Dr. Daniel A. Di Liscia
Postdoctoral researcher
Chair of Logic and Philosophy of Language, MCMP
Personal information
Daniel A. Di Liscia studied philosophy at the University of Buenos Aires with a specialization in the history of late medieval and early modern philosophy (1989). With support first from the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) and later from the Antorchas Foundation, he completed his Ph. D. at the LMU München (summa cum laude). After three years of collaboration at the Munich Copernicus Edition, he came to the Kepler-Kommission in the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, where he worked for six years, the final four as “Wissenschaftlicher Leiter”.
Research interests
Daniel A. Di Liscia’s research interest is the history of philosophy and science from late medieval to early modern times. His focus lies on two branches of research: the history of Renaissance cosmology, especially in connection with Nicolaus Copernicus and Johannes Kepler, and the tradition of the “calculators”. The background for both subjects is the same: the late Aristotelian tradition in logic, epistemology and, above all, natural philosophy.
- Late medieval history of logic and philosophy of language: theory of “consequentiae”; syllogistic and concept of deduction in medieval logic and mathematics. Late medieval physics: quantification of motion and qualities within the Aristotelian framework, nature and motion, continuum and infinite; latitude of forms and “configurations doctrine” (Jacob of Naples, Nicole Oresme, Biagio Pelacani da Parma). Humanistic criticism of calculators (Juan Luis Vives). The quantification of Aristotelian metaphysics and the perfection of species (Nicholas of Amsterdam, John of Wesel, Jacques Legrand).
- Early modern cosmology and history of science: Gravity in Copernicus and Kepler; Kepler on pneumatics; mathematics and metrology in Kepler; the late Aristotelian Tradition and the new cosmology; Renaissance epistemology (the “middle sciences”, regressus demonstrativus and the kind of scientific proofs). Joachim Jungius and late Aristotelianism. Logic-mathematical approaches in traditional philosophical and scientific works (Richard Swineshead, Jean Buridan, Nicole Oresme, Albert of Saxony; Galileo Galilei).
Further activities in research and teaching
Daniel A. Di Liscia remains active as a referee for several journals and international research foundations. In 2007, he was appointed associate member of the “Centro de Estudios Filosóficos Eugenio Pucciarelli (Sección Lógica y Filosofía de la Ciencia)” of the Academia Nacional de Ciencias de Buenos Aires. In 2008, he co-organised at Strasbourg (together with E. Mehl, Université Marc Bloch) the international conference: “Physique, métaphysique, physique céleste Autour de l’Astronomia Nova de Johannes Kepler (1609)”. During 2009-2010, he participated in the Project EEDA (“Une Époque en Édite une Autre”) at the University of Nantes, France (Direction of the Project by Prof. E. Barbin and Prof. G. Stenger). He is collaborating member of Instituto de Filosofia, in the area of Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy of the University of Porto. Di Liscia is member of the international advisory board of the CNERU (Cordoba Near East Research Unit). During May 2018 he organised the international conference at the MCMP "Quantifying Aristotle. The Impact, Spread and Decline of the Calculatores Tradition".
Di Liscia has presented papers at universities across Europe, Israel and the Americas. Since the very beginning of his career, Di Liscia has connected his research work with teaching activities. As a lecturer, he has led courses regularly since 2003 on Renaissance cosmology and various other topics concerning the tradition of the “calculatores” at the Renaissance Institute of the LMU and at MCMP. In addition, Di Liscia was a visiting professor at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines and Paris/Diderot (France), and at the Universities of Tres de Febrero and Buenos Aires (Argentina). Thanks to ERASMUS support, he lectured at the University of Chieti/Pescara and at the University of Córdoba (Spain). From October 2024 to May 2025, he was teaching and conducting research at the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology), Department of Humanities and Arts (https://humanities.technion.ac.il/en/staff_cat/guests/).
Di Liscia has held the role of Principal Investigator on several research projects: [1] “From a logic-mathematical standpoint: Richard Swineshead and the calculatores tradition”, (funded by LMU Munich’s Institutional Strategy within the framework of the German Excellence Initiative), [2] “Die Geometrisierung der Metaphysik im Spätmittelalter: Jacobus de Neapoli und die Tradition De perfectione specierum”, and [3] “Integration und Transformation in der spätmittelalterlichen Naturphilosophie: Jacques Legrands aristotelisches Compendium utriusque philosophie”. Di Liscia studied for years the geometrical reformulation of the calculatores tradition. Having escrutinated the “German” tradition of the treatise De latitudinibus formarum, he is now in his current project [4] DFG - GEPRIS - Die vorgalileische Geometrisierung der Bewegung: Giovanni da Casales Quaestio de velocitate und die italienische Rezeption des Traktates De latitudinibus formarum focusing on the Italian reception of this text. The project includes an edition of Biagio Pelacani’s questions on it and other connected texts. An essential part of the project is the edition and interpretation of the previous extensive question De velocitate motus alterationis by Giovanni da Casale. Projects (2) and (3) were funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and have been completed; Project (4), also funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, is currently underway.
Di Liscia is co-editor together with Sabine Rommevaux-Tani of the volume Vol. 3.1: Histoire de l’astronomie et de la physique I. Antiquité et Moyen-Âge of the major work to be edited under the supervision of Jean-Claude Dupont (Iste, Encyclopédie des Sciences, Domaine “Historie des Sciences” https://www.istegroup.com/fr/sciences/ and https://www.istegroup.com/fr/domain/histoire-des-sciences-et-des-techniques/). In addition, Di Liscia has devoted significant effort to investigating the “new calculatores” within the circle of John Mair, with a particular focus on David Cranston and Jacques Almain. He is currently preparing with Sabine Rommevaux-Tani an edition of Almain’s Embammata Physicalia (https://ausonius.u-bordeaux-montaigne.fr/images/pdf/Faire_revivre_la_tradition_des_Calculatores_68f42.pdf)
Selected publications
Many of my papers are available online.
- 2027 (forthcoming), “The Late Medieval Science of the Latitude of Forms: Mapping the Text Tradition”, in: A. Goddu (ed.), Late Medieval Mathematical 'Aristotelian' Natural Philosophy, Copernican Textures, and Archival Sources, Special Issue of Studia Copernicana 47. Chapter 4.
- 2025 “‘The “latitudes of forms’ as a New Middle Science”, in: Clelia V. Crialesi (ed.), Pre–modern Mathematical Thought. The Latin Discussion (13th – 16th Centuries), Leiden–Boston: Brill, pp. 159–186.
- 2022, Daniel A. Di Liscia, Edith D. Sylla (eds.), Quantifying Aristotle. The Impact, Spread and Decline of the Calculatores Tradition. Leiden: Brill (in collaboration with P. J.J.M. Bakker). [Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy and Science, Band: 34].
- 2022, Eine Wiener Expositio zum Tractatus de latitudinibus formarum. Edition und Kommentar. Quelleneditionen des Österreichischen Instituts für Geschichtsforschung. Bd. 20. Wien: Böhlau Verlag. 210pp.
https://www.vr–elibrary.de/doi/book/10.7767/9783205216896 - 2009, “Kepler’s A Priori Copernicanism in his Mysterium Cosmographicum”, in: M. A. Granada, E. Mehl (eds.), Nouveau ciel, Nouvelle terre. L’astronomie copernicienne dans l’Allemagne de la Réforme (1530–1630), Paris: Belles Lettres, [collection l’Âne d’Or], pp. 283–317.
- Eloge for Edith Dudley Sylla (1941–2023), ISIS (2026), 117/2. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10.1086/742456
