The conference aims to provide an opportunity to discuss research and share ideas among the philosophers and historians of science concerning the inquiry into nature, which was primarily represented by quadrivial disciplines and medicine during the early Middle Ages and further developer in reaction to emerging translations of Greek and Arabic texts on nature. The stress is put on the transformations in time, crossing the boundaries, and progressive introduction of “otherness” into the traditional conceptions.

Participants are encouraged to focus on various fields which formed quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy) and on other disciplines devoted to the study of nature (medicine, optics, meteorology, timekeeping, alchemy, etc.). We welcome submissions focusing on issues discussed since the 10th century and following continuities (or discontinuities) up to the 17^th century.

Proposed framework offers range of intertwining topics, which may include:

• Variable position of quadrivial disciplines through the centuries or an original utilization of specific discipline by individual scholars.
• Revisiting the traditional narrative inherent to the intellectual history of medieval philosophy and modern science (e.g. “scientific revolution of the 17^th century”).
• Procedural inclusion of otherness: The emergence of new texts and translations, which provided new impulses for further inquiries into nature, or the influence of scientific and academic pursuits on lives outside of universities and vice versa.
• Diverse motivations (theoretical and practical) behind the pursuit of knowledge concerning the nature. Observing vs. conquering nature. Realism vs. instrumentalism, ontological commitments of scientific theories. Did premodern scholars perceived their theories as descriptions of reality or practical models (e.g. epicycles and eccentrics).
• The wisdom of quadrivial disciplines or natural sciences and the wisdom of philosophy.
• Status of quadrivial disciplines relative to other intellectual pursuits (e.g. trivium, natural sciences, theology, mysticism, etc.) and shifting boundaries of the fields in question (e.g. the use of arithmetic in mechanics or pharmacology, geometry in astronomy or optics, or the status of the so-called scientiae mediae in general).
• The place and importance of natural science or quadrivium in the hierarchy of knowledge and philosophy. Encyclopaedism: the struggle for the completeness of knowledge. The changes in the classification of knowledge. How many liberal arts are there? New approaches to classification based on new translations of Arabic and Greek texts in the high Middle Ages and Renaissance.
• The methods of scientific approach: observation and experience, deductive reasoning, intuition, mysticism or the role of experiment during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance in scientific as well as philosophical endeavours.

The conference takes place from 15^th to 16^th November 2018 in Ostrava, Czech Republic (Českobratrská 16, room B 303, Ostrava). The conference language is English (one section in Czech). The scheduler length of presentations is 25 minutes (plus approximately 10 minutes for discussion). The selected papers will be published in the form of collective monography or special issue of specialized journal.

The conference is held under the auspices of the project The Construction of the Other in Medieval Europe (IRP University of Ostrava).

15th November

9:00 Registration begins

9:30 Opening (Michaela Závodná, Tomáš Nejeschleba)

Session 1 – Optics: Light & Sensory Perception (Chair: David Černín)

9:45–10:35 Jari Kaukua (Jyväskylä) Empiricism in Islamic Philosophy, or the Question of Ibn al-Haytham’s Influence on and after Ibn Sīnā

10:35-10:50 Coffee Break

10:50–11:25 Mattia Mantovani (Berlin) “The only sense with a science of its own”; Roger Bacon on Perspectiva

11:25–12:00 Lukáš Lička (Ostrava/Prague) From Optics to Practical Geometry: On Perspectiva Ascribed to Thomas Bradwardine in Vat. lat. 3102

12:00-12:35 Martin Žemla (Olomouc) Marsilio Ficino´s Allegorical Reading of Natural Phenomena

12:35–14:00 Lunch Break

Session 2 – Stars & Nature (Chair: Tomáš Nejeschleba)

14:00–14:50 Ovanes Akopyan (Innsbruck) Renaissance Theories of Tides (ca. 1450–1600): From the Medieval Framework to Galileo

14:50–15:25 Marek Otisk (Ostrava/Prague) Gerbert of Aurillac and Table of Climate for Timekeeping

15:25–16:00 Olga Chadaeva (Olomouc) Cosmological, Astronomical, Astrological Elements in Sermons of Ruthenian Authors of the 17th Century

16:00–16:30 Coffee Break

16:30–17:05 Athanasios Rinotas (Leuven) Albertus Magnus’s Alchemy: Ars, Scientia or Scientia Media?

17:05–17:40 Alexandra Petáková (Olomouc) Knowledge over Method: Nicole Oresme’s Reclassification of the Disciplines of Astrology

17:40–18:15 Zdeněk Žalud (Tábor/Prague) Jean Baptiste Morin and the Reform of Astrology at the Turn of 16th to the 17th Century

16th November

Session 3 – Discussing Knowledge (Chair: Jan Čížek)

10.00–10.35 Crina Galiță (Bucharest) The Status of Quadrivium in the Corpus on Logic of the Brethren of Purity (Iḫwān aṣ-Ṣafā’)

10.35–11.10 Jana Tomešová (Ostrava) Other within the Other: Limits of Philosophy in Judaism (Case of Anonymous Letter Against Philosophy, MS Opp. 585)

11.10–11.45 Jakub Varga (Ostrava) Can a Non-existent Proposition be True? A Late Medieval Dispute about the Truth of Non-existent Sentences

11.45–13.30 Lunch Break

Session 4 – Nature & Humans: New Challenges (Chair: Lukáš Lička)

13.30–14.05 Mustafa Yavuz & Pilar Herráiz Oliva (Istanbul) The Genesis of the Specialisation of the Sciences: Botany as a New Field of Knowledge in the 13th Century

14.05–14.40 Tomáš Nejeschleba (Olomouc) Renaissance Anatomy: A Path from ars to scientia

14.40–15.15 Jan Čížek (Ostrava) Johann Heinrich Alsted’s Physica Mosaica: Cul-de-sac of the Premodern Natural Philosophy?

15.15–15.45 Coffee Break

15.45–16.20 Petr Pavlas (Prague/Pilsen) A Trivial-Quadrivial Mixture: Combinatorial Mathematics and the Language Planning from Cardano to Comenius

16.20–16.55 Daniel Špelda (Brno) Huygens and Fontenelle on Scientific Curiosity: From Vice to Virtue

16.55–17.30 Kateřina Lochmanová (Ostrava) Analysis situs between Newton and Monadology

Steering committee:

David Černín (cernin.d@gmail.com), University of Ostrava

Lukáš Lička (lukas.licka@outlook.com), University of Ostrava; Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences

Tomáš Nejeschleba (tomas.nejeschleba@upol.cz), Palacký University Olomouc

Marek Otisk (marek.otisk@osu.cz), University of Ostrava; Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences