The IIS has continued its engagement with the Aquinas and 鈥渢he Arabs鈥 International Working Group Meeting this year, which runs online in May-June 2021.
On May 19th, the Institute sponsored the panel “Ismaili Thought: Between Neoplatonism and Aquinas” at the conference, which this year has the title 鈥淧hilosophy in the Abrahamic Traditions: Structures of Being, World and Mind鈥.
The panel was organised and chaired by Dr Janis Esots, a Research Associate in the IIS鈥檚 Shi’i Studies Unit, and featured two IIS scholars,聽Dr F芒r猫s Gillon聽and Professor Carmela Baffioni, as well as Dr Cristina D鈥橝ncona of the Universit脿 di Pisa.
Dr Gillon, who has also recently convened the聽Islamic History and Thought Lecture Series聽at the IIS, investigated the pre-philosophical roots of 岣m墨d聽al-D墨n聽al-Kirman墨鈥檚 doctrine of 鈥榯wo perfections鈥.
Professor Baffioni, building on her work on the聽搁补蝉腻鈥檌濒听辞蹿听Ikhw膩n al-峁f膩鈥, proposed to consider Ismailism as a philosophical medium between East and West.
Dr D鈥橝ncona elaborated on the intellect and the intellection of the human soul as an Aristotelian problem and its non-Aristotelian solutions in Arabic philosophy.
On the conference, Dr Esots said 鈥淭he initial plan, drafted in 2019, was to hold this event live at the IIS, in June 2020, with much more involvement of our researchers and students. The programme was drafted and circulated in early 2020. Then the pandemic happened and the conference was postponed for a year. In late 2020, we decided to have a Zoom event instead.鈥
鈥淚 am very glad that everything went smoothly, and that the panel was well received. I would like to warmly thank the speakers, F芒r猫s, Carmela and Cristina, for their well-prepared and insightful talks, and the audience for their interest and engagement. I hope we will be able to sponsor more events of this kind in the future.鈥
