Pasquale Porro
Date and place of birth: 18 July 1964, Andria (BA), Italy
Appointment to the Academy: 8 Feb. 2003
Scientific discipline: History of Medieval Philosophy
Academic title: Full Professor
Academic awards and distinctions
Former director of a local Research Team on the PRIN research programmes in 1997, 1999, 2002, 2004. Co-ordinator of an International Research Project (approved and co-financed by the Italian Government) on Medieval Philosophy, which establishes official, sponsored and continuous links between the Chair of History of Medieval Philosophy at the University of Bari and other prestigious international institutes: the Thomas-Institut der Universität zu Köln; the De Wulf-Mansioncentrum, Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven; the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne; and the St. Kliment Ochdriski University of Sofia. Member since its foundation of EGSAMP (European Graduate School for Ancient and Medieval Philosophy), which has its administrative seat at the Thomas-Institut der Universität zu Köln. Director of the exchange programmes ‘Socrates-Erasmus’ between the University of Bari and the Universities of Sofia and Cologne. Member since its foundation of the ‘Società Italiana per lo Studio del Pensiero Medievale’ (SISPM), for which he was secretary up to 2003 and a member of the board up to 2005. Since 1989 he has been a member of the ‘Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale’ (SIEPM) and is also a member of the organizing committee for the academic programme of the XII International Conference of the Society, which will be held in Palermo in 2007. He is founder and co-editor, together with Costantino Esposito, of the international journal Quaestio (Brepols, Turnhout / Pagina, Bari) and of a series related to the journal (‘Biblioteca filosofica di Quaestio’). He is a member of the advisory board of Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales and Archiv für mittelalterliche Philosophie und Kultur. He is also a member of the editorial board of the series ‘Ancient and Medieval Philosophy’, published by the De Wulf-Mansioncentrum, Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven.
Academic background
Full Professor of History of Medieval Philosophy at the University of Bari (Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, Dipartimento di Scienze Filosofiche); June 1992-March 2000 Research post in the same Department; April 2000-October 2002 Associate Professor of History of Medieval Philosophy. He obtained his Ph.D. from Rome ‘La Sapienza’ University and has held several research fellowships, in particular at the De Wulf-Mansioncentrum of the K.U. Leuven (Belgium) and at German Universities.
Summary of scientific research
His main fields of research are: Henry of Ghent, on whom he has published a monograph (1990), as well as numerous articles and bibliographies; Thomas Aquinas and the first Thomistic school; the German Dominican School; the medieval concept of time, on which he has published, amongst other things, a monograph (Leuven University Press, 1996), a volume of collected essays (Brill, Leiden 2001) and the entry Zeit. Mittelalter for the Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie; the history of the concept of causality; the status of Metaphysics in the 13th and 14th centuries; the reception of Avicenna in the Latin West. He is the author of numerous essays published in various specialized international journals (in English, French and German, see list of publications). He has translated into Italian, with an introduction and commentary, De ente et essentia, Super Boethium De Trinitate, Expositio libri Boethii De hebdomadibus, by Thomas Aquinas. Together with Olga Lizzini, he has published the first Italian translation (with the Arabic and Latin texts) of Avicenna’s Metaphysics of the Book of the Cure. Together with M. Bettetini, L. Bianchi and C. Marmo he has published the volume Filosofia medievale. He has written entries for the Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, the Dictionnaire du Moyen Age, for the new edition of the Enciclopedia filosofica and for the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. He participates in the Editorial Board currently preparing the critical edition of Henry of Ghent’s Opera Omnia (De Wulf-Mansioncentrum, K.U. Leuven), and he has already critically edited some of the questions on Metaphysics attributed to Henry himself. He has organised two International Conferences: ‘Transformations of the Concept of Time between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age’ (Bari, December 1998) and ‘Metaphysica – sapientia – scientia divina: The Subject and Status of First Philosophy in the Middle Ages’ (Bari, June 2004, XV International Congress of the SISPM ‘Società Italiana per lo Studio del Pensiero Medievale’).
