Philosophy
on the Border of Civilizations

Towards a Critical Edition of the Metaphysics of Avicenna

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Activity

Conferences and Workshops

End of Ilāhiyyāt
Ms. Turkey, Istanbul, Köprülü Kütüphanesi, Fazil Ahmet Paśa 894

Two international conferences will be organized to discuss, preliminarily and in the course of the project, thematic and methodological issues. The proceedings of the two conferences will be published. The first conference – scheduled in July 2015 – will center on the extant Latin Medieval translations of the logic, natural philosophy, and metaphysics of Avicenna’s Shifa’, studying these translations comparatively and highlighting their value for the establishment of the Arabic original text.

The second conference will regard the methodology to be followed for the preparation of critical editions of works, like the Ilahiyyat, with extensive manuscript diffusion, early translations in different languages, and wide reception. Aim of the conference is to study the methods adopted so far in similar cases, and to allow experts of Arabic textual critcism to interact with editors of comparable philosophical works in other linguistic traditions (Greek, Latin, Hebrew etc.).

More focused periodical workshops will involve experts of codicology and textual criticism of Arabic philosophical works, in order to discuss loci suspecti, cruces, and other problems posed by the concrete advancement of the planned critical edition, and to evaluate the provisional results and the outlook of the final product.