Presentation

Group Coordinator: Filipa Afonso

HPhil’s mission is to promote research in the field of history of philosophy by complying with the following goals:

(1) Creating conditions for its development;

(2) Raising the number of researchers and their qualification;

(3) Striving for projects of excellence in this area of research.

In order to achieve the mentioned goals, its strategic priorities are:

1st)    Developing tools in Portuguese for research in history of philosophy;

2nd)   Attracting and qualifying young researchers in history of philosophy;

3rd)   Structuring and implementing internationally competitive research projects and programmes in history of philosophy;

4th)    Developing original forefront research to be published in international journals and publishers with peer review, with the aim of developing this area of research.

HPhil develops its activity around the four great eras of Western philosophy – Ancient, Medieval, Modern and Contemporary philosophy –, as well as in the specific area of history of philosophy in Portugal. Some of its members also carry out research on Eastern thought.

 

In order to fulfil these goals, previous valuable work has already been carried out over time.

With regard to the creation of resources in Portuguese, it should be particularly highlighted the translation of philosophical classics (Plato, Aristotle, Augustine of Hippo, John Scotus Erigena, Peter of Spain, Francisco Sanches, Anne Conway, Malebranche, Leibniz, Lady Masham, Kant, Johann Hamman, Schelling, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, Whitehead, Heidegger, Michel Henry, John Searle, etc.), the preparation of surveys of specific periods in the history of philosophy, the production of anthologies and bibliographic directories, and the publishing of proceedings of conferences, symposia and seminars, and of academic theses. Among these, special note should be given to the annotated translation of the complete works of Aristotle, which began in 2002 and is still underway. This project aims at translating into Portuguese, for publication both in Portugal and Brazil, all the works assigned to Aristotle, covering a foreseen total of 43 volumes. Of these volumes, thirteen have already been published and eight of them have never before been translated into Portuguese.

Regarding the specific area of history of philosophy in Portugal, special note must be given to the History of Portuguese Philosophical Thought which was published in five volumes between 1989 and 2004, being the first academic work on the subject, and to the publishing, in 2008, of the Directory of the Portuguese Philosophical Bibliography, which assembles all titles on philosophy published in Portugal between 1988 and 2005. Special mention should also be made of the participation in the edition of The Complete Works of Father António Vieira (1997-2014), in 30 volumes, which comprises all of his manuscripts and includes more than five thousand previously unpublished folios.

Regarding the qualification of young researchers, in addition to the Master and PhD courses and post-doctoral programmes that have been offered in this research area on a yearly basis, other activities specially designed for this public have been developed. Such are the cases of the online journal philosophy@lisbon, specially prepared by and for postgraduate students, which was launched in 2011 together with other groups of CFUL, and the holding of the international colloquium on medieval philosophy, Unum Verum Bonum, designed for young researchers.

At the same time, research programmes in history of philosophy have been developed since the foundation of the CFUL, and research projects proposed by CFUL in this field have been rated as ‘outstanding’ and recommended for funding by international evaluation panels since the beginning of the current system of financing research projects by FCT.

These are some of such projects:

