Media
Prof Cecilia Martini Bonadeo (University of Padova), Prof Michael Chase (CNRS, Paris / University of Victoria), Prof Damien Janos (University of Montréal) discuss the latest work of Prof Olga L. Lizzini (University Aix-Marseille / University of Geneva): the Italian translation with a dense introduction of the Treatise on Unity by the 10th-c. Christian Arab author Yahya ibn ‘Adi – with an introduction by Prof Dragos Calma (University College Dublin), and remarks by Prof Peter Adamson (University of Munchen) and Dr Maria Evelina Malgieri (University College Dublin). Zoom meeting organised by Dragos Calma and hosted by University College Dublin on 12 March 2021.
Rodrigo Ballon Villanueva (University of Lugano), “Unveiling Apokatastasis? Eriugena’s Eschatology and Essential Causality” (October 14, 2020 – via Zoom)
The doctrine of apokatastasis is one of the most distinctive and important notions of the Carolingian philosopher John Scotus Eriugena. The Irishman can be regarded, without hesitation, as the greatest medieval proponent of this eschatological view. In recent years, the centrality of the topic has been recognised and has attracted the attention of several scholars, who, in turn, tend to see it as a consequence of Eriugena’s Origenism. However, despite the clear intention of Eriugena to find support for his view in the works of Patristic authors, the truth is that he develops a peculiar understanding of the eschatological events. The present paper argues that Eriugena’s doctrine of apokatastasis is an essential aspect of his metaphysics that needs to be understood in relation with his overlooked theory of causa essentialis.
Socrates-Athanasios Kiosoglou (KU-Leuven), “The Theory of Στοιχείωσις”, (July 23, 2020 – via Zoom)
Proclus’ Commentary on the First Book of Euclid’s Elements constitutes not only a systematic commentary on the Elements, but also a very rich source of metho-dological precepts about the proper writing and construction of a good Στοιχείωσις. By its very nature, a Στοιχείωσις is written for uninitiated students and novices, not for experts. Its purpose lies exactly in guiding learners of limited knowledge and familiarise them with the most basic and fundamental doctrinal assumptions of an epistemic domain. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the Commentary on Euclid (and notably the Prologues) is probably the only lengthy extant exposition of the main characteristics of the literary genre of Στοιχείωσις. The second Prologue includes the most essential, indispensable and probably interdisciplinary features of the style, that is, the features shared by all Στοιχειώσεις, regardless of their particular content and the domain they belong. The best way to capture Στοιχείωσις in another language is not Elements (like Dodds) or Elementa (like Patrizius, the Renaissance translator), but Elementatio (like Moerbeka, the Medieval translator) or Grundlegung (recalling Kant’s Gundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten).
Ezequiel Luduña (University of Buenos Aires), “The Intratrinitarian dynamics of Berthold of Moosburg’s Expositio Procli” (June 10, 2020 – via Zoom)
Berthold of Moosburg’s Expositio Procliis considered the most important testimony of the interest in Proclus’ thought during the 13th and 14th centuries in the Latin West known to date. Berthold brings into the Latin Tradition some doctrinal elements from Pagan Neoplatonism that conflict with basic tenets established by the philosophical milieu within which he writes. The most important has to do with the transcendence of the Principle. According to Berthold, the prime unumis beyond the intellectual realm. However, there are certain passages of theExpositio, where Berthold writes about the natura intelectualisof the Principle, that suggest that his attitude was not as bold as the other remarks about transcendence might imply. It is in this sense, when describing the prime unum as a natura intellectualis, that he includes the absolute One among those principles that are per se subsistentes(i.e. authypos
Dr William Duba (University of Fribourg), “Fragmentarium and Fragmentology” (June 16, 2020 – via Zoom)
A concise and clear presentation of the project Fragmentarium (https://fragmentarium.ms/) studying fragments of medieval manuscripts, and further theoretical considerations establishing a new discipline: fragmentology.
Dr Joshua Robinson (Dumbartoan Oaks Library, Harvard University), “The Themes of Divine Motion and Fecundity (γονιμότης) in Nicholas of Methone’s Refutation of Proclus, and their Patristic and Neopythagorean (?) Precedents” (May 13, 2020 – via Zoom)
What are the fundamental principles that guide Nicholas of Methone’s response to Proclus in his mid-12th-century Refutation of the Elements of Theology? As a general answer, one might simply say “Christian doctrine.” But a close reading of the Refutation reveals two distinctive emphases, the ideas of divine fecundity and divine motion. These ideas are rooted in Gregory of Nazianzus and Dionysius the Areopagite, and are creatively combined and deployed by Nicholas in ways that suggest further debts to John of Scythopolis, Maximos the Confessor, and John of Damascus. For Nicholas, the Trinity is understood in terms of a transcendent fecundity and motion that is the source and paradigm of all creaturely fecundity and motion. In contrast to the unmoved mover of classical philosophy, for Nicholas God as Trinity is understood as “self-moved,” the very model and source of that self-motion in creatures that is rational freedom. If we consider the key text of Gregory of Nazianzus in which Nicholas grounds his position, “the Monad, moved to Dyad and at Triad came to a halt,” we find suggestions that this statement in turn probably has connections to neo-Pythagorean currents of thought, appropriated by Gregory to make a Trinitarian point.
Dr Jonathan Greig (Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna), “Nicholas of Methone and Aquinas on Participation in Proclus’ Elements of Theology Prop. 23: Common and Contrasting Critical Readings” (May 6, 2020 – via Zoom).
One of Proclus’ more well-known positions is his view of participation, encapsulated in the Elements of Theology, Prop. 23, where participation results in three terms: the unparticipated, participated, and participant. For Proclus this necessitates a distinction between the One, as first cause, and the Henads, as mediators of the One’s causality—and thus as a plurality of gods. For the Christian inheritors of Proclus and his model of participation, this of course represents a problem. This paper compares the approach of two medieval Christian commentators on Proclus: the 12th-cent. Byzantine, Nicholas of Methone, and the 13th-cent. Latin scholastic, Thomas Aquinas. Drawing from their common source in Ps.-Dionysius, the two take divergent approaches in their notion of participation. While both do away with Proclus’ separately participated—i.e. the gods—both still accept the notion of participation as mediated, but in differing ways: for Nicholas the participated is subsumed into God, so that God is directly participated, albeit under specific aspects; for Thomas, the participated is subsumed into the level of creatures, so that God is indirectly participated in virtue of created, mediated properties immanent in creatures.
Marc Geoffroy (1965-2018), during a conference held in Paris, delivered an exceptional paper on the transformation of Proclus’ Elements of Theology into Kalām fī maḥd al-khair (Liber de causis). He explained the relationship between proposition 123 of the Elements of Theology and proposition V(VI) of the Book of Causes, stressing the variety of philosophical sources used (notably Aristotle’s De anima and De sensu et sensato) and, in a Muʻtazilite milieu, the vocabulary recalling the Qurʾān. Unfortunately, the written text of this paper could not be found. Marc Geoffroy agreed to be part of the NeoplAT project and produce a running commentary on the Book of Causes, notably on its various philosophical and theological sources.
Paper introduced by Richard Taylor, and discussed (in order) by Philippe Hoffmann, (unrecognizable), Michael Chase, Richard Taylor.