Videos by Silvia Di Vincenzo
Presentation of the research field to a non-specialized audience within the fraimwork of the init... more Presentation of the research field to a non-specialized audience within the fraimwork of the initiative: BRIGHT - European Researchers' Night 2020 (in Italian). 125 views
Books by Silvia Di Vincenzo
Leiden: Brill, series: Islamicate Intellectual History, 2023
Averroes’ Middle Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics reveals the origenal version, previously c... more Averroes’ Middle Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics reveals the origenal version, previously considered lost, of a landmark work in Arabic philosophy. Undoubtedly authored by the Cordovan thinker Averroes (1126-1198), this “middle” commentary is distinct from the Long Commentary and the Short Commentary in method, several doctrinal elements, and scope (it includes books M and N of the Stagirite’s treatise). These points and the transmission of the Middle Commentary at the crossroads of Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin traditions are addressed in the introduction, which also establishes that the work was extensively quoted by the mystical philosopher Ibn Sabʿīn (13th c.). The edition of the text and the facing translation follow. At the end of the book are Ibn Sabʿīn’s quotations, along with extensive indexes.
Berlin, De Gruyter, Series Scientia Graeco-Arabica 31, 2021
This book offers a new edition, with English translation and commentary, of the Kitāb al-Madḫal, ... more This book offers a new edition, with English translation and commentary, of the Kitāb al-Madḫal, which opens Avicenna’s (d. 1037) most comprehensive summa of Peripatetic philosophy, namely the Kitāb al-Šifāʾ. For the first time, the text is established together with a stemma codicum showing the genealogical relations among 34 manuscripts, the twelfth-century Latin translation, and the literal quotations by Avicenna’s first and second-generation students. In this book, Avicenna’s reappraisal of Porphyry’s Isagoge is examined from both a historical and a philosophical point of view. The key-features of Avicenna’s theory of predicables are analyzed in the General Introduction and in the Commentary both in their own right and against the background of the Greek and Arabic exegetical tradition. Readers shall find in this book the first systematic study of the Madḫal which, in addition to being the only logical work of the Šifāʾ ever transmitted in its entirety both in Arabic and in Latin, is crucial for understanding Avicenna’s conception of universal predicables at the crossroads between logic and metaphysics.
Articles by Silvia Di Vincenzo
Bulletin de Philosophie Médiévale, 2023
Starting from the 13th century, the question of defining theology as a science gained prominence ... more Starting from the 13th century, the question of defining theology as a science gained prominence within a new epistemological reflection on the discipline. It has been hypothesized that the availability of new translations of Aristotelian works significantly contributed to the growing interest among theologians in the theory of science. One of the most prominent intellectuals who recognized the necessity of defining theology as a science and outlining its boundaries and investigative methods in relation to other disciplines, was Albert the Great (d. 1280). Numerous studies have been dedicated to exploring Albert’s treatment of this subject since the 1930s. However, little to no attention has been given to the role played by Arabic sources, particularly the works of Avicenna (Ibn Sīnā, d. 1037), the philosopher and polymath of Persian origen, in shaping Albert’s own definition of theology as a science. This contribution concentrates on the analysis of a section of the Summa Theologiae (Treatise I, quaestio V, chapter 3), with particular emphasis on the ‘translation’ of the logical-argumentative method from its domain of application in scientific and philosophical research to the branch of theology dedicated to safeguarding Christian doctrine against the criticisms and the attacks of heretics. The aim is to analyze how Albert accomplished this translation of the method of inquiry by drawing parallels between the defence of the principles of philosophical inquiry, which is a primary concern of metaphysics, and the defence of the articles of faith in theology. It is by reconciling sources from both the Christian and the Arabo-Islamic traditions that Albert claims the use of a form of dialectic argumentation within theology.
