September 2007 Archives

The Eighth Annual Independent meeting of the Ancient Philosophy Society will be held in New York City at the New School for Social Research on April 10-13, 2008.

Papers on any topic in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy are invited. Papers should be no more than 3000 words, 30 minutes reading time. Panel proposals will be considered, though they should be as complete as possible. Please prepare papers for blind review, with personal information on a cover sheet. Abstracts will not be considered.

Deadline: 15 November 2007

Inquiries and submissions (four paper copies plus one electronic copy, prepared for blind review) should be directed to:

Claudia Baracchi
Department of Philosophy
The New School for Social Research
79 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10003

Please, for electronic submissions or inquiries use only this email address: submissions@ancientphilosophysociety.org

The call for papers is now available for download in pdf format.

Traditional Plato scholarship, in the English-speaking world, has assumed that Platonic dialogues are merely collections of arguments. Inevitably, the question arises: If Plato wanted to present collections of arguments, why did he write dialogues instead of treatises? Concerned about this question, some scholars have been experimenting with other, more contextualized ways of reading the dialogues. This anthology is among the first to present these new approaches as pursued by a variety of scholars. As such, it offers new perspectives on Plato as well as a suggestive view of Plato scholarship as something of a laboratory for historians of philosophy generally.

The essays gathered here each examine vital aspects of Plato's many methods, considering his dialogues in relation to Thucydides and Homer, narrative strategies and medical practice, images and metaphors. They offer surprising new research into such much-studied works as The Republic as well as revealing views of lesser-known dialogues like the Cratylus and Philebus. With reference to thinkers such as Heidegger, Gadamer, and Sartre, the authors place the Platonic dialogues in an illuminating historical context. Together, their essays should reinvigorate the scholarly examination of the way Plato's dialogues "work"--and should prompt a reconsideration of how the form of Plato's philosophical writing bears on the Platonic conception of philosophy.

"Plato studies are now undergoing a transformation and I believe that this collection will be on the forefront of innovative scholarship." --Robert Metcalf, University of Colorado

In this lively and original book, Russell Winslow pursues a new
interpretation of logos in Aristotle. Rather than a reading of
rationality that cleaves human beings from nature, this new
interpretation suggests that, for Aristotle, consistent and dependable
rational arguments reveal a deep dependency upon nature. To this end,
the author shows that a rational account of a being is in fact subject
to the very same principle that governs the physical motion and
generation of a being under inquiry. Among the many consequences of
this argument is a rejection of both of the prevailing oppositional
claims that Aristotle's methodological procedure of discovery is one
resting on either empirical or conceptual grounds: discovery reveals a
more complex structure than can be grasped by either of these modern
modes. Further, Winslow argues that this interpretation of rational
discovery also contributes to the ethical debates surrounding
Aristotle's work, insofar as an ethical claim is achieved through
reason, but is not thereby conceived as objective. Again, the demand
for agreement in ethical/political decision will be disclosed as
superseding in its complexity both those accounts of ethical decision
as subjective (for example, "emotivist" accounts) and those as
objective ("realist" accounts).