From 25th to 28th June, I attended the second Summer School held by the Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto. This year’s topic was “Contingency and Causality in the Middle Ages”.

Visiting Porto

Since the Summer School started in the morning of the 25th, i took a flight on the 24th and had the opportunity to have a walk around town and getting to know the places, where we would then have four exciting days of talks and discussions. After the talks of the Summer School, participants grouped up and explored the city. Some had already been there and guided us to nice places around the Douro, where we had dinner and further discussed the talks of the day, as well as our research interests, ideas and struggles writing our theses.

Researching together

The talks offered insight to different authors, such as John Scotus, Suarez, Aquinas, and Siger of Brabant, and their understanding of free will, causality and contingency of being. The presentations of the participants were on the possibility of Free Will when regarding God’s omniscientia and the meaning of causation in those authors, but extended to Leibniz’s Monadology and AI as well. There were four invited Professors giving Keynotes, the participants presenting papers were post-docs and doctoral students at different stages of their PhD. All discussions throughout the Summer School were engaged by participants and keynote speakers alike, resulting in an atmosphere of level-eyed collaboration, with everyone offering slightly different areas of expertise.

With regards to my dissertation project, the summer school offered further perspectives on Albert’s commentaries on Ps.-Dionysius. It emphasized how specific those commentaries are in regards to their method – as opposed for example to Alberts other works - as well as their terminology.

My presentation on Albertus Magnus’s understanding of Immaterial Beings and their temporality lead to a fruitful discussion on methodology, Albert’s influences, and his specific understanding of angels presented in his commentaries on Ps.-Dionysius. I am certain that the results will thus not only enrich my next chapter, but my thesis overall.

With most of the summer school’s talks being on Medieval authors, almost everyone had had contact with heteronomous texts as well. We had cases not only of commentaries, but also of renarratio, leading to different approaches to the texts and its circumstances. Discussions on the autonomy of the texts highlighted the importance of the understanding of heteronomous texts as such.

Networking

The atmosphere created by the group coming together in Porto then was one of open discussion and working together. After a Keynote in the morning, we had lunch together before having presentations by the participants. The keynotes thus could be discussed not only in the conference room but also during lunch. Coffee breaks gave further opportunity to get to know each other or ask questions, that didn’t fit into the time slots.

Even though we did only have an ‘official’ conference dinner on Friday, it speaks to the spirit of the participants, that most of us grouped up after the talks as well to go for dinner and explore the city.

Conclusions

The whole summer school was a great experience for working on the next chapters of my dissertation and my work as a whole. I am grateful to have been able to participate in an international event at such an early stage of my work, as i am sure it will greatly benefit my research.