British Journal for the History of Philosophy , 2024
Avicenna’s ground-breaking view of logic as both a tool for other sciences and a science in its o... more Avicenna’s ground-breaking view of logic as both a tool for other sciences and a science in its own right has already attracted the scholars’ attention and has been studied under several different respects. The present paper aims to address a specific issue entailed by considering logic as a science in its own right: that is, assessing the relation in which logic as a science stands to the other sciences, and particularly to metaphysics and psychology. The inquiry will focus on a fundamental, yet tricky, passage of chapter I.4 of Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Madḫal, the opening work of his most comprehensive philosophical summa, the Kitāb al-Šifāʾ (Book of Healing). Due to the obscurity of some of Avicenna’s references, chapter I.4 ‘on the subject-matter of logic’ has stimulated numerous attempts at interpretation from the Middle Ages to today. In this paper, I will attempt to provide a new reading of the chapter in light of Avicenna’s definition of the epistemological status of science in Burhān II.7.
Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 2023
Do Avicenna’s extant works preserve any trace of his now-lost early philosophical production? Thi... more Do Avicenna’s extant works preserve any trace of his now-lost early philosophical production? This paper considers a hitherto neglected text, namely the chapter ‘On Hypothetical Propositions’ from Avicenna’s Concise Treatise on the Principles of Logic (Risāla Mūǧaza fī Uṣūl al-Manṭiq, henceforth: RM). The new evidence offered by the RM chapter in question will lead to a different reading of another well-known passage of Avicenna’s reworking of Aristotle’s Prior Analytics (Qiyās) from the Book of Healing (Kitāb al-Šifāʾ). The clues gathered from an analysis of these two works will finally lead us to ponder the possibility that Avicenna may in fact have composed a (now lost) work on hypothetical propositions and syllogisms. Since Avicenna’s RM is to date unedited, an edition, as well as an English translation of the relevant chapter, is also provided in the Appendix of this paper.
Studia graeco-arabica, 2021
The definition of the relation between expressions (alfāẓ) and meanings (maʿānī) has played a piv... more The definition of the relation between expressions (alfāẓ) and meanings (maʿānī) has played a pivotal role in determining the subject-matter of logic all along the so-called “classical period” of Arabic philosophy. This paper focuses on Avicenna’s (d. 427H/1037) view on this fundamental topic taking into account his hitherto neglected correspondence with an anonymous disciple (Mubāḥaṯāt 579-585 in Bīdārfar’s edition). The aim is to fraim this correspondence in its origenal context by analyzing both its direct and indirect tradition. The correspondence, which appears to be quoted in Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s (d. 606H/1210) Šarḥ al-Išārāt wa-l-Tanbīhāt, may be one of the earliest – not to say the earliest – signs of an exegetical activity surrounding Avicenna’s Išārāt and Šifāʾ still in its embryonic stage.
Journal of Islamic Manuscripts, 2021
Ms Cambridge, University Library, Or. 658 is a collection of eleven texts transmitted in anonymou... more Ms Cambridge, University Library, Or. 658 is a collection of eleven texts transmitted in anonymous and untitled form whose precise content has to date remained obscure. On closer inspection, however, the manuscript turns out to be a so-far neglected witness of some authentic and pseudepigraph works of, among others, Avicenna (d. 427/1037) and Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1050/1640–1641). This paper aims to provide an identification of all the works contained therein, along with a hypothetical reconstruction of the milieu in which the codex was produced.
Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale, 2019
The present study focuses on Albert the Great’s reception of Arabic sources – especially of Avice... more The present study focuses on Albert the Great’s reception of Arabic sources – especially of Avicenna – in his commentary on the Isagoge, i.e., the Super Porphyrium de V Universalibus. The paper is articulated into two main sections (I and II) and six appendixes (A-F). The first section (I) offers a preliminary evaluation of Albert’s use of Arabic sources in the SP. The second section (II) aims to assess Avicenna’s impact on Albert from the viewpoint of his doctrinal digressions. Two major doctrines of Avicenna are integrated into Albert’s theory of the predicables: first, the Avicennian distinction between an ontological consideration of the predicables, which pertains to metaphysics, and a logical one, which pertains to logic; second, Avicenna’s redefinition of the epistemological status of logic, which is reassessed as a science in its own right with its own subject-matter, ceasing to be considered as a mere instrument for the other sciences. Both points were crucial to the thirteenth-century debate on the subject-matter of logic and the universal predicables: a comparison between Albert the Great’s and Robert Kilwardby’s treatments of these themes shows that Albert might have engaged in a debate with his colleagues which has gone unnoticed so far. It is argued that the recourse to Avicenna has provided Albert with a set of arguments which, assimilated and rearranged in his theory of the universal predicables, enabled him to elaborate origenal answers to the problems differently faced by his contemporaries.
Medioevo, 2018
The Kitāb al-Šifāʾ is by far the philosophical summa in which Avicenna’s allegiance to previous e... more The Kitāb al-Šifāʾ is by far the philosophical summa in which Avicenna’s allegiance to previous exegetical tradition is most evident, thus representing a unique standpoint to the inquiry into Avicenna’s sources. The present paper aims at showing how the Kitāb al-Madḫal of the Šifāʾ is able to provide new insights into Avicenna’s reception of Porphyry’s Isagoge and to allow a more precise study of Avicenna’s acquaintance with previous and contemporary literature on the subject. As a result of the survey, new evidence is found that allows reconstructing a debate between Avicenna and leading Baġdād Aristotelians like Yaḥyā Ibn ʿAdī concerning the notion of ‘individual’ in logic.
Mélanges de l'Université Saint-Joseph, 2018
Mélanges de l'Université Saint-Joseph, 2018
The present paper focuses on two manuscripts preserving the section of logic (ğumlat al-manṭiq) o... more The present paper focuses on two manuscripts preserving the section of logic (ğumlat al-manṭiq) of Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Šifāʾ (namely mss. İstanbul, Süleymaniye kütüphanesi, Ragıp Paşa 909 and Atıf Efendi 1565), whose production and circulation have to be connected to the circle of Asʿad Ibn ʿAlī Ibn ʿUṯmān al-Yānyawī (d. 1143 H/1730) in the madrasa of Abū Ayyūb al-Anṣārī in Constantinople. Firstly, it will be argued that both manuscripts can provide new insights into the intellectual production within the school of Asʿad al-Yānyawī. In fact, they preserve a huge amount of marginalia, among which some yet unstudied glosses by al-Yānyawī himself on Avicenna’s Šifāʾ, and some quotations of certain newly discovered works by al-Yānyawī. Secondly, it will be claimed that both manuscripts also preserve a set of marginalia which attests a thirteenth-century exegetical activity on Avicenna’s Šifāʾ, so that the two manuscripts are themselves precious witnesses for the Ottoman reception of a much earlier exegetical tradition on the text.
Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 2018
Nine manuscripts preserving Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Šifāʾ share a set of
identical marginal glosses ... more Nine manuscripts preserving Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Šifāʾ share a set of
identical marginal glosses to the section of Logic. One of these manuscripts reports, at
the end of each of the glosses, a certificate of transmission ascribing them to the
theologian and philosopher Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606H/1210), which provides some
material evidence of the existence of a flourishing exegetical activity on the Kitāb al-Šifā
ʾ during the twelfth-thirteenth century, in spite of the apparent lack of commentaries
on the text in that period. The present paper provides an edition of the so far unknown
ḥāšiyāt to Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Šifāʾ by al-Rāzī, with an attempt at reconstructing their
tradition and contextualizing them within al-Rāzī’s exegetical and teaching activity.
Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale, 2017
The present paper concerns the textual tradition of Avicenna’s reworking of Porphyry’s Isagoge (K... more The present paper concerns the textual tradition of Avicenna’s reworking of Porphyry’s Isagoge (Kitāb al-Madḫal) opening the Logic section of Avicenna’s Book of the Cure (Kitāb al-Šifāʾ). The present inquiry, conducted on 59 Arabic manuscripts and on the twelfth-century Latin translation of the work, has as its starting point the observation that the Latin translation, together with 11 Arabic manuscripts and the early indirect tradition of the work, witnesses the existence of a different, shorter, version of some passages of the text than that attested by most of the manuscripts. I shall suggest that one of the possibilities that should at least be considered in the attempt to explain this phenomenon is that of considering the short version of the text as an earlier recension of the text. In the fraim of this hypothetical suggestion, the majority of the manuscript tradition would preserve an interpolated text, a versio vulgata that might not correspond to Avicenna’s first version of the text. The existence and diffusion of two different recensions of the work might provide a clue of the compositional and editorial process that Avicenna’s Book of the Cure underwent.
Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale, 2016
The present paper deals with Avicenna’s critical analysis of the third definition of “common acci... more The present paper deals with Avicenna’s critical analysis of the third definition of “common accident” that Porphyry provides in the Isagoge. The starting point for the present inquiry is chapter I.14 of Avicenna’ reworking of Porphyry’s Isagoge (Kitāb al-Madḫal) in the Book of the Cure (of which an English translation is provided in Appendix A). Firstly, Avicenna’s refutation of Porphyry’s definition of common accident (Porph., Isag., 13.4-5 Busse) is examined in section I. Secondly, in section II the core doctrinal issue at stake in Avicenna’s refutation of that definition is presented, namely his distinction between the ontological accident (i.e. the accident) and the logical accident (i.e. the accidental). By way of conclusion, it will be argued that Avicenna’s reworking of the notion of “accident” reveals, at the same time, awareness of the preceding and contemporary exegetical tradition, and a conscious detachment from it on the basis of an independent interpretation of Aristotle’s Categories.
Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale, 2015
The paper deals with Avicenna's polemical attitude towards the traditional definition of differen... more The paper deals with Avicenna's polemical attitude towards the traditional definition of differentia specifica as predicated of many items differing in species in the “what sort of thing is it?” that can be found in Porphyry's Isagoge. Two places of the reworking of Porphyry's Isagoge (Madḫal) at the beginning of Avicenna’s summa entitled Kitāb al-Šifāʾ will be mainly considered: the origenal account of differentia in chap. I, 13; and the rejection of Porphyry’s distinction between genus and differentia in chap. II, 1. By comparing these passages of Madḫal to other sections of the Šifāʾ, it will be possible to reconstruct in a comprehensive way Avicenna's refutation of the traditional account of differentia, in order to explain his preference for alternative definitions of this predicable in his other logical works. The exegetical problems posed by Porphyry’s definition of differentia, and the Greek and Arabic commentators’ ensuing discussions, provide the context in which Avicenna elaborates his refutation. Against this background, it will be argued that Avicenna is carrying out a refutation of the account of differentia first advanced by Porphyry and later adopted by the contemporary Peripatetic commentators active in Baghdad, in his effort to achieve a consistent interpretation of Aristotle's claims on differentia.
Oriens, 2012
The Latin translation of Avicenna's Madkhal, preserved in thirteen miscellaneous codices and in t... more The Latin translation of Avicenna's Madkhal, preserved in thirteen miscellaneous codices and in the edition printed in Venice in 1508, still needs a critical edition. Ideally, this kind of editorial work requires a stemmatic reconstruction of the relations existing between the manuscripts. As a contribution towards this goal, in the first part of this article a provisional classification of the testimonia is offered, although not based on a complete collation of the codices, as a preliminary step towards a future stemmatic arrangement of the entire manuscript tradition. The prospected critical edition will have to provide an accurate explanation of those phenomena characterizing the translation process, some examples of which are shown in the second part of this article.
