From May 29 to 31, 2025, Associate Professor Atsushi Takahashi (Faculty of Letters) participated in the Aquinas and the Arabs International Annual Conference, held at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom. At this international scholarly meeting, Professor Takahashi delivered a paper entitled “Why Do Angels and Miracles Exist Rather Than Not Exist?”, addressing key themes in the history of medieval Western philosophy.

The Aquinas and the Arabs International Working Group is a collaborative international research initiative dedicated to investigating the influence of Arabic philosophy on the development of Latin Scholasticism. This year’s annual conference brought together over thirty scholars from more than five countries for a series of presentations and discussions.

The conference provided a valuable occasion to reflect on the ways in which Christian theology and Arabic Aristotelian philosophy, despite underlying tensions, interacted and complemented one another in shaping the medieval European conception of nature and the cosmos. It also served as an important opportunity to foster new connections within the international community of scholars.