Reading Groups

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Convenor: Prof. Michail Peramatzis

Venue: Worcester College
Time: Fridays, 11am-1pm
Text: Aristotle’s Physics III (starting from III.7, 207b15)

 
While this Graduate and Faculty reading group is not listed in the Philosophy Faculty lecture or seminar lists, it has been taking place for several decades now. It is organised by Prof. Michail Peramatzis, whom you should contact if you would like to take part (michail.peramatzis@philosophy.ox.ac.uk).

 

We shall resume our discussion of the Physics (from III.7, 207b15) on Friday of week 1 (May 1) at 11am-1pm in Seminar Room A, Worcester College (in staircase 5 of the main quad). 

 

Convenors: Prof. Alexander Bown, Prof. Luca Castagnoli, Prof. Marion Durand, Prof. Simon Shogry, Dr. Stefan Sienkiewicz

Venue: Oriel College, MacGregor Room (third quad)
Time: Mondays, 2-3.30pm (no session in week 1)
Text: Plotinus Enn. III.7 'On Eternity & Time'

In ‘On Eternity and Time’ (Enn. III.7), Plotinus asks whether time and eternity are features of the world or conditions under which we experience it, and argues that temporal experience is generated by the soul's own desire and orientation. In chapters 8–10, he works through Stoic, Epicurean, Peripatetic, and Pythagorean definitions of time in one of the richest surviving critical doxographies of Hellenistic views on the subject, preserving formulations from Zeno, Chrysippus, and the Epicureans that are not always fully recoverable from the fragmentary evidence. He argues that their definitions capture the right structural relationships, but are systematically misapplied through an externalising interpretation that locates time in observable cosmic motion rather than in the orientation of the soul. This method of charitable reinterpretation (guided by the programmatic conviction that ‘some of these ancient and blessed philosophers have discovered the truth’ but that we must examine ‘which of them best attained it’) offers a case study in how Hellenistic ideas were both preserved and transformed in late antiquity.

More information can be found here.

Convenor: Dr Ibrahim Safri

Venue: Magdalen College, Old Law Library, Lecture Room B (Weeks 1-2), McFarlane Library (Weeks 3-8)
Time: Tuesdays, 2-3.30pm
Text: Avicenna, The Physics of The Healing

The theory of time remains one of the most complex and significant subjects of inquiry, central to both philosophical and physical discourse globally. Throughout the history of world philosophy, this concept has been continually refined, spanning Late Antiquity and Neoplatonism through to Islamic, Medieval, and Early Modern philosophical traditions. Within the global corpus of Arabic philosophy, diverse interpretations of time have emerged, shaped by three primary perspectives that influenced Islamic medieval conceptions of this theory. This reading class will focus on Avicenna’s The Physics of The Healing, in which he presents various notions of time before establishing his own account. 

Our objective is to engage in a profound reading of Avicenna’s thesis to determine the extent to which his theory of time represents a departure from Aristotelian thought, a continuation of the Peripatetic tradition, or an innovative synthesis. We will discuss how his contributions facilitated the development of this concept within the context of global philosophy.

More information can be found here.

Convenor: Prof Jan Westerhoff

Venue: LMH, Paul Oster Room
Time: Tuesdays, 3pm-4pm
Text: 

Kambala, Ālokamālā

We will be reading from Kambala’s Ālokamālā, a fascinating syncretic Yogācāra-Madhyamaka text. The work is extant in Sanskrit and Tibetan, there is also a commentary by Asvabhāva preserved in Tibetan. 

An edition of the Sanskrit and Tibetan text by Christian Lindtner, as well as his English translation can be found here.

For any questions, please contact jan.westerhoff@lmh.ox.ac.uk.