Giacomo Maria ARRIGO

Giacomo Maria Arrigo (born in Messina, Italy, in 1992) earned his Bachelor's degree in Philosophy from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Milan, in September 2013, graduating with highest honors (110/110 cum laude) with a thesis entitled Dignità umana e diritto cosmopolitico. La pace perpetua in Kant e in Habermas ("Human Dignity and Cosmopolitan Law: Perpetual Peace in Kant and Habermas"). At the same university, he subsequently earned his Master's degree in Philosophy in September 2015, again graduating with highest honors (110/110 cum laude), with a thesis entitled Oltre la dialettica dell'illuminismo. Arthur Schopenhauer nel pensiero di Max Horkheimer ("Beyond the Dialectic of Enlightenment: Arthur Schopenhauer in the Thought of Max Horkheimer"). In November 2016, he completed a postgraduate Master's program in Middle Eastern Studies at the Graduate School of Economics and International Relations (ASERI) of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, with a dissertation entitled The Islamic State's Apocalyptic Jihad.

In 2016, he began his doctoral studies (32nd cycle) in Politica, Cultura e Sviluppo ("Politics, Culture and Development"), specializing in Political Philosophy (SPS/01), at the University of Calabria, under a joint doctoral supervision agreement (cotutelle) with KU Leuven (Belgium). On June 4, 2020, he was awarded his PhD upon successfully defending his dissertation, A Philosophy of Radical Politics: Revolutionary Gnosticism and the Case of Salafi-Jihadism, under the supervision of Professors Alberto Ventura and John Nawas. His doctoral research examined the relationship between Gnosticism, revolutionary politics, and religious radicalism.

From January to December 2020, he held a postdoctoral research fellowship at the Filippo Burzio Foundation in Turin, where he conducted a research project entitled I have in my contemplation the civil social man, and no other. L'antropologia relazionale di Edmund Burke e la critica ai diritti dell'uomo ("I have in my contemplation the civil social man, and no other. Edmund Burke's Relational Anthropology and the Critique of the Rights of Man").

Since March 2021, he has been a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Moral Philosophy at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan. At the same institution, he is a member of the European Centre for Social Ethics (ECSE), serves as Organizational Coordinator of the Giuseppe Rotelli Lectures in Philosophy, and is a member of the Philosophy & Business Unit team.

In February 2024, he was a Visiting Scholar at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee (USA), and from February to March 2026 at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana (USA).

On March 13, 2025, he obtained the Italian National Scientific Qualification (Abilitazione Scientifica Nazionale) for the position of Associate Professor in the academic field of Moral Philosophy (11/C3). In March 2026, he completed an executive postgraduate program in Sustainability & Impact Leadership at POLIMI Graduate School of Management, Politecnico di Milano, with a final project entitled Community Capitalism as a Normative Economic Paradigm: A Communitarian Approach.

Since February 2019, he has served as a Subject Expert ("cultore della materia") at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart for the courses “History of Moral Doctrines”, “Anthropology and Communication”, and “Ontologies, Morality and Language”. During the 2022–2023 academic year, he was an Adjunct Professor of “Teaching Methodologies and Philosophical Writing” at Vita-Salute San Raffaele University.

Since October 2019, he has been a Lecturer and a member of the coordination team for the Ethical and Anthropological Studies area of JUMP (Job-University Matching Project), an interdisciplinary educational program run by Fondazione RUI. Since the same year, he has been a Research Fellow at the Advanced School for Interdisciplinary Research (SISRI) of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. From January 2019 to January 2026, he was also Co-Founder and Director of theSquare – Mediterranean Centre for Revolutionary Studies, an interdisciplinary research center dedicated to the study of revolutionary phenomena in the Euro-Mediterranean region.

His main research interests include moral philosophy, the thought of Edmund Burke and the British Enlightenment, religious toleration and pluralism, public ethics, and philosophy of religion. He is the author of three monographs: Gnostic Jihadism. A Philosophical Inquiry into Radical Politics (Mimesis International, 2021), La filosofia morale di Edmund Burke. Culture, tradizioni, civiltà (Carocci, 2023), and Filosofia della religione (Corriere della Sera, 2026). He has also edited and translated works by Edmund Burke, Anthony Collins, John Toland, Thomas More, Steven Nadler, Jean-Luc Marion, and Vittorio Hösle, and has published numerous scholarly contributions on the history of ideas, moral and social philosophy, interreligious dialogue, and contemporary ethical issues.

Since 2020, he has served as Co-Editor-in-Chief of Occhialì – Rivista sul Mediterraneo islamico, having previously held the positions of Editorial Secretary and member of the Editorial Board. Since 2023, he has been a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the book series "SISRI – Studi, strumenti, contributi" published by Edizioni Santa Croce. He is a member of the Italian Society for Moral Philosophy (SIFM), the Italian Society for Political Philosophy (SIFP), the Italian Society for Critical Theory (SITC), the Italian Association for Philosophy of Religion (AIFR), and the Society of Christian Philosophers (Sociedad de Filósofos Cristianos, SoFiC).