Researcher Dr Luca Gili is delighted to discover a very vibrant academic environment at Vilnius University

Luca Gili. Photo of the Faculty of Philology

Dr Luca Gili, researcher and author of two books and nearly 50 articles published in various prestigious journals, started his postdoctoral fellowship at Vilnius University (VU) in May 2024. A researcher in medieval and ancient logic and metaphysics, focusing on the history of logic and Aristotle's philosophy, Luca Gili received his PhD from the University of Leuven in Belgium and has worked at the University of Quebec in Montreal.

Although he knew Lithuania primarily as his wife's home country, the Italian scholar believes that through the guidance of the Head of the Department of Classical Studies, Assoc. Prof. Vilius Bartninkas, he has discovered a very vibrant academic environment here, where he wants to be for intellectual pleasure and a competitive academic environment. He is interviewed by Laisvūnas Čekavičius, a PhD student at the VU Faculty of Philology.

You studied in Pisa, Italy, and Leuven, Belgium. What attracted you to classics and philosophy?

What a difficult question! In high school, I chose a classical curriculum, which includes an introduction to ancient Greek, Latin, ancient literature, and philosophy. I don't remember exactly why I chose this option, but in my time it was common for good students to choose the classical curriculum, the so-called liceo classico [Italian liceo classico is a type of secondary school in Italy where it is compulsory to study Ancient Greek and Latin languages and literature]. Maybe things have changed in the last 20 years, but I think classic is still one of the best ways of teaching in Italy. When I was in high school, I realised that I really liked Greek literature and philosophy.

I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do at university but I got a scholarship from the Scuola Normale at the University of Pisa, which covered food and tuition fees, so I opted for the humanities without thinking much about what I was going to do next. If I hadn't received the scholarship, I probably would have chosen studies that would have given me a more stable job, like medicine. While I was studying at the Scuola Normale, I hadn't yet decided whether I wanted to study Classics or Philosophy – two different undergraduate programmes at the University of Pisa. I was fascinated by Francesco Del Punta's lectures on medieval philosophy, so I started studying philosophy. However, Del Punta noticed my talent for reading Greek texts and persuaded me to study Alexander Aphrodisias, of whom I had not yet heard, and to write a master's thesis on this great commentator on Aristotle.

What attracted me to classics and philosophy? I love the fact that the Greeks, especially Plato and Aristotle, pursue truth and wisdom in such a straightforward way. Their ideas seduced me from the very beginning and continue to amaze me to this day. I also ended up in Leuven by chance. I started my doctoral studies in Padua, Italy, under the supervision of a. a. Riccardo Quinto. Unfortunately, Riccardo fell ill with a rare disease and died soon after, and the University of Leuven offered me a generous scholarship, so it seemed wise to abandon the Italian programme and stay only in Leuven. There I worked on medieval philosophy under the supervision of Russ Friedman and joined a large group of young PhD students and post-docs specialising in ancient and medieval philosophy.

You previously taught in Montreal, Canada, and now you teach in Chieti, Italy. What are the differences between studying classical philology in these countries?

An honest answer to this question is probably not very politically correct. The working conditions in Montreal are much better than in Italy in terms of salaries and, I would say, the freedom to do research without a lot of bureaucratic hassle. Although Italy in general is a bureaucratic nightmare, it is particularly difficult to navigate in the small areas of southern Italy. This may sound stereotypical, but it is true. You may wonder why I left Canada for Italy. The answer is that one does not live by bread alone, so I was happy to take the opportunity to return with my family to my native hills. Both universities (UQÀM in Montreal, Canada, and Chieti in Italy) have quite a diverse student body, mostly from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, which is very important to me, because the students at these institutions although they probably did not go to the best schools, are eager to learn and eager to learn, and it is a real pleasure to talk to them about the philosophy of antiquity.

Which ancient text has most shaped your personality?

