Mysticism has never been a ‘safe’ pursuit, the celebrated Kabbalah scholar Gerschom Scholem observed. Given its antagonistic relationship to institutional doctrine, the dangers for its practitioners are self-evident. But the risks for the interested scholar, Scholem suggested, are also substantial. The focus of Alpha Centauri, an experiment in two parts with students from the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm and the State Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart, has been on some of the intersections, and their discomfort, between spirit and materiality.

This open seminar, with philosopher Klaus Corcilius explores a series of core considerations of reasoning, starting with the question “what is thought?”. Through a combination of a lecture and discussion, and drawing on his long-running work on the thinking of Aristotle, Corcilius’ presentation will be a close reading of essence, moving between the human, and nature, towards a definition of art.

Klaus Corcilius is professor of ancient philosophy at the University of Tübingen and previously associate professor at the University of California at Berkeley. His primary interest is ancient philosophy, theoretical and practical, and especially Aristotle.