Workshop in Ancient Philosophy
The Workshop in Ancient Philosophy is a series devoted to discussing work in progress by speakers within and outside Oxford pertaining to the field. Members of the Faculty, students and visitors are welcome. For details, please contact the convenors.
If you would like to go out to dinner with the speaker, then please contact the chair of the meeting before Tuesday of that week. The meals of the chair and the speaker are covered by the faculty; others attend at their own expense.
Seminars will take place on Thursdays at 4pm - 6pm, in the Ryle Room (20.339) in the Schwarzman Centre.
The Oxford Network for Ancient Philosophy (ONAP) seeks to support the vibrant community of staff and students working in all areas of ancient philosophy by providing up-to-date, cross-departmental resources and information geared to the study and teaching of ancient philosophy within Oxford. More details can be found on the website.
Workshop in Ancient Philosophy Convenors: Ursula Coope, Marion Durand and Alexander Bown
Michaelmas Term 2025 - Term Card
Past Terms
| Week 1 (1st May) | Cole Phelps (Oxford) | The Priority of Activities in Aristotle's Biology |
| Week 2 (8th May) | Fiona Leigh (UCL) | Elenchus, Dialectic, and Social Epistemology in the Republic |
| Week 4 (22nd May) | Rami Kais (Oxford) | Falsehood, Images, and Deception in Plato's Sophist |
| Week 5 (29th May) | Emily Daly (Oxford) | Comedy, phthonos and laughter: Philebus 47d - 50d |
| Week 6 (5th June) | Hendrik Lorenz (Princeton) | Aristotle on Despotic Rule - and the Question of Racism |
| Week 7 (12th June) | Lindsay Judson (Oxford) | Conclusions in the Euthyphro |
| Week 1 (23rd Jan) | CANCELLED Jenny Bryan (Manchester) | 'Heraclitus' Epistemic Pessimism |
| Week 2 (30th Jan) | Isabelle Chouinard (Yale) | 'Epictetus' on Cynicism and the Stoic Debate on the the Cynic Lifestyle' |
| Week 4 (13th Feb) | Mika Perala (Helsinki) | Epagoge and archai in Aristotle's Ethics |
| Week 5 (20th Feb) | Jenny Bryan (Manchester) | Heraclitus' Epistemic Pessimism |
| Week 6 (27th Feb) | Teddy Jennings (Oxford) | Visible Kinds and 'True' Mathematics in Republic VI and VII |
| Week 8 (13th March) | Allison Pineros-Glasscock (Georgia State University) | Others and Oikeiosis: A Platonic source for the Stoic theory |
| Week 1 (17th October) | Phillipp Brulman (Heidelberg University) | The look at nature: A Cynic tool and its Stoic use |
| Week 5 (14th Nov) | David Ebrey (University of Barcelona) | The initial division of the soul in Republic IV |
| Week 6 (21th Nov) | Patricia Marechal (University of California San Diego) | Plato on Women, Thumos, and Agency |
| Week 7 (28th Nov) | Zena Hitz (St John's College, Annapolis, Maryland) | Phronesis and Politics |
| Week 8 (5th Dec) | David Bronstein (University of Notre Dame, Australia) | Scientific Propositions in Posterior Analytics 1.4 - 6 |
| Eric Brown (Washington University in St Louis) | Stoics on Uncertainty | |
| Week 2 (2nd May) |
Wenjin Liu (Duke) |
The Root of Political Degeneration |
| Week 3 (9th May) | Professor James Allen (Toronto) | Aristotle, Dialectic, and Philosophy |
| Week 4 (16th May) | Giulia Bonasio (Durham) | The virtues of theoretical thinking in the Eudemian Ethics |
| Week 5 (24th May) | George Boys-Stones (Toronto) | The Limits of Eudaimonism. Theories of Virtue in the Ancient Platonist Tradition |
| Week 6 (30th May) | Hannah Laurens (Oxford) | Aristotle's Prime Mover: Paradigm of Life and Self-Love |
| Week 7 (6th June) | Fiona Leigh (UCL) | Elenchus, Dialectic, and Epistemic Virtue in the Republic |
