INSTITUTE OF CLASSICAL STUDIES
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY SEMINAR
Ancient philosophers from UCL, together with colleagues from KCL and Birkbeck, organise fortnightly ancient philosophy seminars throughout the academic year for the Institute of Classical Studies, made possible by the generous support of the Institute. Talks take place at Senate House in Bloomsbury.
2024-2025
Convened by Dr. Daniel Ferguson (KCL) and Dr. Joachim Aufderheide (KCL)
Each talk takes place 4.30pm-6.30pm in Room 243, Senate House.
Oct. 7th: Nick Denyer (Cambridge)
Oct. 21st: Amber Carpenter (Yale-NUS)
Nov. 18th: Jason Carter (St. Andrews), ‘Common and Proper Pathē in the Philebus and De Anima 1’
Dec. 2nd: Stefan Sienkiewicz (Oxford), ‘Without Good Cause: A Reappraisal of Aenesidemus' Eight Modes Against Causal Explanation’
Jan. 20th: Melissa Lane (Princeton) NOTE: this doubles as the Sheila Kassman lecture
Feb 3rd: Claudia Yau (Northwestern) NOTE: online talk
Feb. 17th: Laura Castelli (Cambridge)
March 3rd: Fiona Leigh (UCL), ‘Phantasia in the Sophist’
March 17th: Bradford Kim (Southampton)
March 31st: Ugo Zilioli (Oxford)
2023-2024
Convened by Dr. David Preston (Royal Holloway) and Dr. John Sellars (Royal Holloway)
Each talk takes place 4.30pm-6.30pm in Room 243, Senate House.
25 Sept: Alesia Preite (Oxford), ‘The Embodiment of the Immortal Soul in the Timaeus: An Embryological Interpretation of Ti. 42e5-44c4’
9 Oct: Justin Broakes (Brown/visiting London), ‘What is the Being that Perception does not reach? Theaetetus 184-186: And why Analytic History of Philosophy makes it so hard to give an good answer’
23 Oct: Mor Segev (Florida/visiting Warburg), ‘Natural Teleology and Human Life Expectancy in Aristotle’
6 Nov: Jenny Bryan (Manchester), ‘The Epistemic Pessimism of Heraclitus B1’
20 Nov: Lea Cantor (Cambridge), ‘Zhuangzi’s words argument against Parmenidean monism’
15 Jan: Anne Sheppard (RHUL), ‘Neoplatonic responses to Plato, Republic 3.398c-402a’
29 Jan: Vilius Bartninkas (Vilnius), ‘Plato’s Mathematical Economists, or On Normative Mathematics in Household Management and Economic Policy’
12 Feb: Nicolò Benzi (Kent/UCL), ‘Gorgias’ persuasion between rhetoric and art’
26 Feb: Benjamin Harriman (Edinburgh), ‘Seneca and Stoic Qualities’
11 Mar: James Allen (Toronto/visiting Cambridge), title to be confirmed
2022-2023
Convened by Dr. Elena Cagnoli Fiecconi (UCL) and Dr. Sophia Connell (Birkbeck)
26 Sept: Raphael Woolf (KCL): ‘Persuasion and plausibility in Tusculan Disputations Book I’
17 Oct: Phillip Horky (Durham): ‘Nicomachus of Gerasa: principles and cosmos’
21 Nov: ONLINE: Rachana Kamtekar (Cornell): title TBC
24 Nov: Beatrice Lienemann (FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg): title TBC
28 Nov: Ricardo Salles (UNAM): ‘Chrysippus on cosmogony and conflagration’
12 Dec: Thornton Lockwood (Quinnipac): ‘Non-human animals in Aristotle's Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics’
23 Jan: Anne Sheppard (RHUL): ‘The effect of tragedy on the emotions: Plato, Aristotle and the Neoplatonists’
6 Feb: Susan Sauvé Meyer (UPenn): ‘Plato’s theory of legislation’
20 Feb: Laura Castelli (Cambridge): title TBC
6 March: Katerina Ierodiakonou (Geneva/Athens): ‘Why do flowers smell good but taste bad? The Aristotelian reply’
27 March: Karen Margrethe Nielsen (Oxford): ‘Aristotle as conceptual engineer: the case of forensic oratory’
2021-2022
Convened by Prof. Raphael Woolf (KCL) and Dr. Shaul Tor (KCL)
4th October: Myrto Hatzimichali (Cambridge): ‘Why does Parts of Animals have a theoretical introduction?’
25th October: Margaret Hampson (St Andrews): ‘The tyrant and the failure of philia’
8th November: Nilanjan Das (UCL): ‘Vasubandhu on the first person’
29th November: Maria Michela Sassi (Pisa): ‘The ambivalent nature of Socrates’ divine sign’
31st January: Jenny Bryan (Manchester): ‘Divine authority in Empedocles’
14th February: Giulia Bonasio (Durham): ‘Practical wisdom and its parts in the Eudemian Ethics’
28th February: Marion Durand (Oxford): ‘The Stoics on tenses’
21st March: Simon Shogry (Oxford): ‘The elenchus in Stoic philosophy’
9th May: Andrea Nightingale (Stanford): TBD
2020-2021
5th October: MM McCabe (KCL), 'Framing (some)self in the Platonic dialogues'
9th November: Voula Tsouna (University of California, Santa Barbara), 'The Epicurean method of multiple explanations'
11th January: Malcolm Schofield (Cambridge), 'Aristotle's middle constitution (Pol. 4.11)'
18th January: Caterina Pello (St Andrews), 'Life and lifeforms in ancient Atomism'
15th February: Marion Durand (Oxford), ‘The Stoics on tenses’
22nd March: Anna Marmodoro (Durham), ‘The birth of instantiation’
17th May: Katharine O'Reilly (KCL/Ryerson), 'Arete of Cyrene and the Role of Women in Philosophical Lineage’
2019-2020
14th October: Saloni de Souza (UCL), 'Unbreakable Laws Broken in Plato's Parmenides'
28th November: Merrick Anderson (UCL), 'The Structure and Anatomy of Platonic Virtues'
11th November: Paul Woodruff (University of Texas at Austin), 'Why is Socrates Happy?'
25th November: Dimitri El Murr (Ecole Normal Superior), 'Platonic Zoology'
9th December: Katharine O'Reilly (KCL), 'Epicurus on Pain and the Recollection of Pleasure'
13th January: Tim Clarke (University of California, Berkeley), 'The Problem of Being in the Sophist'
27th January: Anthony Price (Birkbeck), 'Aristotelian Continence Reconsidered'
10th February: Rachel Barney (Toronto), 'Platonic Predication'
24th February: Alex Brown (Oxford), 'When is "If the first, the second" true? An Epicurean contribution to the Hellenistic Debate'
25th May: Anna Marmadoro (Durham), 'Building the world without relations. The master builders: Anaxagoras, Plato and Aristotle'
