Dario Affronti

by Rodrigo Ballon Villanueva

Dario Affronti

May 2025 – This year’s Eurovision took place in stunning Switzerland, giving us the perfect opportunity to introduce you to Dario Affronti! Dario holds a BA (2017) and an MA (2019) in Philosophy from the University of Italian Switzerland (Switzerland). He is currently a PhD Candidate at the University of Lucerne (Switzerland), where he also serves as a Tutor for their online master’s program in Philosophy, Theology, and Religions, which focuses on the mutual relationships between philosophy and the Abrahamic religions.

Dario’s research interests lie in epistemology, both concerning historical developments (primarily in the medieval period) and contemporary debates. He is working under the supervision of Giovanni Ventimiglia on a dissertation titled ‘Assent, Certainty, and Doubt in the Act of Faith according to Thomas Aquinas’. His research questions include: What is certainty, and why is faith said to be certain according to Aquinas? What is doubt, and is it compatible with faith? Can the apophatic claim that God’s essence remains ultimately unknown be reconciled with the interpretation of faith as a species of knowledge (a thesis widely held in the Thomistic literature)? To address these concerns, Dario aims to offer an interpretation of Aquinas’s epistemology of faith informed by insights from Wittgenstein’s philosophy of certainty. Thanks to a mobility award from the University of Lucerne, Dario will be a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Leeds (UK) starting in November 2025. There, he will collaborate with Simon Hewitt to deepen his understanding of Wittgenstein’s philosophy.

In addition, Dario applies his expertise in epistemology to address relevant social issues, including politics, religion, fake news, etc. For more information on Dario’s work, see here.