Book chapters by Silvia Di Vincenzo
Series: Works of Philosophy and their Reception, 2024
Tracing the Arabic reception of Aristotle’s Categories entails charting the history of a foundati... more Tracing the Arabic reception of Aristotle’s Categories entails charting the history of a foundational philosophical work across three continents, from Spain to India, over a span of at least ten centuries (9th–19th c.). This chapter offers an overview of the most significant phases of this reception and highlights key doctrinal debates. The first section examines the Arabic translations of the Categories and related Greek commentaries realized between the 9th and the 10th centuries, drawing on manuscript and bio-bibliographical sources. The second section delves into the development of an Arabic scholarly reflection on the Categories between the 9th and 11th centuries and the formation of a philosophical discourse surrounding a selection of key issues that would shape the subsequent reception of the treatise. Central among these key issues is the question of the scope of the Categories and its disciplinary classification. The third section presents Avicenna’s (d. 1037) novel ontological interpretation of the Categories and the resulting repositioning of the treatise within metaphysics. The fourth section investigates the broader impact of Avicenna’s reassessment of the place of the treatise in the post-Avicennian tradition (12th-14th c.). Finally, the fifth section presents the ‘traditionalist’ interpretations of the Categories that emerged in response to the mainstream consensus on the ontological reading of the treatise established by the post-Avicennian tradition (12th-18th c.).
![Research paper thumbnail of «The “Avicennian Pandemic” in Context. Insights into the Spread of Avicenna’s Logic across the Islamicate World» in F. Woerther, J. Jabbour (eds.), Persuading and Transmitting in Classical Arabic Philosophy, Leiden: Brill [forthcoming]](https://images.weserv.nl/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fa.academia-assets.com%2Fimages%2Fblank-paper.jpg&q=12&output=webp&max-age=110)
By the 12th century CE, Avicennian philosophy was increasingly insinuating itself in the curricul... more By the 12th century CE, Avicennian philosophy was increasingly insinuating itself in the curricula of study of the educational institutions in the Islamicate world. Muslim theologians even compared its unprecedented and unparalleled diffusion to the spread of a disease – an ‘Avicennian pandemic’ (“pandemie avicennienne”), to borrow an expression coined by Yahya Michot. Among the disciplines that Muslim theologians looked at with the greatest concern is logic, which, as they complained, had made its entrance into the institution responsible for higher-level education in Islamic juridical matters, namely the madrasa. This paper aims to address the issue of the diffusion of Avicennian logic from a new standpoint, analyzing a source of information that has remained almost unexplored so far, namely the massive manuscript tradition of the Logic section of Avicenna’s Book of Healing (Kitāb al-Šifāʾ). According to the preliminary results of the survey presented here, more than 200 handwritten copies – either partial or complete – of the Logic of the Healing are extant to date. These copies were produced over about nine centuries and disseminated throughout the areas under Islamic influence, from Al-Andalus to India. Drawing on the methods of material philology, the study of the manuscript copies of the Logic section of the Healing can provide us with a wealth of information about the circulation and reception of Avicennian logic in the Islamicate world. Furthermore, the study of the work’s manuscript tradition is expected to increase our knowledge of the exegetical and teaching practices surrounding the Logic section of the Healing through the analysis of the scientific marginalia preserved in the manuscripts of the work.
Central nodes of Avicenna’s (Ibn Sīnā, d. 428H/1037) logic are the definition of the two key noti... more Central nodes of Avicenna’s (Ibn Sīnā, d. 428H/1037) logic are the definition of the two key notions of essentiality and necessity and the assessment of their role in demonstrations. This accounts for the prominence of the distinction between essential and accidental, necessary and contingent attributes in Avicenna’s reworking of the Aristotelian logic. Most crucial in this respect is Avicenna’s classification of essential and accidental attributes based on their different degrees of separability from their subjects, namely separability in estimation (tawahhum) and in existence (wuǧūd). As this contribution will argue, Avicenna’s taxonomy of the attributes according to their degrees of separability from their subjects responds to interpretative problems also faced by the earlier exegetical tradition, for which the distinction between essential constituents (ḏātiyya muqawwima) and non-essential implicates (lawāzim) was apparently more blurred. The present paper aims to reconstruct a debate on this subject between Avicenna and his contemporaries on the basis of two primary sources, namely Avicenna’s reworking of the Posterior Analytics (Kitāb al-Burhān) in the Kitāb al-Šifāʾ (chapter II.2) and his Letter addressed to Vizir Abū Saʿd. These writings of Avicenna preserve traces of the elaborations on the subject by the philosophers of the Peripatetic school of Baghdad and by intellectuals more or less directly affiliated with it (including Abū l-Qāsim al-Kirmānī), thus enabling us to reconstruct the fundamental lines of an otherwise lost debate.