| Week 1 (18th January) | Samuel Meister (Tubingen) | What Does Aristotle Try to Show in Metaphysics /\.6-7? |
| Week 2 (25th January) | Francesco Ademollo (Florence) | Aristotle, De interpretatione 9: A Fresh Look |
| Week 4 (8th February) | Masaru Yasuda (Kyoto) | 'Academics' Error of Non-Assent and the Vice of Scepticism |
| Week 5 (15th February) | Pierre-Marie Morel (Paris) | Epicurean akribeia: heritage and innovation |
| Week 6 (22nd February) | Guus Eelink (Tubingen) and Pieter Sjoerd Hasper (Hamburg) | When Nous makes all the Difference: Aristotle's Account of Episteme and Doxa in Posterior Analytics 1.33 |
| Week 8 (7th March) | Sosseh Assaturian (Washington-Seattle) | What Are Stoic Cases (ptoseis)? |
| Week 1 (12th October) | Bridget Brasher (MIT) | How Can Aristotle Prove Nonexistence? An Analysis of Physics IV 6-9 |
| Week 2 (19th October) | Daniel Ferguson (KCL) | Plato's Civic Tripartition and Its Psychological Implications |
| Week 1 (27th April) | Ugo Zilioli (Oxford) | On things. On the origin and genealogy of Pyrrho's metaphysics |
| Week 4 (18th May) | Rachana Kamtekar (Cornell) | Watch what you're doing! Habituation and Law in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics |
| Week 5 (25th May) | Demosthenes Patramanis (Oxford) | Theaetetus 202d-206c: Does Socrates Employ a Bad Argument? |
| Week 6 (1st June) | Takashi Oki (Oxford) | Aristotle on the infinite |
| Week 2 (26th January) | Cristiana Sessini (Oxford) | The pessimism of Plato's Cave |
| Week 4 (9th January) | Ricardo Salles (Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico) | Elements, sea and stars in Anaximander |
| Week 5 (16th February) | Annamaria Schiaparelli (Universite de Geneve) | Parts and Whole in Aristotle's Categories |
| Week 6 (23rd February) | Hermann Koerner (Oxford) | Phronesis as the Soul's Original Nature in Plato's Phaedo |
| Week 8 (9th March) | Laura Castelli (Cambridge) | Aristotle on the Opposites and Plato's Sophist |
| Week 1 (13th October) | Sean Kelsey (Notre Dame) | Mind and World in Aristotle's De Anima |
| Week 2 (20th October) | Ilan Moradi (Beijing Normal University) | The Evolution of Aristotle's Theory of Substance from the Categories to the Metaphysics: Ontology, Determinology, and Epistemology |
| Week 4 (3rd November) | Caterina Pello (Nottingham) | A Rehearsal for Death: Presocratic Philosophers on Sleeping and Dying |
| Week 5 (10th November) | Roberto Granieri (KU Leuven) | Plato on the Power of Dialectic |
| Week 6 (17th November) | Andrea Buongiorno (Oxford) | Ontological Multivocity and Ontological Primacy in Metaphysics Z4 |
| Week 8 (1st December) | Jula Wildberger (American University of Paris) | Types of Stoic Ethics |
| Week 1 (28th April) | Sylvain Delcomminette (Universite libre de Bruxelles) | Idealism and Greek Philosophy: What Natorp saw and Burnyeat missed |
| Week 4 (19th May) | Marion Durand (Oxford) | Why Must the Sage be a Dialectician? |
| Week 7 (9th June) | Gina White (Kansas) | CANCELLED |
| Week 1 (20th January) | Tobias Reinhardt (Oxford) | Navigating Cognitive Success (And Failure): Cicero Lucullus 65-6 |
| Week 2 (27th January) | Stefan Sienkewicz (Oxford) | A Pyrrhonian Interpretation of Arcesilaus |
| Week 4 (10th February) | Jenny Rallens (Oxford) | The 'sayable' in Augustine's theory of language and knowledge |
| Week 5 (17th February) | Catherine Rowett (UEA) | It seems to me that our soul is a bit like a book: getting things right and wrong in the Philebus, Sophist and Theaetetus |
