People
Directors
Peter Adamson was previously Professor of Philosophy at King’s College, London. He has published on Aristotle, Plotinus, al-Farabi and other members of the Baghdad School, Avicenna, and Averroes. A special focus of research is the output of the translation circle of al-Kindi, on which he has written The Arabic Plotinus: a Philosophical Study of the "Theology of Aristotle" (Duckworth, 2002) and Great Medieval Thinkers: al-Kindi (OUP, 2007) He is also editor or co-editor of several books, including The Cambridge Companion to Arabic Philosophy (2004) and Philosophy, Science and Exegesis in Greek, Arabic and Latin Commentaries (Institute for Classical Studies, 2004). Website office.peter.adamson@lrz.uni-muenchen.de | |||
Oliver Primavesi Website O.Primavesi@lrz.uni-muenchen.de | |||
Christof Rapp studied philosophy, ancient Greek, logic and philosophy of science in Tübingen and Munich. He obtained his doctorate at LMU, Munich in 1993 and completed his Habilitation in Tübingen in 2000. After that, he took up the Chair for Ancient and Contemporary Philosophy at HU-Berlin, where he was also co-director of the TOPOI excellence cluster. Since 2009, he has held the Chair for Ancient Philosophy and Rhetoric at LMU, where he is also academic director of the Center for Advanced Studies. Christof Rapp has written books on the identity and persistence of substance, the presocratics, Aristotle and Epicurus. He has published a translation and commentary of Aristotle’s Rhetoric and (with Tim Wagner) a translation with introduction of Aristotle’s Topics. In addition, he has published articles throughout ancient philosophy, as well as edited several anthologies and handbooks. Website Office.Ch.Rapp@lrz.uni-muenchen.de | |||
Additional Faculty and Researchers |
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Andreas Anagnostopoulos received his B.A. (Philosophy, Mathematics) and Ph.D. (Philosophy) from the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests are in ancient metaphysics, natural science and psychology, especially in Aristotle. He also maintains broad interests in contemporary analytic philosophy. Website andreas.anagnostopoulos@lrz.uni-muenchen.de | |||
Santiago Chame obtained his PhD in Human Sciences (Philosophy curriculum) from the University of Verona, in co-tutelle de thèse with the University of Buenos Aires. He is currently an assistant at the Chair for Ancient Philosophy and Rhetoric (Prof. C. Rapp) at LMU. His research interests focus on the ontology of the classical period, particularly Aristotle’s Metaphysics. He is also interested in the Socratic schools and their connection with Plato and Aristotle, and more broadly, in the contemporary reception of ancient Greek thought. |
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Rotraud Hansberger studied in Münster, Saarbrücken and Oxford. She obtained her doctorate at the University of Oxford with a thesis on the Arabic adaptation of Aristotle’s Parva Naturalia. After that, she held a Research Fellowship at King’s College, Cambridge, followed by a position as a Research Associate at King’s College, London, where she was linked to the Leverhulme-funded project ‘Natural Philosophy in the Islamic World’. Her main areas of research are the Graeco-Arabic transmission and medieval Arabic philosophy, with particular interests in philosophical psychology and ethics. Website hansberger@lrz.uni-muenchen.de | |||
Reier Helle received his B.A. (Classics, Philosophy) and M.Phil (Philosophy) from the University of Oslo, and the Ph.D. (Philosophy and Classics) from Yale University. He is interested in ancient physics and metaphysics, and particularly in the physics and metaphysics of the Stoics, on which his current work is focused. He also has interests in early modern philosophy, philosophy of action, and metaphysics. Website Reier.Helle@lrz.uni-muenchen.de | |||
Peter Isépy is Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter at the Classics Department (Chair of Greek Philology I, Prof. O. Primavesi). After his studies in Classics and Greek Palaeography in Munich and Rome he obtained his PhD in 2013 at the LMU Munich with a study on the Medieval Latin tradition of Aristotle’s De motu animalium and its importance for the Greek text. After that, he held a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Fritz Thyssen Foundation. Currently he is writing his habilitation thesis on the originally iambic Chrestomatheiai of Helladios (4th c. AD), which are only transmitted through a prose epitome in Photios’s Bibliotheke (cap. 279). His main areas of research are the textual tradition of Aristotle, wisdom literature and lexica of late antiquity, and Greek manuscript studies. Website peter.isepy@klassphil.uni-muenchen.de | |||
