Dominic Bezzina


Dominic Bezzina was a minor Maltese philosopher who mainly specialised in physics. He also dealt with logic.

Life

It seems that Bezzina was born around the mid-18th century. After becoming a priest, he taught philosophy and science at the Cathedral School at Mdina, Malta. He was also a Canon at the Bishop’s Cathedral Chapter. Bezzina taught at Mdina at least since 1819. One of the courses he delivered concerned physics.

Extant work

Bezzina’s only extant work is called Institutum Philosophicum. It is still in manuscript form, and contains 171 back to back folios. Unfortunately, the document is certainly incomplete. The extant manuscript is just the first part of a larger work. It is not known how many further part the whole work contained.
The extant part of the Institutum concerns logic. The division is typically that of Scholasticism, organised in books, chapters, and articles. Throughout the work Bezzina discusses the nature and conditions of Aristotelian logic, consciousness, and the genesis of ideas.