8:30 - 9:15 a.m. | Registration and continental breakfast

9:15 - 10:30 a.m. | Plenary session | Auditorium

• Welcome and opening remarks: Jennifer Hart Weed, University of New Brunswick
  • Mor Segev, University of South Florida. “Love of God and Error: Ibn Kaspi on Maimonides and Aristotle”
  • Eric Lawee, Bar-Ilan University. “Lessons from Medieval Jewish Philosophy at the Limit: Eleazar Ashkenazi’s Revealer of Secrets and the Radicalization of Maimonideanism”

10:30 - 11 a.m. | Coffee break

11 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. | Morning session B

• Room 203 | Chair: Gabriela Tymowski-Gionet, University of New Brunswick
  • Desmond Antonio Conway Restrepo, St. Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge. Why is Lying Worse Than Misleading? Past, Present, and Future Accounts”
  • Dianna Roberts-Zauderer new title Personhood and the Cognitively-Impaired in Medieval Abrahamic Traditions
    
    
• Room 204 | Chair: Ronald Weed, University of New Brunswick
  • Jordan Waverman, Bar-Ilan University. “Place without Space in the Anthropology of the Maharal”
  • Görge K. Hasselhoff, Technische Universität Dortmund. “Wisdom in Ramon Martí’s Pugio fidei”

12:15 - 1:30 p.m. | Lunch | Aitken Room 

1:30 - 2:45 p.m. | Afternoon session

• Room 203 | Chair: Matthew Robinson, St. Thomas University.
  • Conor Barry, St .Thomas University. “The Structure, Purpose and Audience of the City of God”
  • Sergey Dolgopolski, SUNY Buffalo. ‘“Yet” and Jetzt: Language and Law in Rabbinic and Muhammadan Narratives”
    
    
• Room 204 | Chair: Alexander Green, University of Florida.
  • Max Geiszler, University of Oklahoma. “Spinoza's critique of affective meditation, or whether Christ's Passions bring our minds closer to God
  • Max Wade, Saint Joseph’s University. “Mental and Extramental Time in Crescas and Descartes”

2:45 - 3:15 p.m. | Coffee break

3:15 - 4:15 p.m. | Special Plenary Session | Auditorium
Sponsored by the Ethics Centre in the Department of Philosophy, at the University of New Brunswick.

• Chair: Jason Bell, Director of the Centre for Ethics, University of New Brunswick.
  • Colleen McCluskey, Saint Louis University. “Aquinas on Wisdom in Secular Life” 

4:15 - 5:15 p.m. | Wine and cheese reception
Sponsored by the Centre for Ethics in the Department of Philosophy, University of New Brunswick.

5:15 - 6:30 p.m. | Keynote lecture | Auditorium

• Chair: Jennifer Hart Weed, University of New Brunswick.
  • Alexander Fidora, ICREA Research Professor, Autonomous University of Barcelona.
  • "Aristotle in Tortosa, or: Can one only understand what one is convinced of?
  • Reflections on the role of philosophy during the great Talmud disputation under Benedict XIII (1412-1414)"

6:30 - 8:30 p.m. | Dinner | Aitken Room

9 - 9:30 a.m. | Continental breakfast

9:30 - 10:45 a.m. | Plenary Session | Auditorium

• Chair: James Diamond, University of Waterloo.
  • Alexander Green, University of Florida. “Joseph Albo and the Case for Religious Tolerance”
  • Heidi Ravven, Hamilton College. “How Maimonides Tried to Save Judaism through (what we call today) a Civil Religion of Science in the Public Interest”

10:45 - 11:15 a.m. | Coffee break

11:15 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. | Morning session B

• Room 203 | Chair: Heidi Ravven, Hamilton College
  • Avishag Damari, Yeshiva University. “Metaphor as a Pedagogical Tool Between Imagination and Intellect in Maimonides”
  • Jennifer Hart Weed, University of New Brunswick. “Maimonides and Analogical Reasoning”
    
    
• Room 204 | Chair: Conor Barry, St. Thomas University.
  • Julia Sedlack, Boston College. “Whereof We must be Silent: Augustinian Influence and Wisdom as Silent Rest in Bonaventure and Wittgenstein”
  • Matteo Sperandini, École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE Paris)/Fondazione Collegio San Carlo (Modena). “Appetite for Wisdom. Sapientia as sapida scientia in Twelfth-Century Monastic Thought”

12:30 - 1:45 p.m. | Lunch | Aitken Room

1:45 - 3 p.m. | Afternoon session

• Room 203 | Chair: Jeff Frooman, University of New Brunswick. (Microsoft Teams)
  • Muhammad Samiullah, University of Management and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan. “Epistemic Hierarchies in Risālah al-Funūn: Shah Waliullah’s Post-Classical Theory of Knowledge”
    
    
• Room 204 | Chair: Colleen McCluskey, Saint Louis University.
  • Matthew Robinson, St. Thomas University. “Agent Intellect in the Latin Tradition: St. Bonaventure’s Sources”
  • Timothy Quinn, Xavier University. “The Medievalism of a Modern Heretic: Salomon Maimon’s Maimonidean Influences”

3 - 3:30 p.m. | Coffee break | Auditorium

3:30 - 4:30 p.m. | Special Plenary Session
Sponsored by the Department of Philosophy at the University of New Brunswick.

