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Nicola Polloni

Dettagli Personali

Nicola Polloni, Ph.D. candidate in Medieval Philosophy

Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Sez. di Filosofia - Università degli Studi di Pavia

Departement de Ciències de l'Antiguitat i de l'Edat Mitjana - Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona

mobile : +39 339.771.80.88

email: nicola.polloni@gmail.com

Formazione

Novembre 2012 : Borsista di dottorato di ricerca in Filosofia Medievale presso l’Università degli Studi di Pavia, in cotutela con la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. Tutors: Chiara Crisciani e Alexander Fidora

Aprile 2012 : Laurea specialistica in Filosofia presso l’Università degli Studi di Siena con un lavoro su Dominicus Gundissalinus dal titolo «Il De Processione Mundi di Gundissalinus: un’ontologia dell’essere possibile», relatrice prof.ssa Michela Pereira, controrelatrice prof.ssa Paola Bernardini.

Giugno 2008 : Laurea triennale in Filosofia presso l’Università degli Studi di Siena, con una tesi sulla dottrina della grazia agostiniana dal titolo «Quid deinde Esau? Peccato originale, grazia e libertà in Agostino di Ippona», relatrice prof.ssa Paola Bernardini.

Interessi di Ricerca

I miei principali interessi di ricerca sono focalizzati sul XII secolo, in particolare sul contesto toledano di ricezione delle opere arabe e del movimento di traduzione dall’arabo al latino. In tale contesto, al momento sto portando avanti un lavoro sulle fonti arabe e latine del De processione mundi di Dominicus Gundissalinus, evidenziando le interazioni tra le due tradizioni filosofiche e studiando come le dottrine avicenniane si sviluppino sul sostrato speculativo boeziano e chartriano. Il mio interesse verte principalmente sulla metafisica, l’ontologia e il nesso tra logica e dottrina dell’essere nel Neoplatonismo latino e arabo. In passato mi sono occupato del problema della posizione del male nel pensiero tardo-agostiniano, relativamente all’elaborazione delle dottrine del peccato originale e della grazia in Agostino.

Come studente dottorale, le mie esperienze di ricerca sono relative al lavoro svolto in seduta di tesi specialistica e nel suddetto dottorato, esperienze entrambe relative principalmente all’esame del De processione mundi di Dominicus Gundissalinus e del movimento di traduzione dall’arabo al latino del XII secolo. Il metodo di lavoro sviluppato e adottato in questi anni si sviluppa a partire dal riconoscimento della peculiare natura del testo filosofico scritto, e quindi della necessità di uno strumento che permetta di confrontare i singoli nuclei concettuali dell’opera sia a livello intratestuale che intertestuale. Nel primo caso si tratta di analizzare la strutturazione dottrinale intrinseca alla singola opera, in modo tale da evidenziare lo sviluppo dialettico della riflessione presentataci nel testo. Nel secondo, invece, il nostro lavoro si riferisce alla strutturazione genetica, ossia alla storia della dottrina che è riportata nel testo, evidenziandone – laddove si dia – il mutamento concettuale e la stratificazione di senso rispetto all’originale da cui deriva. Questa duplice prospettiva ci permette primariamente di diminuire l’esposizione del singolo testo (o di estratti di esso) a stratificazioni interpretative che potrebbero contribuire ad un errata comprensione dell’opera stessa e, parallelamente, il riconoscimento dell’unitarietà testuale, quale fondamento della comprensione ultima dell’opera, assicura l’indagine da uno scivolamento comparativo tra frammenti testuali che, decontestualizzati, potrebbero viziare irreparabilmente il senso che l’autore ha presentato nel proprio scritto. Alla riconduzione dell’opera alla propria dimensione eminentemente storica deve dunque fare da contraltare l’esame analitico e comparativo dei nuclei concettuali e dottrinali.

Progetto di Ricerca

The work of Dominicus Gundissalinus is highly representative of both the cultural context and of the progressive development of the Latin speculation in the late 12th century.

Translating from Arabic to Latin more than twenty philosophical works of various importance, Gundissalinus works in Toledo, a complex and still unclear milieu, where he collaborates in his translation activity with controversial figures such as Avendauth and Johannes Hispanus. Among the texts traditionally ascribed to Gundissalinus we find writings of outstanding importance for the future developments of Medieval Philosophy, such as Avicenna’s Liber de philosophia prima and Liber de Anima, ibn Gabirol’s Fons Vitae and al-Ghazali’s Metaphysica.

