The suggestions below are intended as a guide for those who do not want to or cannot find their own topic for their thesis.

BA indicates topics for a bachelor’s thesis; MA indicates topics for a master’s thesis.

Theses can be written in Czech or English.

Theories of Cognition from Ancient to Contemporary Thought (BA, MA)

From antiquity up to our day, the construction of models of the mind keeps fascinating philosophy scholars. Having worked on the theories of cognition developed in the context of medieval and early modern ‘schools’, as well as on some modern and contemporary ‘reappraisals’, (e.g. Montaigne and Aristotle, Edith Stein and Aquinas and Scotus), I have become more and more convinced that the dialogue between philosophers crosses the centuries and goes beyond specific historical contextualization. I am particularly interested in the mind-models constructed by philosophers of any time, but also in accounts of sensory-perception, skepticism, doctrines of certainty. 

Bibliography (some examples)

1. K. Tachau, Vision and Certitude in the Age of Ockham, Optics, Epistemology and the Foundation of Semantics 1250-1345, Brill 2000 (last reprint)
2. R. Pasnau, Theories of Cognition in the Later Middle Ages, CUP 2002
3. D. Perler, Theorien der Intentionalität im Mittelalter, Klostermann 2002
4. D. De Santis, A. Tropia (eds), Rethinking Intentionality, Person and the Essence, Brill 2024
5. E. Scribano, Angeli e beati. Modelli di Teoria della conoscenza da Tommaso a Scoto, Laterza 2006
6. T. Suárez-Nani, Les anges et la philosophie, Vrin 2002 (CZ tr. Andělé a filosofie, Karolinum 2021)
7. R. Pasnau, After Certainty. A History of Our Epistemic Ideals and Illusions, OUP 2017
8. H. Lagerlund, Rethinking the History of Skepticism. The Missing Medieval Background, Brill 2010

Mind/Body Problem: Metaphysics, Anthopology, Psychology (BA, MA)

If the (anything but trivial) assumption, according to which human beings are made up by a material and a spiritual component, the account of their union is anything but trivial: How do they relate? How are they united? Is there a hierarchy ordering their relationships? These are some of the questions philosophers asked and keep asking. I am interested to this topic construed in the broadest way, and considering classical (and less classical) philosophical, literary, and historical sources.

Bibliography (a very few examples) 

1. S. Landucci, La mente in Cartesio. Franco Angeli 2006
2. R. Pasnau, Thomas Aquinas on Human Nature, Cambridge University Press 2002
3. R. Pasnau, Metaphysical Themes. 1274-1671. Oxford University Press 2015
4. S. de Boer, The science of the soul. Leuven University Press 2013
5. G. Manning (ed), Matter and Form in Early Modern Science and Philosophy, Brill 2013

The (Human) Soul and its Structure (BA, MA)

Asking what is and by what the human soul is made up equates to ask what is the human life, and its functioning. Such question entails the understanding of the place of the human species within the universe, its relation with other living beigs, as well as the definition of the range of the activities and capacities proper to human beings.

(a very few examples)

1. Aristotle, On the Soul (my fav. translations in modern languages being: J. Tricot, De l’ame, Vrin 1995; Korcilius, Über die Seele. Meiner 2017)
2. B. C. Bazán, ‘The Human Soul: Form and Sustance. Thomas Aquinas’ Critique toward Eclectic Aristotelianism,’ AHDLMA 64 (1997), 95-126
3. K. Corcilius, D. Perler (eds), Partitioning the Soul. Debates from Plato to Leibniz. De Gruyter 2014
4. S. de Boer, The science of the soul. Leuen University Press 2013
5. A. Roksenberg-Rorty, M. Nussbaum, Essays on Aristotle’s de anima, OUP 1992
6. D. Des Chene, Life’s Form: Late Aristotelian Conceptions of the Soul, Cornell UP 2000

The Construction of Modernity: from Medieval to Modern Philosophy I (BA, MA)

My research to date covers mostly the Renaissance readings of Aristotle and Aquinas. For centuries the two philosophers represented philosophical (and theological, in Aquinas’ case) authority. But their thought was constantly challenged and modified; besides them, other less ‘orthodox’, authoritative thinkers, are most likely those who contributed the most in the shaping of Modernity. One example above all: John Duns Scotus.

