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The Uncharted Margins of Philosophy: An AI-Enhanced Material History of Arabic Logic Across Time (12th-19th c.) and Frontiers (from Spain to India)

Project description

Studying overlooked contributions of philosophers from the Arabo-Islamic world

Contrary to the belief that philosophy in Arabo-Islamic contexts declined after the 12th century, it continued to thrive in less explored forms. Manuscripts have served as platforms for ongoing philosophical discussions until the 19th century, hosting annotations by students and scholars. However, historical accounts often overlook this sustained intellectual activity, typically focusing on the work of a few prominent thinkers. The ERC-funded UnMaP project seeks to highlight these overlooked contributions by examining paratextual annotations in 207 manuscripts of Avicenna’s Book of Healing. This research aims to illuminate cultural exchange in the pre-modern world, challenging the notion that knowledge originated solely from a few dominant figures. By showcasing marginalised traditions, the project aims to bridge material philology, philosophy, history and digital humanities.

Objective

Contrary to the popular belief that philosophy in Arabic declined around the 12th century, it has actually thrived in forms that are largely unexplored. Arabic philosophical manuscripts present a wealth of textual and visual annotations by students, teachers, and individual scholars who have kept selecting, manually copying, teaching, and studying philosophical texts until the 19th century. Well after the printing revolution, the margins of manuscripts served across the Arabo-Islamic world as material platforms – akin to today’s academic journals – for this choral philosophical enterprise.

With a few notable exceptions, this “real-life” philosophy is cut out of historico-philosophical accounts, in which the spotlight is often on a selection of great minds. The views shared by professors, students, and scholars have hitherto remained on the uncharted margins of manuscripts and on the fringe of the global history of philosophy.

“The Uncharted Margins of Philosophy” (UnMaP) aims to bring those contributions from the margins of manuscripts into the forefront of philosophical discourse.

By delving into the paratextual annotations within 207 manuscripts of the Logic of Avicenna’s (d. 1037) Book of Healing, spanning seven centuries and three continents, UnMaP promises to broaden the horizons of the global history of philosophy. It will (1) shed new light on the uncharted routes of cultural transfer in the pre-modern, globalising world; (2) provide a generalisable model of research on neglected sources for the history of philosophy; (3) challenge the paradigm of knowledge as the product of a few soloists and their intellectual hegemony by bringing to light marginalised traditions from the past.

With innovative techniques, including AI-driven handwriting analysis on manuscripts with Convolutional Neural Networks, this project pioneers a new “Material History of Philosophy”, bridging the gap between Material Philology, Philosophy, History, and Digital Humanities.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Keywords

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HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) ERC-2024-STG

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Host institution

UNIVERSITA CA' FOSCARI VENEZIA
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 186 250,25
Address
DORSODURO 3246
30123 VENEZIA
Italy

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Region
Nord-Est Veneto Venezia
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 186 250,25

Beneficiaries (3)

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