Problemata Literature in the 16th Century
Problemata Literature
in the 16th Century
António Luís’
«Problematum Libri Quinque» (1539)
Henrique Leitão
24 March 2026 – 5 PM (CET)
In the words of the Portuguese physician Antonio Luís, “a problem is defined as the search for the unknown cause of a manifest thing”, and “those who define a problem as a doubtful question are providing a correct definition, since here the doubt is posed only in relation to the cause, not the thing.”
The tradition of the Problemata attributed to Aristotle, and, more generally, the literary and discursive genre of Problemata, was very influential in Europe, especially in medicine.
By the mid-sixteenth century, however, its significance had begun to wane. Yet, as António Luís’ Problematum libri quinque (Lisbon, 1539) clearly shows, it was still considered useful by some scholars: by legitimizing an approach that attempted explanations while leaving open to discussion the issue of causation, the Problemata genre provided a way of escaping the stringencies of the Aristotelian epistemic requirements.
About the Speaker ...
Henrique Leitão is a historian of science working at the Centro Interuniversitário de História das Ciências e da Tecnologia at the University of Lisbon, where he teaches in the Master’s Programme in the History and Philosophy of Science and serves as Chair of the Department for the History and Philosophy of Science.
He leads the European Research Council Advanced Grant project “RUTTER: Making the Earth Global,” a five-year research programme devoted to the study of early modern sailing directions and ship logbooks. His scholarly work includes major editorial and research initiatives such as the modern annotated edition of Pedro Nunes’s complete works, studies on the history of cartography and the Mercator projection, research on scientific book circulation in Portugal, and editions of early modern mathematical texts.
