Reading Proclus and the Book of Causes: Notes on the Western Scholarly Networks and Debates

The majority of contributions reunited in this volume were first presented during the first of the three sessions of the conference “Les Éléments de théologie et le Livre des causes du Ve au XVIIe siècle”. It took place at the École pratique des hautes études, Paris, on 13–14 November 2015, during the terrorist attacks.1 The second took place on 12–13 February 2016, and the third on 14–15–16 April 2016; all within the framework of the project LIBER (ANR13-PDOC-0018-01) which I directed between 2013 and 2017 at the École pratique des hautes études, Paris, and which generously financed these meetings and the publication of the proceedings.2 The conferences were organised by Marc Geoffroy and myself, under the auspices of Olivier Boulnois, Philippe Hoffmann, RuediImbach, Zénon Kaluza and Dominique Poirel.I wish to acknowledge the important support of the following bodies in the organisation of the conference: École pratique des hautes études, Équipe “philosophie arabe” of the Centre “Jean Pépin”—CNRS (UMR 8230), Laboratoire d’études sur les monothéismes—CNRS (UMR 8584), Labex haStec (Laboratoire européen d’histoire et anthropologie des savoirs, des techniques et des croyances), Institut de recherche et d’histoire des textes—CNRS, Centre “Pierre Abélard”— Université Paris Sorbonne.