Guillaume de Vaulx d’Arcy
Guillaume de Vaulx d’Arcy is a philosopher and Arabist, associate researcher at the Dominican Institute for Oriental Studies (IDEO) in Cairo (Egypt). He pursues his research at the French Institute of the Near East (Ifpo) in Beirut (Lebanon), where he leads a project on animal piety funded by the French Ministry of the Interior.
Holder of the agrégation in philosophy, he defended in 2016 at Paris-Sorbonne University (Paris IV) a doctoral thesis on the Epistles of the Brethren of Purity (Rasāʾil Iḫwān al-ṣafāʾ), supervised by Marwan Rashed. His research focuses on the history of classical Arabic thought (ninth-tenth centuries): he argues that the Epistles were written by Aḥmad ibn al-Ṭayyib al-Saraḫsī (d. 286/899), a disciple of al-Kindī, whose surviving fragments he edits.
He is also developing a reflection on animality in the classical Arabic period, drawing on fables, zoology and the religious sciences. On this subject he co-edited the volume Cosmic and Animal Piety in Islam: Everything Glorifies God (Edinburgh University Press, 2026).
In contemporary philosophy, he has worked with Nibras Chehayed on translating the philosophical lexicon into Arabic and on a reading of contemporary Arab artistic creation, notably in La destructivité en œuvres. Essai sur l’art syrien contemporain.
Resources related to
Philosophy
article
Literary, Semiotic and Hermeneutical Approaches to the Qur’an in the Modern Period
- Wasim Salman
Abstract In this contribution to issue 51 (Mélanges) of the journal Islamochristiana, published in Italian as Approcci letterari, semiotici ed ermeneutici al Corano nel periodo moderno, Wasim Sa...
article
French Kiss and Arabic Culture: Aḥmad ibn al-Ṭayyib al-Saraḫsī on Love in Light of Rasāʾil Iḫwān al-ṣafāʾ
- Guillaume de Vaulx d'Arcy
Abstract Published in the Palermo Occasional Papers of the Foundation for Religious Sciences (FSCIRE) (vol. 3, no. 1, 2025, pp. 37-84), this article by Guillaume de Vaulx d'Arcy, associate resea...
videos
Spiritual eroticism and erotic spirituality in Sufi mystical thought
Paper presented at the 5th international congress of the University Platform for Research on Islam (Pluriel), held in Cordoba from 10 to 14 February 2026 on the theme "Ethics and Aesthetics in Isla...
videos
Defining the beautiful in Islam: between submission to and transgression of ethical norms
Paper presented at the 5th international congress of the University Platform for Research on Islam (Pluriel), held in Cordoba from 10 to 14 February 2026 on the theme "Ethics and Aesthetics in Isla...
videos
The gnostic constitution of aesthetic values in Ibn ʿArabī
Paper presented at the 5th international congress of the University Platform for Research on Islam (Pluriel), held in Cordoba from 10 to 14 February 2026 on the theme "Ethics and Aesthetics in Isla...
videos
Art in the face of authoritarian discourse: the contribution of Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd
Paper presented at the 5th international congress of the University Platform for Research on Islam (Pluriel), held in Cordoba from 10 to 14 February 2026 on the theme "Ethics and Aesthetics in Isla...
videos
Ethics and aesthetics in the thought of Abū Ḥayyān al-Tawḥīdī (d. 414/1023)
Paper presented at the 5th international congress of the University Platform for Research on Islam (Pluriel), held in Cordoba from 10 to 14 February 2026 on the theme "Ethics and Aesthetics in Isla...
videos
Annihilation in beauty, subsistence in ethics: the unity of unveiling and ethics in Ibn ʿArabī
Paper presented at the fifth international congress of the University Platform for Research on Islam (Pluriel), held in Cordoba from 10 to 14 February 2026 on the theme "Ethics and Aesthetics in Is...