My main research interests are related to the notions of matter and materiality, in particular the epistemological problem of matter’s knowability within the traditional Aristotelian framework of natural philosophy. I am currently working on the epistemic strategies elaborated in the 13th century to ground matter’s intelligibility (analogy, negation, etc.) and their relation to ontological and physical problems that marked the historical development of a shared notion of matter (detached, in part or completely, from Aristotle). My interest on matter and materiality is not limited to the 13th century. My central hypothesis is that the failure …
My main research interests are related to the notions of matter and materiality, in particular the epistemological problem of matter’s knowability within the traditional Aristotelian framework of natural philosophy. I am currently working on the epistemic strategies elaborated in the 13th century to ground matter’s intelligibility (analogy, negation, etc.) and their relation to ontological and physical problems that marked the historical development of a shared notion of matter (detached, in part or completely, from Aristotle). My interest on matter and materiality is not limited to the 13th century. My central hypothesis is that the failure to provide the foundations for a positive knowability of (prime) matter substantively marked the gradual abandonment of the Aristotelian framework in natural philosophy from the 14th century, through a process whose roots are grounded on the 12th century and whose completion would be eventually achieved in the 17th century. My work on the history of longue durée of the notions of matter and materiality is pursued through a combination of source-based examinations (with central attention to cross-cultural sources originated from the Arabic- and Greek-into-Latin medieval translations), systematic analysis of philosophical doctrines, and historical reconstruction (particularly in relation to the circulation of works and the cross-disciplinary pollination between science and philosophy).