• Chair: Jennifer Hart Weed, The University of New Brunswick.
  • James Diamond, University of Waterloo. “Maimonides on Confusing Physics with Metaphysics: The Case of the Cherub”

4:30 - 4:45 p.m. | Break | Auditorium

4:45 - 6 p.m. | Keynote lecture II

• Chair: Alexander Green, University of Florida.
  • Professor Warren Zev Harvey, Hebrew University. "The Medieval Invention of Free Will”

6 - 6.15 p.m. | Closing remarks | Aitken Room
Jennifer Hart Weed, University of New Brunswick

6:15 - 8:15 p.m. | Banquet

Professor Fidora's research focuses on medieval philosophy as well as the intercultural and interre ligious dimensions of medieval thought. He has directed the ERC Starting grant “Latin into Hebrew” (2008-2012) and the ERC Consolidator project “The Latin Talmud” (2014-2019).

Recent books include: Albertus Magnus und der Talmud (Münster i. W. 2020), a critical edition, with U. Cecini, Ó. de la Cruz and I. Lampurlanés, of the Extractiones de Talmud per ordinem thematicum (Turnhout 2021) and Christian Readings of Rabbinic Sources in Medieval Polemic, edited with M. Lutz-Bachmann (Tübingen 2024).

The title of Professor Fidora's lecture is, "Aristotle in Tortosa, or: Can one only understand what one is convinced of?

Reflections on the role of philosophy during the great Talmud disputation under Benedict XIII (1412-1414)"

In this plenary talk, Professor Fidora will examine the Disputation of Tortosa, convened by Pope Benedict XIII, which was the final and most protracted in a series of Christian-Jewish disputations concerning the Talmud that began in the 13th century.

Following an initial meeting in Tortosa in the summer of 1412, Benedict XIII summoned rabbis from various Jewish communities to participate in the formal disputation. Over the course of sixty-nine sessions, held between Feb. 7, 1413 and Nov. 13, 1414, these rabbis engaged in debate with a small group of Christian interlocutors, led by the Jewish convert Jerónimo de Santa Fe.

Based on the authority of rabbinic proof texts, the Christians sought to persuade the Jewish participants that the Messiah had already come. Investigating the role of philosophy—particularly Aristotelian thought—in the context of the Tortosa disputation, this paper addresses the philosophical assumptions underlying the Christian use of the Talmud.

Professor Emeritus, Department of Jewish Thought, Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Professor Warren Zeev Harvey has been teaching since 1977. He is the author of many studies on medieval and modern Jewish philosophy, including Physics and Metaphysics in Hasdai Crescas (1998). He was an EMET Prize laureate in the Humanities in 2009.

The title of Professor Harvey's lecture is "The Medieval Invention of Free Will.

He will examine the question why medieval philosophers invented the Idea of "free will, " and he will explore why the idea is so important for us today.

Professor James A. Diamond is the Joseph and Wolf Lebovic Chair of Jewish Studies at the University of Waterloo. He holds a Ph.D. in Religious Studies and Medieval Jewish Thought from the University of Toronto, and an LL.M. from New York University’s Law School. His principle areas of study include biblical exegesis and hermeneutics, medieval Jewish thought and philosophy, Maimonides, and rabbinics.

He has published widely on all areas of Jewish thought. His books include Maimonides and the Hermeneutics of Concealment (SUNY, 2002) which was awarded the Canadian Jewish Book Award ; Converts, Heretics and Lepers: Maimonides and the Outsider (University of Notre Dame, 2008) awarded Notable Selection-Jordan Schnitzer Book Award in the Category of Philosophy and Jewish Thought for best book in 4 years (2008); Maimonides and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon (Cambridge University Press, 2014); and Jewish Philosophical Theology Unbound, (Oxford University Press 2019), which presents a Jewish philosophical theology that spans a continuum of Jewish texts, thinkers, and exegetes from the Hebrew bible to the classical rabbis to the medieval philosophers, to kabbalah.

His most recent book is Reinventing Maimonides in Contemporary Jewish Thought, coauthored with Menachem Kellner. His forthcoming book to be published by the Littman Library of Jewish Civilization is Confronting Divine Rage in the Warsaw Ghetto: The Sermons of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira.

Colleen McCluskey is Professor Emerita at Saint Louis University, where she taught for 27 years. She specializes in the history of medieval European philosophy, philosophy of feminism, and philosophy of race and is also interested in ethics.

Her books include Aquinas's Ethics: Metaphysical Foundations, Moral Theory, and Theological Context (co-authored with Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung and Christina Van Dyke (University of Notre Dame Press, 2009) and Thomas Aquinas on Moral Wrongdoing (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

She has published papers on a wide variety of topics, including Aquinas's ethics and theory of action, natural law and climate change, and medieval views of race and gender.

Crown Plaza Fredericton-Lord Beaverbrook
659 Queen St | Fredericton, NB | E3B 1C4

Guests are welcome to reserve their room by:

• Calling the front desk: 1-506-455-3371
• Emailing: reservations@cpfredericton.com
• Online: book now

Book under the “Department of Philosophy Conference” room block to secure the group rate.

Deadline for group reservations: Apr. 30, 2026.

For more information, contact phil@unb.ca.

The airport code for Fredericton is YFC.

Fredericton International Airport is the primary airport serving Fredericton, Canada. The official address is: 2570 Route 102 Hwy Lincoln, NB Canada E3B 9G1

The airport is located approximately thirteen kilometers outside of the city, and it is a 15-20 minute drive to the university/downtown.

Downtown Fredericton map      To and from the airport

• Fredericton Capital Region
• University of New Brunswick
• Explore NB
• Restaurants and bistros
• Downtown Fredericton
• Beaverbook Art Gallery
• Odell Park
• Kouchibouguac National Park
• Fundy National Park
• New Brunswick’s Provincial Parks
• Trails and cycling