Christina Prapa, Akademische Rätin at the Classics Department (Chair Prof. Dr. O. Primavesi), studied Greek Philology (ancient, byzantine, modern) and Linguistics in Athens and Berlin (FU) and received an M.A. in Classics. With fellowships from the DAAD and the Onassis Foundation, she completed her doctoral studies (Athens, HU-Berlin) with a dissertation on Ptolemy’s Geōgraphikē Hyphēgēsis (historical elements, textual transmission, scholia). She has worked on the transmission of diagrams in manuscripts of Aristotle’s natural philosophy (TOPOI Berlin) and on the textual transmission of Aristotle’s Metaphysics and De motu animalium (Aristoteles-Archiv Berlin / LMU Munich). Currently she is contributing to the project “Editing Aristotle’s Metaphysics” by studying Michael of Ephesus’ commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics Z-N. She is also preparing an editio princeps of the 8th book (‘On sense perception and sense objects’) of Pachymeres’ Philosophia. Website prapa@lmu.de | |||
Marina Schwark is assistant (Akademische Rätin a. Z.) at the chair for late ancient and Arabic philosophy (Prof. Dr. Peter Adamson). After studying philosophy, Indo-European linguistics, and German philology in Bonn and Cologne, she completed her PhD in philosophy through a cotutelle between the University of Cologne and KU Leuven. Her PhD thesis discusses the concept of the enmattered form (enhylon eidos) in late Neoplatonism. She is interested in ancient metaphysics and natural philosophy, with a special focus on the Peripatetic and the Neoplatonic tradition. Website marina.schwark@lmu.de | |||
Melpomeni Vogiatzi received her BA (Classics) and MA (History of Philosophy) at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. She received her PhD from LMU (Musaph) in 2018 with a thesis on the Byzantine commentaries on Aristotle’s Rhetoric (supervised by Prof. Ch.Rapp). Currently, she is a research assosiate (Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiterin) at the Lehrstuhl VI für Spätantike und arabische Philosophie (Prof. P. Adamson). Her main research interests are in ancient ethics and psychology, especially in Aristotle, and their reception in late antiquity and Byzantium. Website melpomeni.vogiatzi@lrz.uni-muenchen.de | |||
Graduate Students |
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Lucas Álvarez-Maldonado received his B.A. in Philosophy from the UESD in Madrid (2019) and completed his M.A. in Ancient Philosophy at LMU, Munich (2022). Since October 2022, he has been working on a dissertation about the understanding of plants within Aristotelian biology. Its provisional title is ‘Aristotle on plant life: the major philosophical issues.’ He argues that the case of plants encourages Aristotle to seriously modify and develop in interesting ways some of his biological theories. He has broad interests in the Philosophy and History of Science in the Ancient World and in ancient and modern Metaphysics, Psychology, and Theory of Action. L.Maldonado@campus.lmu.de |
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Arianna Castelli received her B.A. in Philosophy (2020) as well as her M.A. in Philosophical Sciences, curriculum "The Philosophy and its Histories: Concepts, Traditions, and Transformations" (2023), from the University of Milan. She joined MUSAΦ as a doctoral student in October 2023. Her doctoral project concerns the epistemological relevance of the notion of memory in Hellenistic epistemologies—especially in the understanding of the formation of mental concepts—by starting from the characterization of memory and recollection stated by Aristotle in De Memoria. Her main research interests are in Ancient epistemology, particularly Hellenistic, as well as Ancient logic, metaphysics, and ontology. |
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Leonardo Chiocchetti received both his B.A. and M.A. in Philosophy from Roma Tre University. He mastered his knowledge of Latin and Ancient Greek at the Italian Institute of Classical Studies in Rome. He joined Musaph as a doctoral student in October 2020. His dissertation project, under the supervision of Cristoph Rapp, concerns the philosophical roots of ancient grammar, with particular emphasis on the works of Apollonius Dyscolus. His main research interests include ancient and modern linguistics, as well as ontology and philosophy of language. Leonardo.Chiocchetti@lmu.de | |||
Katja Flügel studied philosophy and ancient greek at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. She received her Magister Artium in 2010 (Thesis: Das Verhältnis der Charaktere Theophrasts zu den ethischen Schriften und der Rhetorik des Aristoteles). Since 2010, she has been working as a teaching assistant in the Department of Philosophy at the LMU and writing her dissertation on the theory of Lexis in Aristotle and Theophrastus. Her research interests are in Peripatetic and Hellenistic Ethics and Rhetoric. Website katja.fluegel@lrz.uni-muenchen.de | |||
Alfonso Herrerros studied philosophy and theology in Santiago (Chile) and Rome and joined Musaph with a DAAD scholarship in October 2022. He is working under the supervision of Peter Adamson on self-knowledge and knowledge of the first principles in Neoplatonism. His main interests concern ancient and medieval philosophy and theology, particularly methodology, metaphysics, ethics, fundamental theology and dogmatics. |