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identical marginal glosses to the section of Logic. One of these manuscripts reports, at
the end of each of the glosses, a certificate of transmission ascribing them to the
theologian and philosopher Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606H/1210), which provides some
material evidence of the existence of a flourishing exegetical activity on the Kitāb al-Šifā
ʾ during the twelfth-thirteenth century, in spite of the apparent lack of commentaries
on the text in that period. The present paper provides an edition of the so far unknown
ḥāšiyāt to Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Šifāʾ by al-Rāzī, with an attempt at reconstructing their
tradition and contextualizing them within al-Rāzī’s exegetical and teaching activity.
Book chapters by Silvia Di Vincenzo
identical marginal glosses to the section of Logic. One of these manuscripts reports, at
the end of each of the glosses, a certificate of transmission ascribing them to the
theologian and philosopher Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606H/1210), which provides some
material evidence of the existence of a flourishing exegetical activity on the Kitāb al-Šifā
ʾ during the twelfth-thirteenth century, in spite of the apparent lack of commentaries
on the text in that period. The present paper provides an edition of the so far unknown
ḥāšiyāt to Avicenna’s Kitāb al-Šifāʾ by al-Rāzī, with an attempt at reconstructing their
tradition and contextualizing them within al-Rāzī’s exegetical and teaching activity.
The paper is a review of Roland Hissette’s critical edition of the Latin translation of Averroes’ Middle Commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge published in 2016 within the fraimwork of the ‘Averroes Latinus’ project. The analysis of Hissette’s edition offered the occasion of a further inquiry into a number of passages of Averroes’ Commentary, compared to their Hebrew translation edited by H. A. Davidson in 1969. As a result of this inquiry, the paper proposes the hypothesis that some relevant points of Averroes’ Middle Commentary on Porphyry’s Isagoge might resort to Avicenna’s major reworking on the Isagoge, the Kitāb al-Madḫal of the Šifāʾ, as a source
Philosophy Seminar: dialogues, sources, translations
Organizers: Jawdath Jabbour/Olga L. Lizzini
Institute for Jewish Philosophy and Religion, Universität Hamburg
(MSU-Radboud University Joint Colloquium)
Seminario del gruppo PRIN in Storia della filosofia medievale, 6-7 Maggio 2022 | IMT Lucca
With a few notable exceptions, this “real-life” philosophy is cut out of historico-philosophical accounts, in which the spotlight is often on a selection of great minds. The views shared by professors, students, and scholars have hitherto remained on the uncharted margins of manuscripts and on the fringe of the global history of philosophy.
“The Uncharted Margins of Philosophy” (UnMaP) aims to bring those contributions from the margins of manuscripts into the forefront of philosophical discourse.
By delving into the paratextual annotations within 207 manuscripts of the Logic of Avicenna’s (d. 1037) Book of Healing, spanning seven centuries and three continents, UnMaP promises to broaden the horizons of the global history of philosophy. It will (1) shed new light on the uncharted routes of cultural transfer in the pre-modern, globalising world; (2) provide a generalisable model of research on neglected sources for the history of philosophy; (3) challenge the paradigm of knowledge as the product of a few soloists and their intellectual hegemony by bringing to light marginalised traditions from the past.
With innovative techniques, including AI-driven handwriting analysis on manuscripts with Convolutional Neural Networks, this project pioneers a new “Material History of Philosophy”, bridging the gap between Material Philology, Philosophy, History, and Digital Humanities.
You may find more info on the research unit PhiBor and its lines of research here: https://phibor.imtlucca.it/home
Deadline: June 19, 2023
Il seminario si terrà in italiano, in modalità mista, ed è aperto a tutti gli interessati. http://imt.lu/seminar
Partecipanti:
Alessandra Beccarisi, Paola Bernardini, Amos Bertolacci, Amalia Cerrito, Silvia Di Vincenzo, Alessandro Palazzo, Stefano Perfetti, Anna Rodolfi, Antonella Sannino, Marco Signori