Main publications (selected in chronological order; last update: Jan. 2007)
Enrico di Gand. La via delle proposizioni universali, Edizioni Levante (“Vestigia. Studi e strumenti di storiografia filosofica”, 2), Bari 1990; “Possibile ex se, necessarium ab alio”: Tommaso d’Aquino e Enrico di Gand, Medioevo, 18 (1992), pp. 231-273; [Tommaso d’Aquino], L’ente e l’essenza, introduzione, traduzione, note e apparati di P. Porro, Rusconi (“Testi a fronte”, 20), Milano 1995. Comprende come appendici: Il commento del Gaetano al “De ente et essentia” (pp. 159-181) e Qualche riferimento storiografico sulla distinzione di essere ed essenza (pp. 183-215). Nuova edizione aggiornata: Bompiani, Milano 2002; Possibilità ed esse essentiae in Enrico di Gand, in W. Vanhamel (ed.), Henry of Ghent. Proceedings of the International Colloquium on the Occasion of the 700th Anniversary of His Death, Leuven University Press, Leuven 1996, pp. 211-253; Forme e modelli di durata nel pensiero medievale. L’aevum, il tempo discreto, la categoria “quando”, Leuven University Press (“Ancient and Medieval Philosophy”, series I, n. 16), Leuven 1996; [Tommaso d’Aquino], Commenti a Boezio (“Super Boetium De Trinitate” – “Expositio libri Boetii De ebdomadibus”), introduzione, traduzione, note e apparati di P. Porro, Rusconi (“Testi a fronte”, 50), Milano 1997; Metaphysics and Theology in the Last Quarter of the 13th Century: Henry of Ghent Reconsidered, in J.A. Aertsen/A. Speer (Hrsg.), Geistesleben im 13. Jahrhundert, de Gruyter (“Miscellanea Mediaevalia”, 27), Berlin-New York 2000, pp. 265-282; Pseudo-Dionysius and Henry of Ghent, in T. Boiadjiev/G. Kapriev/A. Speer (hrsg. v.), Die Dionysius-Rezeption im Mittelalter. Internationales Kolloquium in Sofia vom 8. bis 11. April 1999 unter der Schirmherrschaft der Société Internationale pour l’Étude de la Philosophie Médiévale, Brepols (“Rencontres de Philosophie Médiévale”, 9), Turnhout 2000, pp. 395-427; [Curatela del vo-lume:] P. Porro (ed.), The Medieval Concept of Time. Studies on the Scholastic Debate and Its Reception in Early Modern Philosophy, E.J. Brill, Leiden – Köln 2001; Il posto della metafisica nella divisione delle scienze speculative di Tommaso d’Aquino (Super Boetium De Trinitate, qq. V-VI), in G. D’Onofrio (a cura di), La divisione della filosofia e le sue ragioni. Atti del VII Convegno della SISPM (Assisi, 14-15 novembre 1997), Avagliano (“Quaderni di Schola Salernitana”), Cava de’ Tirreni 2001, pp. 194-265; [Curatela del volume:] C. Esposito/P. Porro (a cura di), Heidegger e i medievali. Atti del Colloquio Internazionale di Cassino, 10-13 maggio 2000, Brepols, Turnhout/Pagina, Bari 2001 [=”Quaestio”, 1 (2001)]; Ursache/Wirkung (Patristik; Mittelalter). Voce per lo Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, Bd. 11 (U-V), Schwabe & Co. Verlag, Basel 2001, coll. 384-389; Le Quaestiones super Metaphysicam attribuite a Enrico di Gand: elementi per un sondaggio dottrinale, Documenti e studi sulla tradizione filosofica medievale, 13 (2002), pp. 507-602 (con edizione di questioni dal ms. Escorial, h.II.1); [Curatela, del volume:] C. Esposito/P. Porro (a cura di), La causalità, Brepols, Turnhout/Pagina, Bari 2002 [=”Quaestio”, 2 (2002)], pp. 1-710; Universaux et esse essentiae: Avicenne, Henri de Gand et le “Troisième Reich”, in Le réalisme des universaux. Philosophie analytique et philosophie médiévale, “Cahiers de Philosophie de l’Université de Caen”, 38-39 (2002), pp. 9-51; Henry of Ghent on Ordained and Absolute Power, in G. Guldentops/C. Steel (eds.), Henry of Ghent’s and the Transformation of Scholastic Thought. Studies in Memory of Jos Decorte, Leuven University Press, Leuven 2003, pp. 387-408; Essere e essenza in Giovanni Picardi di Lichtenberg: note sulla prima ricezione del tomismo a Colonia, in M. Pickavé (Hrsg.), Die Logik des Transzendentalen. Festschrift für Jan A. Aertsen zum 65. Geburtstag, de Gruyter, Berlin-New York 2003, pp. 226-245; [In colla-borazione con M. Bettetini/L. Bianchi/C. Marmo], Filosofia medievale, Raffaello Cortina, Milano 2004 (“Bibliotheca”), 401 pp.; Tommaso d’Aquino, Avicenna e la struttura della metafisica, in S.L. Brock (a cura di), Tommaso d’Aquino e l’oggetto della metafisica, Armando, Roma 2004, pp. 65-87; Duns Scot et le point de rupture avec Avicenne, in O. Boulnois/E. Karger/J.-L. Solère/G. Sondag (eds.), Duns Scot à Paris 1302-2002, Actes du Colloque de Paris, 2-4 septembre 2002, Brepols, Turnhout 2004, pp. 195-218; Zeit (III. Mittelalter). Voce per lo Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, Bd. 12 (W-Z), Schwabe & Co. Verlag, Basel 2004, coll. 1209-1219; [Curatela del volume:] C. Esposito/P. Porro (a cura di), L’esperienza, Brepols, Turnhout/Pagina, Bari 2005 [=“Quaestio”, 4 (2004)], pp. 1-532; [Curatela del volume:] P. Porro (a cura di), Metaphysica – sapientia – scientia divina. Soggetto e statuto della filosofia prima nel Medioevo, Brepols, Turnhout/Pagina, Bari 2006 [=“Quaestio”, 5 (2005)], pp. li-688. Contiene anche il saggio introduttivo: Dalla Metafisica alla metafisica, e ritorno, pp. ix-li; Doing Theology (and Philosophy) in the First Person: Henry of Ghent’s Quodlibeta, in C. Schabel (ed.), Theological Quodlibeta in the Middle Ages. The Thirteenth Century, E.J. Brill, Leiden 2006 (“Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition”, 1), pp. 171-231; [Avicenna], Metafisica. La Scienza delle cose divine dal Libro della Guarigione, a cura di O. Lizzini/P. Porro, seconda edizione riveduta e corretta, Bompiani, Milano 2006 (Prefazione: pp. v-xxxvi); Intelligenze oziose e angeli attivi: note in margine a un capitolo del Convivio dantesco (II, IV), in S. Caroti/R. Imbach/Z. Kaluza/G. Stabile/L. Sturlese (eds.), “Ad ingenii acuitionem”. Studies in Honour of Alfonso Maierù, FIDEM, Louvain-la-Neuve 2006 (“Textes et Études du Moyen Âge”, 38), pp. 303-351; Astrazione e separazione: Tommaso d’Aquino e la tradizione greco-araba, in A. Ghisalberti/A. Petagine/R. Rizzello (a cura di), Letture e interpretazioni di Tommaso d’Aquino oggi: cantieri aperti, Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studio (Milano 12-13 settembre 2005), Quaderni di Annali Chieresi, Torino 2006, pp. 121-161.
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