Research Projects
- (D-4-1) Ontology of immaterial causes
Descriptions of heavenly realms and celestial topography can be traced back to the cultural milieu of Second Temple Judaism, which may have been influenced by Platonic and Neo-Platonic concepts. Cosmographic and cosmological ideas were further attested during Late Antiquity in Old and New Testament apocryphal writings and parabiblical compositions, such as the Book of the Secrets of Enoch (or 2 Enoch), Apocalypse of Abraham, Ascension of Isaiah, Third Baruch, Apocalypse of Paul, Apocalypse of the Virgin Mary, etc.), which survive in Slavonic recensions transmitted in the Byzantine Commonwealth. In some cases the Slavonic texts are the only surviving witnesses to the Semitic originals; otherwise they represent faithful reproductions of Greek (Byzantine) redactions.
- (D-4-2) Epistemology of immaterial causes
Being a part of the work of research group (D-4) into the causal relationship between the incorporeal, immaterial or spiritual world, the project worked on final causality in nature and the spiritual entities, which generally speaking were able to guarantee the natural laws.
- (D-4-3) Philosophical poetry of immaterial causes in the English Renaissnace
As part of the research group’s inquiry into the forms of causal relationships between the incorporeal, immaterial, or spiritual realm and the physical world, the project concentrated on the capacity of language, in particular poetic language, to refer to and represent entities that do not seem to be circumscribed by space.
Dissertations
- (D-4-1-1) Auslegung der 'Analytik' des Aristoteles - Rekonstruktion des altgriechischen Textes, deutsche Übersetzung, Kommentar
The aim of the dissertation is to restore the Greek text of the “Commentary on Aristotle’s Analytics”.
- (D-4-2-1) Die vergessenen und wiederentdeckten Sinne: olfactus, gustus und tactus in der Anthropologie des Hochmittelalters und ihre Rezeption in der lateinischen und mittelhochdeutschen Literatur
At the end of the 11th c., intellectual circles increasingly exhibit signs of a deeper, more complex interest in the conditio humana. Against this historico-anthropological background, the dissertation project deals with three of the five senses – smell, taste and touch – in examining the theoretical achievements of 12th and 13th c. scholars, as well as the influence exerted on theories of poetics and, last but not least, on the functionalization of sensory perception in literary texts.
This Ph.D. thesis is being written within the program “Ancient Languages and Texts” (ALT) of the Berlin Graduate School of Ancient Studies (BerGSAS).
Third-party Funded Project
- (D-4-COFUND-1) Body, Space and Motion in Later Medieval Natural Philosophy. The Case of William of Ockham.
The project investigated the late medieval tradition of nominalism, and more especially at Ockham and his opponents or followers from the fourteenth century (Chatton, Wodeham, Buridan).