(a very few examples)

1. E. Gilson, Index scolastico-cartésien, Vrin 1913
2. P. Blum, Studies on Early Modern Aristotelianism, Brill 2012
3. R. Ariew, Descartes and the last Scholastics: Cornell 1999
4. C. A. Andersen, D. Heider, Cognitive Issues in the Long Scotist Tradition, Schwabe 2023
5. L. Lanza, M. Toste, Summistae: The Commentary Tradition on Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae (15th-17th cCentury), Leuven University Press 2021

The Construction of Modernity: from Medieval to Modern Philosophy II (MA)

What happens betweent the Middle Ages and the Modern Era? My research to date intends to cover this authentic ‘No Man’s Land’(F. Yates), and to explain from what the 17th century sprung from. It is a fact that, up to today, it is very hard to classify and understand easily what 15th and 16th century philosophy was. One of the main reasons explaining this documentary lack being that many sources are still preserved in manuscript form, I have specialized in reading, transcribing, and editing manuscript sources. I am thus very interested in supervising  unpublished works preserved in Prague or elsewhere, bringing on scholastic philosophy (university courses) or philosophy overall.

(a very few examples)

1. D. N. Hasse, Success and Suppression. Arabic Sciences and Philosophy in the Renaissance, Harvard University Press 2016.
2. A. Tropia, ‘Pédagogie et philosophie à l’âge de la Contre-Réforme. Le De origine, natura et immortalitate animae (Paris, 1564) de Juan Maldonado S.J.’, Recherches de Théologie et Philosophie médiévales 88/1 (2021), 209-282.
3. M. Meliado’, S. Negri (eds), Praxis des Philosophieres, Praktiken der Historiographie. Perspektiven von der Spaetantike bis zur Moderne, Verlag Karl Alber 2018
4. A. Fiamma, ‘Doctrinal Aspects and Sources of John Wenck’s Early Works in Heidelberg’, Rivista di Storia della filosofia 3 (2024), 549-581
5. Wels, Die Disputatio de anima rationali secundum substantiam des Nicolaus Baldelli S.J. nach dem Pariser Codex B.N. lat. 16627, B.R. Gruener Publishing Company 1997

Outsiders, Outcasts, For-runners: Medieval-Early Modern Thought (MA)

Certain figures seem to belong by right, legitimately to the philosophical family. Meaning by this, they have a place within the so-called ‘canon’ and, more prosaically, within history of philosophy handbooks. Others seem to be marginal and are harder to define or classify: such is the case of women, mystical figures, poets, astronomers, magicians, or non-professional philosophers. One example above all: Michel de Montaigne, self-declared ‘non-philosopher’, who writes down extensively about philosophy in his most famous, wonderful, and philosophical Essays. 

(a very few examples)

1. R. Imbach, Dante, la philosophie et les laics, Cerf 1996
2. R. Imbach, C. Koenig-Pralon, Le défi laique. Existe-t-il une philosophie laique au Moyen Age? Vrin 2012
3. P. Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages, CUP 1984
4. E. A. Petroff, Body and Soul: Essays on Medieval Women and Mysticism, OUP 1994
5. A. Hollywood, The Soul as Virgin Wife: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete and Meister Eckhart, University of Notre Dame Press 1995
6. S. Kocher, Allegories of Love in Marguerite Porete’s Mirror of Simple Souls, Brepols 2008
7. R. Brown-Grant, Christine de Pizan and the Moral Defence of Women: Reading Beyond Gender, CUP 1999
8. V.Carraud, J-L Marion, Montaigne: scepticisme, métaphysique, théologie, PUF 2004

Other themes: intentionality; doctrines of the will; account of the person; body/bodyliness; free will; evil; philosophical genres; empiricism; subjectivism;