2021
Jonathan Griffiths (UCL): Generation and Geometry in Plato’s Timaeus
Time and place: Friday 5 November, 14.15-16.00, GMH 452 and Zoom
'Generation and Geometry in Plato’s Timaeus' tries to develop a new understanding of an apologetic view which was taken on the Timaeus’ account of cosmic generation by a group of early Platonists around Xenocrates, and thereby resolve a long-standing deadlock between competing ‘literalist’ and ‘non-literalist’ positions on the origin-story. Contrary to an established scholarly view, Xenocrates and the other Platonists involved in this defence were not unqualifiedly ‘denialists’ of the cosmos’ generation on Plato’s behalf.
Rather, they maintained that the Timaeus did not endorse the cosmos’ ‘temporal’ generation, meaning its generation at some point in time, but that the generation paralleled the construction of (geometrical) diagrams, appealing to Timaeus’ account of the demiurge’s construction of fire, earth, water and air (Tim. 48b-c, 53b-56c).
I ask what kind of generation this geometrical comparison amounts to by considering a cryptic passage from the Laws (894a-b) that resembles it, which is not usually cited within the modern debate.
Lastly, I suggest that Xenocrates and the other Platonists’ apologetic, although centred on the Timaeus, was likely to be inspired by the broader programme of approaching astronomy more geometrico from the Republic, before drawing some conclusions regarding the Timaeus’ initial reception and the interpretive dynamics of early Platonism.
"The first half of Socrates' Autobiography (Phaedo 95e-99c)"
Time and place: Friday 12 March 14.15-16.00 (zoom)
David Ebrey, Humboldt Berlin.
2019
"Justice and the gods in Xenophon’s Memorabilia"
Donald Morrison (Rice)
Time and place: Friday 6 December: 14.15-16.00, GMH 452
In the Memorabilia, Xenophon’s Socrates identifies the just and the lawful. (4.4,12). He divides law into two groups, human law and divine law. Socrates thinks that it is always wrong to disobey either kind of law. Socrates defines piety as justice regarding the gods.(4.6.4; cf. Euthy. 11e ff.) But it is not clear what this includes. On one interpretation, helping out your neighbor can count as a pious act. Another problem faced by Socrates both in Plato and in Xenophon is: if the gods are already good, we cannot benefit them. But then, how can human beings do anything to reciprocate for the many benefits we receive from the gods?
Main texts: Mem. 4.4.9-25; 4.6.2-6
"Perceiving with the whole body in Plato"
Thomas Kjeller Johansen (Oslo)
Time and place: Friday 25 October, 14.15-16.00, GMH 467
Self-causation and Unity in Stoicism
Reier Helle MA will present a paper in the Ancient Philosophy Workshop. The paper is entitled: "Self-causation and Unity in Stoicism“.
Time and place: Aug. 16, 2019 2:15 PM–4:00 PM, GM 452
Abstract
According to the Stoics, unified bodies – animals, plants, and inanimate natural bodies – each have a single cause of unity: ‘breath’, pneuma. In each such body there is pneuma, which blends with its matter, thereby causing the body to be what it is and unifying it. In animals this pneuma is soul, in plants it is nature, and in inanimate natural bodies it is ‘mere hexis’. Pneuma itself, however, has no distinct cause of unity; on the contrary, our sources indicate that the Stoics think that it is a cause to itself, in virtue of its characteristic tensile motion. Tensile motion is supposed to explain both that pneuma is a cause to itself and that it is able (self-sufficiently) to unify other bodies. As one of our sources point out, it is difficult to see how pneuma can be a cause of this kind, given that it itself is a composite, specifically, a blend of air and fire, and that it has tensile motion because it is such a composite. In this presentation, I examine the Stoic position on pneumatic self-causation, and I propose an account of how pneuma may properly be conceived as self-causing in virtue of tensile motion, despite the fact that it has tensile motion because it is a composite of air and fire.
There may come more material for this presentation but people interested may wish to have a look at Reier’s paper in Phronesis dealing with related issues
Reier Helle is a PhD student in the joint program for Philosophy and Classics at Yale University. Within ancient philosophy, he specializes in the Stoics and their metaphysics; his dissertation is on the Stoic notion of a unified body. He has a Master's degree from the University of Oslo, where he wrote a thesis on Cicero's De Natura Deorum II.
"Nous in Aristotle's Biology"
Sophia Connell (Birkbeck)
Time and place: Friday 12 April, 14.15-16.00, GMH 452
"Statesmanship and Individuality"
Hallvard Fossheim (Bergen)
Time and place: Friday 22 March, 14.15-16.00, GMH 452
"Measuring the Difference Between Rhetoric and Sophistry in Plato’s Gorgias"
Jacqueline Tusi (Fribourg)
Time and place: Friday 8 February, 14.15-16.00, GMH 452
"Lawlessness and Violence in the Ideal Regime: An Analysis of Statesman 291a-297b"
Franco Trivigno (Oslo)
Time and place: Friday 25 January, 14.15-16.00, GMH 452