Digest Week 8 Trinity Term 2026
TT26, Week 8 (14 June - 20 June)
If you have entries for the weekly Digest, please send information to admin@philosophy.ox.ac.uk by midday, Tuesday the week before the event.
Notices - other Philosophy events, including those taking place elsewhere in the university and beyond
Avicenna Reading Group
Convenor: Ibrahim Safri
Date: Tuesday, 16 June, 2–3:30pm
Venue: Magdalen College, McFarlane Library
The theory of time remains one of the most complex and significant subjects of inquiry, central to both philosophical and physical discourse globally. Throughout the history of world philosophy, this concept has been continually refined, spanning Late Antiquity and Neoplatonism through to Islamic, Medieval, and Early Modern traditions. Within the global corpus of Arabic philosophy, diverse interpretations of time have emerged, shaped by three primary perspectives that influenced Islamic medieval conceptions of this theory. This reading class will focus on Avicenna's The Physics of The Healing, in which he presents various notions of time before establishing his own account.
Our objective is to engage in a profound reading of Avicenna's thesis to determine the extent to which his theory of time represents a departure from Aristotelian thought, a continuation of the Peripatetic tradition, or an innovative synthesis. We will discuss how his contributions facilitated the development of this concept within the context of global philosophy.
Text: Avicenna, The Physics of The Healing; a Parallel English-Arabic Text. Translated by: Jon McGinnis. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2009. Chapter 10: Beginning the discussion about time.
History and Philosophy of Science Reading Group
Date: Tuesday 16 June, 4pm - 5pm
Venue: Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities
The History and Philosophy of Science (HPS) Reading Group, which is a joint venture of the Oxford Centre for the History of Science, Medicine and Technology and the Faculty of Philosophy, will continue on even weeks in Trinity term. This term we are reading a book manuscript by James Ladyman, Nick Norman and Vanessa Seifert entitled A Philosophical History of Chemistry.
Anyone is free to join, but attendance is limited to the capacity of our booked room. Please write to the co-conveners (Alex Aylward (History, alexander.aylward@history.ox.ac.uk) & Sam Fletcher (Philosophy, sam.fletcher@merton.ox.ac.uk)) for further information.