Workshop in Ancient Philosophy (TT 2025)

For up-to-date information, see the invited speakers page.

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• Week 1 (1 May): Cole Phelps (Oxford): 'The Priority of Activities in Aristotle’s Biology' Chair: Ursula Coope
  • Abstract: Aristotle recommends in De Partibus Animalium I that we explain living things in terms of activities. I examine two consequences of this view here, one methodological and one metaphysical. The methodological consequence is that this leads Aristotle to prioritize definitions of kinds such as fish and bird—and ultimately, even higher taxa such as animal and plant—over definitions of individual species. The metaphysical consequence concerns the way in which explanations in terms of activities qualify as causal explanations. I suggest that Aristotle embraced activity-based definitions in part because they capture a feature of living things’ natures that alternative views do not and therefore qualify as more causally complete. I end with a brief discussion of why this sort of view might be attractive from a contemporary perspective.
• Week 2 (8 May): Fiona Leigh (UCL): 'Elenchus, Dialectic, and Social Epistemology in the Republic' Chair: Michael Peramatzis
  • Abstract: In this paper I argue that the elenctic method is used in a constructive, as well as destructive, manner in Republic I, in several respects: Elenchus establishes epistemic norms, facilitates self-knowledge of belief relevant to inquiry, even, sometimes, previously disavowed beliefs, reveals reasons for belief, and yields bases for future first-order inquiry. The elenctic method also implies first-personal plural epistemic authority about belief: Our agreement on what I believe, consistent with epistemic norms, is authoritative over my solo claims to belief. I then argue that the elenchus is incorporated into the method of dialectic in first-order inquiry later in Rep., such that critical reflection and cross-examination of one another is characteristic of both education of guardians and their activity as rulers. This interpersonal feature of dialectic is plausibly more epistemically reliable than (largely) solo inquiry, implying a social element to Platonic epistemology, and raising the possibility of first-personal epistemic authority over first-order knowledge. I further explore, however, a more radical ‘Platonic’ social epistemology, according to which thought is a fundamentally dialectical activity, the solo practice of which is a derivative and epistemically impoverished version of interpersonal dialectic.
• Week 4 (22 May): Rami Kais (Oxford): 'Falsehood, Images, and Deception in Plato’s Sophist' Chair: Alex Bown
  

  • Abstract: In the Sophist, the art of the sophist is described as an art of deception and the dialogue concludes by defining the sophist as a kind of imitator. This paper has two objectives. The first is to analyse the relations which hold between falsehood, images, and deception to offer an explanation for why images are presented as a requirement for deception. I argue that this is the case because images are understood as the means whereby an imitator may deceive others by causing them to judge falsely. The second objective is to present a general definition of deception in the Sophist based upon some conditions to which Plato is committed. This endeavours to explain how imitators may deceive others through the images they produce. If this definition is applied to the different kinds of imitators disclosed in the final divisions of the dialogue with their respective qualifications, then it may also show the distinctive ways by which their practitioners deceive others.

• Week 5 (29 May): Emily Daly (Oxford): 'Comedy, phthonos and laughter: Philebus 47d-50d' Chair: Setareh Rezazad
  • Abstract: In Plato’s Philebus, Socrates asserts that there are mixed pleasures of the soul alone (47d8). These include the pathē of ‘wrath, fear, longing, lamentations, love, jealousy, [and] phthonos’ (47e1). Socrates does not examine these pathē one by one, nor does he provide a general explanation for how they involve both pain and pleasure. Rather, to help us recognise the mixture of pleasure and pain in such cases, he provides an account of the mixed pleasure of ‘our state of mind in comedy’ (48a8), i.e. comic amusement. While this account has attracted scholarly attention in recent years, interpreters are far from reaching a consensus on what exactly constitutes the pleasure and pain of comic amusement. In this talk, I develop my own account of the psychology of comic amusement and show that the current lack of consensus stems from a common misinterpretation of the role of phthonos in this mixed phenomenon. Ultimately, I argue that phthonos is the pain and laughter (gelōs) is the pleasure in the mixed pleasure of comic amusement.
• Week 6 (5 June): Hendrik Lorenz (Princeton) : 'Aristotle on Despotic Rule – and the Question of Racism' Chair: Simon Shogry [Ackrill Lecture. 4.30pm; Amersi Lecture Theatre, Brasenose College]
  • Abstract: TBC
• Week 7 (12 June): Lindsay Judson (Oxford): 'Conclusions in the Euthyphro' Chair: Teddy Jennings
  • Abstract: Many commentators (sometimes called ‘constructivists') think that Plato is inviting the reader of the Euthyphro to accept a specific conception of piety, despite the dialogue's overtly aporetic ending. I agree with these commentators that how things end between Socrates and Euthyphro is not necessarily the end of the matter for us. But I am going to take issue with some assumptions which constructivists generally make: in particular, that the reader’s attention is being drawn to one account of piety, and that Plato is encouraging us to accept that account. Instead I shall argue that we are being invited to think for ourselves about a number of different accounts of the nature of piety: their merits and demerits are largely, though not wholly, left for the reader to determine. In a sense, then, my view is that, after all, no conclusion is reached in the Euthyphro; but I prefer to think that it is rather that several conclusions are reached – and hence the title of this talk.