It is difficult to answer. When I was perhaps 13 years old, I read the 19th-century Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi's book 'Operette morali' ('Small Moral Works'). At that time, I liked Leopardi's poems very much and it seemed natural to turn to his 'philosophical' work, which I do not regard so favourably today. Leopardi was in love with antiquity, but it was probably only thanks to him that I understood the greatness of Dante, another important Italian poet. I remember reading an edition of Dante that belonged to my mother, which did not contain 'Paradise'. The editor of the edition was the Marxist literary critic Natalino Sapegno, who had a habit of explaining Dante's poems with long quotations from Aquinas. I discovered philosophy in these footnotes and have loved it ever since. So, in a way, Dante's Inferno has had the greatest impact on me.

As far as my moral theory is concerned, I have always been an Aristotelian, even before I read Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, so I would dare to say that Aristotle did not shape me in this respect, because in his pages I found what I already believed. I have not changed in one respect since I was thirteen: I still enjoy reading Leopardi's 'Alla sua Donna', a hymn to the ideal woman with a strong Platonic flavour: she is 'one of the eternal ideas'.

You wrote your dissertation on Thomas Aquinas' natural philosophy and have recently published a book 'Aquinas on Change and Time'. How would you describe the relationship between ancient and medieval philosophy - do you see continuities or rather differences?

You really like difficult questions! I discovered Aristotle through Aquinas, Aquinas through Dante, so in terms of order of discovery, medieval and ancient philosophers are closely related. My university studies confirmed this initial impression because F. Del Punta liked to give in-depth lectures on Aristotle's texts – it usually took us a whole academic year to get through three or four chapters, i.e. 2–4 pages of Bekker in total. Then we read all the commentators on Aristotle's texts, whether in late antiquity, medieval Arabic or medieval Latin. This in-depth approach also allowed me to see the differences between Aristotle and his commentators, but in my understanding, these great minds are in constant dialogue with each other.

How would you describe the main task and thesis of your book?

In my book 'Aquinas on Change and Time', I set three goals. First, to show that Aquinas thought it was possible to describe change (motus) coherently and that change is identical to a changing thing in the present. Second, to show that Aquinas was a consistent presentist who did not allow for the existence of time parts in the past or future. Finally, to show that time, according to Aquinas, exists independently of the mind and should be understood as a disposition of a changing thing, which must be understood as such by a capable mind.

What do you think are the most relevant contemporary research topics in relation to Aristotle's philosophy?

I think Aristotle himself has an answer to this: at the beginning of Book VII of the 'Metaphysics', he says that in the past, as in his own time, people have tried to answer the question of what is 'being', i.e. what is 'substance'. In my opinion, this is still a topical issue, although it is not as popular as it was in the 1990s, in the early 2000s, when the commentary on 'Metaphysics' Z by M. Frédé and G. Patzig appeared. If we talk about academic fads, I would say that it is now very popular to study how Aristotle practised science and how he argued a philosophical question, and people are particularly interested in the dialectical models of argumentation he adopted.

What research brought you to Lithuania and what are you trying to discover here?

A few years ago, a woman asked me on the Oude Markt in Leuven which coffee I liked better – 'Lavazza' or 'Illy'. Apparently, I answered correctly, so a few years later we got married and had children. She is Lithuanian and, thanks to her, I have been discovering every corner of this beautiful country for many years. We got married in the beautiful St Anne's Church in the centre of Vilnius.

Luca Gili and Vilius Bartninkas. Photo of the Faculty of Philology

It was only about a year ago, when I was in Vilnius, that I met the head of the Department of Classical Studies, Vilius Bartninkas, and thanks to him I discovered a very lively academic environment. I immediately wanted to be part of it – for the intellectual pleasure I could get from talking to my colleagues, for the challenge of being in a competitive academic environment again, and also because I was considering spending more time in Lithuania with my family, as my older children are attending school in Lithuania so that they could get to know my mother's mother tongue better. I sometimes think that if I had said that I liked 'Lavazza' better that night in the Oude Markt, life would have been very different.