Damiano Costa

Damiano Costa is Assistant Professor and Deputy Director of the Institute of Philosophy at the Faculty of Theology of Lugano (USI-FTL), Università della Svizzera italiana. He holds a PhD from the University of Geneva (2014) and has taught at institutions including the University of Fribourg, University of Geneva, Corpus Christi College (Oxford), and has held visiting positions at Columbia University and the University of Oxford.

His research focuses on metaphysics, philosophy of science, and medieval philosophy. Key areas include time, change, persistence, universals, relativity, mereology, hylomorphism, and location theory. He has published in leading journals such as Synthese, The Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Studies, and made history as the first Swiss-based scholar to publish in The Journal of Philosophy.

His recent publications reflect a strong engagement with the philosophical implications of modern physics, the structure of reality, and the revival of Aristotelian themes in contemporary metaphysics. He leads multiple research projects funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, including the SNSF Starting Grant 'Temporal Existence' and 'Equivalence in Metaphysics'.

• SNSF Starting Grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (2022)

He directs the Bachelor, Master, and PhD programs in Philosophy at USI-FTL and is actively involved in organizing major international conferences such as IAPT9 (2024) and SMS10 (2025). He is a member of eidos – Centre for Research in Metaphysics (Geneva) and the Research Commission of FTL. He has delivered over 70 academic talks, 15 public lectures, and organized more than 30 workshops and 15 public lecture series.

He leads three major research projects: (1) 'Temporal Existence' (SNSF-funded, 2023–2028), involving one PhD and two postdoctoral researchers; (2) 'REP22-25', a privately funded initiative to strengthen philosophical research at USI-FTL; and (3) 'Equivalence in Metaphysics' (SNSF-funded, 2024–2027), co-directed with Claudio Calosi, focusing on theoretical equivalence across disciplines.