Avicenna's Lesson

Avicenna’s lesson

Science, literature and civic engagement

6 November, 6.00 pm Caffè Tommaseo Piazza Nicolò Tommaseo, 4c, Trieste

“Possible Worlds and Will in Avicenna” is the title of the first meeting of the cycle “Science, literature and civic engagement” organized by the Interdisciplinary Laboratory of SISSA. Once a month, writers, scientists and scholars will meet the public to discuss different themes. The first appointment is with Sari Nusseibeh, professor of philosophy at Al Quds University in Jerusalem, who will talk about Avicenna, Persian scientist and among the greatest thinkers of all times.

Avicenna’s interests spread across all fields of human knowledge: philosophy, astronomy, medicine, alchemy, geography, geology, psychology, theology, logic, mathematics, and physics. On top of all this he was a poet as well. Having lived in Persia at the turn of the first millennium, Avicenna was not only one of the greatest thinkers of the Golden Age of Islam but he represented a point of contact between eastern and western culture. Sari Nusseibeh, philosopher of Al Quds University in Jerusalem, will be talking about Avicenna and his cultural legacy at a public meeting at the Caffè Tommaseo of Trieste, on November 6 at 6 pm. The talk, to be held in English, is the first of a series of monthly meetings organized by the Interdisciplinary Laboratory of the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste. “The conference will focus on the pleasure of language”, explains Giuseppe Mussardo director of the Interdisciplinary Laboratory. “Literature, or the art of story-telling; science, or the art of understanding. But it will soon become clear that the reverse is also true: science as the art of story-telling and literature as the art of understanding. And civic engagement as the tension of our lives”. The cycle of conferences will discuss major thinkers and writers of the past, like Avicenna or Galileo Galilei, leading scientists of our time, like Margherita Hack, and great writers of all times, like Dante, Giacomo Leopardi, Italo Calvino or Carlo Emilio Gadda.

All the conferences of the cycle “Science, literature and civic engagement” are free and open to the public. For further information about the event contact the Interdisciplinary Laboratory by email at [email protected] or by phone on 040 3787401/ 349 2504602.