek philosophy and mythology, particularly in the Orphics and in Pherecydes of Syros
Research Interests:
Discusses some Platonic-sounding themes in the last three Duino Elegies
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Uncorrected proofs of an article to appear in Miroirs de la Mélancolie
Research Interests:
In a companion piece to a recent article on ancient philosophy and the COVID pandemic, I examine the claims of Medical Empirism to be the most appropriate philosophy for life in the Age of COVID. To be submitted for publicated in the... more
In a companion piece to a recent article on ancient philosophy and the COVID pandemic, I examine the claims of Medical Empirism to be the most appropriate philosophy for life in the Age of COVID. To be submitted for publicated in the Polish journal Eidos
Research Interests:
Announcement of the second episode of the new Speaker's Series at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. This session was focussed on Creation. Scientific Questions Then and Now will invite historians of pre-modern... more
Announcement of the second episode of the new Speaker's Series at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. This session was focussed on Creation.
Scientific Questions Then and Now will invite historians of pre-modern thought and contemporary scientists to provide their perspectives on questions concerning time, space, matter, and creation.
Scientific Questions Then and Now will invite historians of pre-modern thought and contemporary scientists to provide their perspectives on questions concerning time, space, matter, and creation.
Research Interests:
Announcement of the first episode of the new Speaker's Series at the Max Planck Institute for the HIstory of Science: Scientific Questions Then and Now, which will invite historians of pre-modern thought and contemporary scientists to... more
Announcement of the first episode of the new Speaker's Series at the Max Planck Institute for the HIstory of Science: Scientific Questions Then and Now, which will invite historians of pre-modern thought and contemporary scientists to provide their perspectives on questions concerning time, space, matter, and creation
Research Interests:
t Taking the impact of the current COVID-19 pandemic as an example, I investigate some aspects of care of the self and care for the world. Care of the self is considered with regard to the self-knowledge that can be gained by the... more
t Taking the impact of the current COVID-19 pandemic as an example, I investigate some aspects of care of the self and care for the world. Care of the self is considered with regard to the self-knowledge that can be gained by the neurophysiological study of fear, with particular reference to the role of the amygdala and the hormone oxytocin. Care for the world is studied, with reference to the thought of Hans Jonas and the Gaia hypothesis, in the form of a highly speculative suggestion that the COVID-19 pandemic may, in some sense, be envisaged as the result of humankind's lack of proper care for the biosphere. Some parallels are drawn with Pierre Hadot's interpretation of ancient philosophy.
Research Interests:
Studies the doctrines and terminology of some of Avicenna's accounts of abstraction in his Notes on the Theology of Aristotle. Some of the doctriines Avicenna sets forth in this work are reminiscent of those of the Neoplatonist Porphyry... more
Studies the doctrines and terminology of some of Avicenna's accounts of abstraction in his Notes on the Theology of Aristotle. Some of the doctriines Avicenna sets forth in this work are reminiscent of those of the Neoplatonist Porphyry of Tyre, while some of the terminology has parallels and/or antecednets in Sufi texts. The implications of these findings are discussed in a typically speculative manner.
Research Interests:
Studies the concept of meditation on the work of the German physicist and philosopher Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker (1912-2007)
Research Interests:
Studies the demonology of Porphyry of Tyre, with special emphasis on the way the demons can project the images of their imagination onto their pneumatic body, and the way they can infest human minds and bodies. Comparison with the... more
Studies the demonology of Porphyry of Tyre, with special emphasis on the way the demons can project the images of their imagination onto their pneumatic body, and the way they can infest human minds and bodies. Comparison with the demonology of Evagrius suggest there is deep continuity between the demonology of the post-Plotinian pagan Neoplatonics and of the early Christian Desert Fathers
Research Interests:
Draft of the Introduction to my forthcoming translation of Ammonius, Commentary on Porphyry's Isagoge, to be published in Rirchard Sorabji's Ancient Commentators series
Research Interests:
Poster for a conference at Münster, Germany, Sept. 27-30 2021
Research Interests:
March 7th 2018, Institute for History of Sciences, University of Tehran
Research Interests:
Program of the international conference I'm organizing with M. Chase and J.-B. Gourinat on the 14th of May 2019 (10h30-18h) at Paris Sorbonne. Morning session. President : Pierre Caye (Jean Pépin, ENS, CNRS). 10h-10h40. Nicola Zito : «... more
Program of the international conference I'm organizing with M. Chase and J.-B. Gourinat on the 14th of May 2019 (10h30-18h) at Paris Sorbonne.
Morning session. President : Pierre Caye (Jean Pépin, ENS, CNRS).
10h-10h40. Nicola Zito : « Mythe et eschatologie dans l'Antiquité tardive »
10h40-11h20. Michael Chase (Jean Pépin/ENS) : « Eschatologies du corps spirituel: Porphyre et Mullā Ṣadrā»
11h20-12:00. Adrian Mihai (University of Cambridge) : Purgatoire (titre à venir)
12h-14h: déjeuner
Afternoon session. President : Anca Vasiliu (Léon Robin, CNRS).
14h-14h40. Lucia Saudelli (Jean Pépin, CNRS) « L'inexistence de l'au-delà : pythagorisme, néo-pythagorisme et pseudo-pythagorisme »
14h40-15h20. Anna van den Kerchove (Institut de Théologie Protestante) : « Le voyage de l'âme dans des écrits hermétiques »
15h20-16h00 : Luc Brisson (ENS) : « La descente de l’âme dans un corps et le retour vers son origine : Plotin et Porphyre. »
16h-16h30 : break
16h30-17h10 : Andreea-Maria Lemnaru (Centre Léon Robin, LEM) : « L'au-delà dans le commentaire de Proclus sur le Mythe d'Er »
17h10-17h50. Dylan Burns (Freie Universitat Berlin) : « Sex, Death, and Free Will in Basilides, Bardaisan, and Origen.»
18h. Conclusion : Adrien Lecerf (Léon Robin).
Morning session. President : Pierre Caye (Jean Pépin, ENS, CNRS).
10h-10h40. Nicola Zito : « Mythe et eschatologie dans l'Antiquité tardive »
10h40-11h20. Michael Chase (Jean Pépin/ENS) : « Eschatologies du corps spirituel: Porphyre et Mullā Ṣadrā»
11h20-12:00. Adrian Mihai (University of Cambridge) : Purgatoire (titre à venir)
12h-14h: déjeuner
Afternoon session. President : Anca Vasiliu (Léon Robin, CNRS).
14h-14h40. Lucia Saudelli (Jean Pépin, CNRS) « L'inexistence de l'au-delà : pythagorisme, néo-pythagorisme et pseudo-pythagorisme »
14h40-15h20. Anna van den Kerchove (Institut de Théologie Protestante) : « Le voyage de l'âme dans des écrits hermétiques »
15h20-16h00 : Luc Brisson (ENS) : « La descente de l’âme dans un corps et le retour vers son origine : Plotin et Porphyre. »
16h-16h30 : break
16h30-17h10 : Andreea-Maria Lemnaru (Centre Léon Robin, LEM) : « L'au-delà dans le commentaire de Proclus sur le Mythe d'Er »
17h10-17h50. Dylan Burns (Freie Universitat Berlin) : « Sex, Death, and Free Will in Basilides, Bardaisan, and Origen.»
18h. Conclusion : Adrien Lecerf (Léon Robin).