A peculiar feature of gundissalinian activity is a marked dynamicity with regard to the reception of the works he translates, as is shown by the elaboration of philosophical treatises in which Gundissalinus – philosophus et translator – deals with the great speculative questions of the Latin tradition through the results of the Arabic and Jewish reflections. In these works the author’s interest in Metaphysics, Ontology, Gnoseology and Psychology is evident, and likewise the Arabic and Latin responses to these basic philosophical questions. So, Gundissalinus follows the farabian and avicennian psychological perspectives writing his works De Anima and De Immortalitate Animae, while his treatises De Divisione Philosophiae and De Scientiis are gnoseological works with an important Wirkungsgeschichte in the following century, and lastly Gundissalinus’ De Processione Mundi and De Unitate et Uno are his metaphysical and ontological works.

In the second half of the 20th^th century, some studies conducted by M. Alonso and M. Th. D’Alverny cast light both upon the gundissalinian translation activity and upon the relations between Gundissalinus and the Arabic-Jew (and Latin) Author which are his principal sources. These works have put to the fore some thorny questions about the use of the Arabic-Jew works and, at the same time, about Gundissalinus’ philosophical background. In the latest decade, a renewed interest in the gundissalinian sources of De Processione Mundi has developed, concentrating mainly on those theorical connections amongst Gundissalinus and Avicenna, Avicebron, Hermann of Carinthia and Boethius. The results of these surveys have led to a wider comprehension of gundissalinian work, evidencing De Processione Mundi’s structural dependences on some ell defined theoretical perspectives . Nevertheless, a systematic survey on the intrinsic interdependences of the treatise in comparison with these authors is still absent, as well as a research line that include “minor” sources and gundissalinian translations to Latin.

In this way, in my MA thesis work I have conducted a first analysis of Gundissalinus’ overall ratio on the subsumption of the Arabic and Jewish doctrines – often contradictory amongst them – into a coherent ontological system. A recognition of excerpt and quotations that are presented in the text, let us focus our attention on three authors as principal sources of Gundissalinus’ metaphysical reflection, and on two philosophers whose nexus with the treatise is secondary but not evanescent. These first “major” sources are: Avicenna’s Metaphysica, ibn Gabirol’s Fons Vitae, and Hermann of Carinthia’s De Essentiis. Secondly, we have Chalcidius’ Commentarius in Timaeum and then, the theoretical compound of Boethius’ ontological, numerological and gnoseological doctrines (De Consolatione Philosophiae, De Trinitate, De Hebdomadibus, De Arithmetica).

The comparative analysis of these sources permits us to single out a first ratio in the gundissalinian reception. From Hermann’s De Essentiis Gundissalinus accepts the causal derivation schema for the explanation of reality, while from Chalcidius we perceive the twofold speculative method of compositio and resolutio, and the theory over the causal and un-temporal origin of the Universe. Of both, Gundissalinus rejects the Platonism, refusing those aspects that he considers contradictory , like the theory of primordial chaos, or unacceptable as regards to their consequences, as the doctrine of χώρα, or insufficient, like the theory of demiurgic divine action. Beginning with the recognition of these anomalies of the Latin philosophical tradition – anomalies such as contradictions s, unacceptable and/or insufficient results – Gundissalinus directs himself toward the Arabic and Jewish texts with the purpose of proposing them to the Latin philosophical community.

Amongst them, the major influence is that of Avicenna’s Metaphysica, from which Gundissalinus extracts the doctrine of the necessary and possible being. Nevertheless, it is not a passive reception: the author develops the avicennian ontological theory by joining it with the doctrines of act and potency, and matter and form: this new ontological perspective is no longer avicennian, but raises as a new philosophical system of gundissalinian paternity. The same procedure can be seen in the critical reception and utilization of Fons Vitae’s theories: Gundissalinus accepts only a part of Avicebron’s speculation, and combines it in his own ontological theory, as a piece of the new metaphysical system created by combining Hermann, Avicenna and Avicebron.

Finally, we can see that this peculiar ontology seems to have a connection with Boethius’ De Hebdomadibus. This treatise had a large importance in the 12th century, and Gundissalinus seems to have the purpose of solving some coherence questions inside it, by the introduction of the Arabic and Jewish speculative results into the Latin tradition.

In my MA thesis , I have identified some main points in the doctrinal structuring of De Processione Mundi in relation to its principal textual sources. In this way, some questions are clarified , especially the inter-textual relations among the various doctrinal excerpts drawn from these sources. Nevertheless, at the same time the questions about the inter-textual relations with the other sources (translations made by Gundissalinus, contemporary Latin works, minor Arabic treatises) persist unaltered. In other words, to better the perspicacity of the doctrinal structure of the treatise, a sharp problematization of the basis of the entire Gundissalinus’ speculative building is introduced.