  • Complete Works of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary (Fourth Phase) (PTDC/MHC-FIL/3672/2012; principal investigator: António Pedro Mesquita).
  • Poethics of Selfhood: Memory, Imagination and Narrative (FCT Project PTDC/MHC-FIL/4203/2012; principal investigator: Paulo Renato de Jesus).
  • Corpus Lusitanorum de Pace: The Portuguese Contribution to the Peninsular School for Peace (XVI and XVII Centuries) (PTDC/FIL-ETI/119182/2010; principal investigator: Pedro Calafate).
  • Complete Works of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary (Third Phase) (PTDC/FIL-FIL/108306/2008; principal investigator: António Pedro Mesquita).
  • Teaching/Learning Philosophy (PTDC/FIL-FIL/102893/2008; principal investigator: Maria Luísa Ribeiro Ferreira).
  • Translation of Works by Kierkegaard 1838-1844 (PTDC/FIL-FIL/100281/2008; principal investigator: José Miranda Justo).
  • Philosophy, Medicine, and Society (PTDC/FIL/64863/2006; principal investigator: Adelino Cardoso).
  • Theories of Rationality – Neokantianism and Phenomenology (PTDC/FIL/71833/2006; principal investigator: Olivier Feron).
  • The Question of God. History and Criticism (PTDC/FIL/64249/2006; principal investigator: Maria Leonor Xavier).
  • Agostinho da Silva: Study of the Personal Archives (POCI/FIL/60850/2004; principal investigator: Paulo Borges).
  • Complete Works of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary (Second Phase) (PPCDT/FIL/57745/2004; principal investigator: António Pedro Mesquita).
  • Heidegger in Portuguese (II. Phase): From the ´Logics´ (1934) to ´Contributions to Philosophy´ (1936-38) (POCI/FIL/60600/2004; principal investigator: Irene Borges Duarte).
  • Phenomenology – Translation of works by Husserl and Merleau-Ponty and Glossary of Phenomenological Concepts (POCI/FIL/55551/2004; principal investigator: Pedro Alves).
  • Complete Works of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary (POCTI/FIL/45985/2002; principal investigator: António Pedro Mesquita).
  • Kant (1804-2004): Posterity and Actuality (POCTI/FIL/44903/2002; principal investigator: Leonel Ribeiro dos Santos).
  • Hypertext and encyclopaedia (POCTI/FIL/36357/99; principal investigator: Olga Pombo).
  • Plato: Theaetetus (POCTI/FIL/36355/99; principal investigator: José Gabriel Trindade Santos).
  • Heidegger in Portuguese (First Phase) (PRAXIS/C/FIL/13034/98; principal investigator: Irene Borges Duarte).
  • A Philosophy in the Feminine Way (PRAXIS/C/FIL/13031/98; principal investigator: Maria Luísa Ribeiro Ferreira).

Finally, both within and outside these projects, HPhil members are responsible for publishing original research in prominent international journals and publishing houses.

 

Within the group, the following projects funded by ERC and FCT are currently underway:

  • Complete Works of Aristotle: Translation and Commentary (Fifth Phase) (PTDC/MHC-FIL/0787/2014; principal investigator: António Pedro Mesquita).
  • Rationality in Perception: Transformations of Mind and Cognition 1250-1550 (ERC-2014-STG; principal investigator: José Filipe Pereira da Silva).
  • De Restitutione: the Iberian School of Peace and the Idea of Justice in the Occupation of America (16th century) (PTDC/MHC-FIL/4671/2014; principal investigator: Pedro Calafate).

The following individual projects (contracts as FCT investigator and post-doctoral fellowships directly or indirectly financed by FCT) are also in progress:

  • Simon Noriega-Olms (IF/01586/2015): Being and Reality in Plato’s Sophist.
  • Giuseppe Feola (BI-PTDC/MHC-FIL/0787/2014): Sense-Perception and Behaviour in Aristotle’s Biology.
  • Filipa Afonso (SFRH/BPD/75995/2011): Erigena and the Ontology of Ideas.
  • António Joaquim Rocha Martins (SFRH/BPD/112551/2015): From the ‘Polis’ to the ‘Civitas’. Translation, Reception and Transformation of Aristotle’s Politics in the Latin West.
  • Fernando Silva (BI-PTDC/MHC-FIL/1416/2014): The Lectures on Anthropology on the Genesis of Kant’s Aesthetic-Anthropological Reflection.
  • Claude Vishnu Spaak (SFRH/BPD/109174/2015): The Phenomenological Problem of Matter.
  • Elisabetta Basso (SFRH/BPD/109991/2015): Interpreting and Classifying between Philosophy and Psychiatry. The Typological Research (Typenforschung) in the German-Speaking Psychiatry, 1900-1930.
  • Paulo Renato de Jesus (SFRH/BPD/95899/2013): Being-in-Stories: The Embodied Poetics of Selfhood.
  • Soraya Nour Sckell (IF/00979/2012): Status of the Human Person in the Global Order Across the Humanities and Social Sciences.