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Leonardo Mazzanti received both his B.A. and M.A. in Philosophy from the university of Bologna. The topics were Mathematical Logic (B.A. thesis) and History of Ancient Philosophy (M.A. thesis). He joined MusaPh as a doctoral student in October 2023. He is currently writing his dissertation on Diodorus Cronus, working under the supervision of Christof Rapp. His main research interests are hellenistic philosophy and ancient logic. |
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William Nolan received his A.B. in Philosophy with honors from Princeton University (2019) and BPhil from the University of Oxford (2023). His bachelor’s thesis compared akrasia in Aristotle and Aquinas, while his MA thesis offered a neo-Aristotelian approach to mental causation. He joined MUSAΦ in October 2023 as a doctoral student to work on a dissertation on Aristotle’s action theory under the supervision of Christof Rapp. The project uses Aristotelian insights to challenge aspects of contemporary action theory’s analysis of causation, intention, and human action. He has further interests in Ancient and Hellenistic metaphysics, later interpreters of Aristotle, and philosophy of mind from any century. |
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Nikolo Panganoron received his B.A. (Philosophy) from St. Vincent School of Theology-Adamson University Manila and his M.A. (Ancient Philosophy) from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. He joined MUSAΦ as a Ph.D. student in summer of 2023. Under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Christof Rapp, his dissertation seeks to understand Aristotle’s scientific practice in the Physics and the Metaphysics. He is interested in ancient history and philosophy of science, metaphysics, transmission history of Aristotelian works as well as comparative philosophy. His work is generously funded by missio München - Internationales Katholisches Hilfswerk. E-mail Address: N.Panganoron@campus.lmu.de |
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Caterina Pavoni received both her B.A. and M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Pisa, while at the Scuola Normale she focused on the study of Ancient and Medieval Philosophy. She joined Musaph as a doctoral student in October 2019 and she is currently writing her dissertation on issues related to Aristotle's theories of definition in the central books of the Metaphysics. Caterina.Pavoni@lmu.de | |||
Leah D. Rotsia studied at Panteion University of Athens, where she received her BA. She also studied at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and at CEU, where she received an MA in History of Philosophy and an MA in Philosophy, respectively. She is currently writing her dissertation on Aristotle's Meteorology at LMU under the supervision of Christof Rapp. Her research interests are in ancient natural philosophy and epistemology, with an emphasis upon scientific method. E.Rotsia@lmu.de | |||
František Špinka received his B.A. in Philosophy from the Charles University in Prague (2018). He moved to Munich LMU where he received his M.A. (October 2020), writing his thesis on Plato's Euthydemus. Joining Musaph as a doctoral student shortly afterwards, he started writing his dissertion on issues in Aristotle's ethical works. Working under the supervision of Christof Rapp, his focus is primarily on analyzing Aristotle's views regarding intersections of human rationality and human badness. F.Spinka@campus.lmu.de |
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Paweł Trzciąkowski obtained his MA in Ancient Philosophy from the LMU and BA in Philosophy, Politics and International Relations from the New College of the Humanities in London. He is doctoral project concerns the theory of cognitive voluntarism in St. Augustine, which connects the fields of philosophy of mind, ethics and theory of action. His other interests include the transmission of Greek philosophy into Latin and, later on, the transmission of the ancient tradition into the middle ages by Boethius and Cassiodorus. He is also a contributor and editor of IPM Monthly: Medieval Philosophy Today, where he is preparing a series of articles on medieval aesthetics of music. | |||
Clara Marie Westergaard received her B.A. in Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies from University of Copenhagen in June 2017, her M.A. in Islamic Studies from School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London in 2018, and M.A. in Islamic Studies from University of Copenhagen in 2020. For her dissertation on al-Ghazālī’s ʿAjāʾb al-Qalb completing her studies at University of Copenhagen she was awarded with the university’s gold medal. She joined MUSAΦ as a PhD student in October 2020 under the supervision of Peter Adamson studying the Medieval Arabic reception of Aristotle’s Poetics. clara.westergaard@lrz.uni-muenchen.de | |||
Previous Faculty, Researchers, Graduate Students, and Visitors |
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Nicola Carraro Davlat Dadikhuda Diego Diana Mareike Jas Sirio Trentini |