Beginning with the assumption of these problems, the research project I intend to carry out is based on some principal points of development, which are:

A. Throughout the analysis and translation from Latin of the treatise, I have encountered some difficulties in the text edited by G. Bülow, difficulties that led me to amend – with an extreme prudence and not without qualms - the text in ten places. In relation to the stemma codicum proposed by Bülow, it at least two main facts must be considered. The first one is related to the choice, made by the philologist, of using the Parisian manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, lat. 6443, P) as the base text for his critical edition. The copyist of this manuscript – for Bülow eine biedere Schreiberseele – should have avoided integrations/additions and corrections where the text seemed to be incomprehensible. This judgment implied the recognition of an opposite character for the Vatican manuscript (Città del Vaticano, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, lat. 2186, V), where Bülow saw skilled hands at work, modifying the obscure textual passages. Nevertheless, the major temporary closeness of V (13th century) instead of P (14th century) to the original gundissalinian text (12th century), as the recognition of numerous literal affinities between V and the quotations Gundissalinus presents in his treatise, impose upon us a new examination of the relations between the manuscripts presented by Bülow in his stemma codicum.

At the same time, the second relevant fact is the advancement of historiographical research in the 20thth century, which led to the individuation of numerous witnesses not known or not analyzed by Bülow in his critical edition. These witnesses have to be considered in an overall and necessary critical revision of the De Processione Mundi’s text.

B. Once completed this first philological level of my work, I will proceed with the analysis of the doctrinal relation between the De Processione Mundi and the Metaphysica Algazelis. As is known, in the Maqasid al-Ghazali proposes his own synthesis of the Arabian philosophical perspectives in general, and particularly those of Avicenna, with a preparatory function for the subsequent Tahafut, where those theoretical constructions are confuted. The gundissalinian translation of the metaphysical section of the Maqasid – the Metaphysica Alazelis – opens our work to the possible ghazalian mediation as to the reception of the avicennian ontological theories by Gundissalinus. This question acquires a fundamental relevance for the outline of the doctrinal genesis of Gundissalinus’ ontological elaboration in relation to the Arabic sources and to his cultural Latin background.

C. After having delineated the modalities of an possible ghazalian mediation on the theoretical subsumption made by Gundissalinus, I expect that the ontological system presented in the De Processione Mundi would be sufficiently clear to pass to the second phase of the comparative examination, based on the cultural background of the 12th century and the influxes on Gundissalinus’ work. The textual clues I checked in my MA thesis have given rise to some questions with respect to the gundissalinian fruition of the boethian treatise De Hebdomadibus. In this way, the deep connection that links ontology and numerology in Gundissalinus, and the necessity of clarifying the pre-toledan period of the author cannot leave out of consideration an examination of the relationship between the boethian commentaries elaborated in the School of Chartres. So, following the textual clues, our work will include above all the work of Thierry of Chartres, the author about whom we assume the most contact points at a doctrinal level with Gundissalinus. The accurate analysis of the commentaries on De Hebdomadibus and on De Trinitate, such as the exam of the Tractatus will be diriment in this regard, and will furnish us material to validate or discard the hypothesis of a direct link between Thierry and Gundissalinus. Afterwards, especially if the results should give a negative outcome, our survey will proceed with a comparative examination of the De Processione Mundi and the works of William of Conches, toward which other textual and doctrinal clues will lead us. Should the results of this work be inconclusive, an evaluation of the other chartrean works will be undertaken, followed by a re-addressing of the hypothesis as to the connection between Gundissalinus and the Chartres milieu.

D. These first two phases of the comparative research, to which will be added the results of the precedent scholars’ works about the connections to Avicenna and Avicebron, will permit us to delineate the genetic structure of the gundissalinian ontology , which was our first purpose. Nevertheless, the explanation of the doctrinal genesis of Gundissalinus’ reflection on the being does not exhaust the entire treatment of his De Processione Mundi, in which various still obscure theorical aspects are reflected , which need to be followed back to their doctrinal and textual origin, in order to dodge a persistent precariousness on the comprehension of the treatise. These considerations imply a further analysis both of the translations made by Gundissalinus and of the remaining works written by him. We are persuaded of the possibility to individuate, into the gundissalinian corpus, a clear link between the translated writings and the compiled works of Gundissalinus, based on a concordance of specific subjects (gnoseology, psychology and ontology). In our hypothesis, we are confronted with three translations complexes directly linked to the redaction of the philosophical works based on the same problems Gundissalinus finds in the Arabic and Jewish text he translated. The assaying of this hypothesis and the possible positive outcome could contribute to clarify the temporal succession of the written and translated works of Gundissalinus, as well as showing the textual presence on the De Processione Mundi of the minor gundissalinian works.

This last phase of my research, therefore, wants to solve some questions that transcend the structuring and the content of the gundissalinian treatise, but which are of capital importance to the comprehension of the role and function of the De Processione Mundi, such as the finalities of the writing and the modalities of the work of this author.