HPhil Seminar: June 11, 2026
The HPhil (History of Philosophy) Research Group of the Centre of Philosophy of the University of Lisbon announces the 2025/26 edition of its permanent seminar on the history of philosophy, devoted to the presentation of conferences by renowned specialists while also creating opportunities to emerging scholars, aiming to promote advanced studies in groundbreaking debates and the permanent training of its academic community.
In this session of the seminar, Giovanni Ventimiglia (University of Lucern) will present a paper, entitled “Being as (propositional) truth in Thomas Aquinas: Aristotle better than Frege (and certainly better than Heidegger)”. (Abstract below)
The session will take place on June 11, 2026 at 2:30 p.m., in the Room 201.J (Room Mattos Romão, Department of Philosophy). Admission is free.
Streaming available here.
After the HPhil Seminar, the HPhil Meeting will begin at 4:30 pm. The program of activities can be viewed here.
Abstract
One of the topics that has returned to the centre of attention in analytical metaphysics is that of the senses of being: the first is being as a predicate of individuals, or a so called first order predicate, which is admittedly not very fashionable amongst analytical philosophers (with a few exceptions); the second is being as a predicate of properties or concepts, in short, as an existential quantifier. Some authors influenced by Gottlob Frege, such as Peter Geach, Anthony Kenny and Alejandro Llano, tried to reinterpret Thomas Aquinas’s notion of being as ‘true’ in Fregean terms, namely as a predicate of concepts or as instantiation. This is a typical interpretation of so-called analytical Thomism, certainly more appropriate than that in vogue in so-called existentialist Thomism. However, on closer reading, even Frege’s lens proves not entirely adequate for interpreting Thomas’s texts on the subject. It is necessary to reread them through Aristotle’s lens. This re-reading in the Aristotelian vein will, however, prove to be very similar to a fundamental notion of Frege’s, which is not that of the existential quantifier but that of the ‘assertion sign’. To be true, in other words, means committing oneself to asserting the content of a proposition as true; or, more simply, answering ‘yes’ to anyone who questions the content of a statement.
This activity is funded by Portuguese national funds through FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., within the project UID/00310/2025, Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa (https://doi.org/10.54499/UID/00310/2025).