| Week 6 (24th February) | James Warren (Corpus Christi College, Cambridge) | Aristotle on Political Persistence |
| Week 8 (10th March) | Nicolas Zaks (KU Leuven) | What is the relationship between genus and differentia in Aristotle? The case of Metaphysics Iota |
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Janine Gühler (Oxford) |
Plato on dragging the soul towards truth with mathematics |
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Niels Christensen (University of Copenhagen) |
Being the Best: Heroic and Socratic Virtue in Aristotelian Megalopsychia |
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Jean-Baptiste Gourinat (CNRS, Paris) |
Prolepsis between Epicurus and the Stoa |
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Merrick Anderson (UCL) |
Republic 2 and the 5th century debate about justice |
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Ian Hensley (East Tennessee State) |
The Pantheon of Stoic Physics |
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Margaret Hampson (St Andrews) |
The tyrant and the failure of philia |
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Lea Cantor (Oxford) |
The Centred View - A New Epistemological Reading of Parmenides’ Sphere Analogy |
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Sybilla Pereira (Oxford) |
‘Own it’: Talk the Talk and Walk the Walk – Plato on Doxastic Ownership and Epistemic Agency in the Meno and Gorgias. CANCELLED |
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Caterina Baldini (Oxford) |
Aristotle’s Metaphysics K: beyond the dualistic approach |
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Alesia Preite (Oxford) |
What Does the Universe Think About? On Cosmic Cognition in the Timaeus |
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Sara Magrin (Pittsburgh) |
Plotinus on the epistemic role of memory (Ennead 4.6) |
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Sybilla Pereira (Oxford) |
‘Own it’: Talk the Talk and Walk the Walk – Plato on Doxastic Ownership and Epistemic Agency in the Meno and Gorgias |
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Susanne Bobzien (All Souls College) |
Quasi-propositions and Emotivism in Stoic Speech-Act Theory |
| Week 1 (21st January) |
Simon Shogry (Oxford) |
''Socratic medicine: the Stoics on the value of the elenchus'' |
| Week 2 (28th January) |
Mor Segev (South Florida) |
''Aristotle’s response to pessimism'' |
| Week 4 (11th February) |
Lindsay Judson (Oxford) |
''Aristotle conception of nature in Physics II.1'' |
| Week 5 (18th February) |
Inna Kupreeva (Edinburgh) |
''The Empiricist apology in Galen's early work 'On Medical Experience' |
| Week 6 (25th February) |
Carlotta Capuccino (Bologna) |
CANCELLED |
| Week 8 11th March) |
Dimitri El Murr (École Normale Supérieure, Paris) |
''Satyr-play in the Statesman: Socrates, Athens, and the apologetic function of Plato’s trilogy'' |
| Week 1 (15th October) |
Frisbee Sheffield (Cambridge) |
''Desire and Argument in Plato's Gorgias'' |
| Week 2 (22nd October) |
Richard Bett (Johns Hopkins) |
''Attitudes towards Common Sense in Ancient Greek Philosophy'' |
| Week 4 (5th November) |
Robin Brons (Oxford) |
''How To Do Ancient Philosophy Comparatively - Examining the potential and pitfalls of juxtaposing Greek and non-Greek philosophy'' |
| Week 5 (12th November) |
Whitney Schwab (Maryland) |
''Stoic Epistemology's Response to the Timaean Challenge'' |
| Week 6 (19th November) |
Inna Kupreeva (Edinburgh) |
CANCELLED |
| Week 8 (3rd December) | Caterina Baldini (Oxford) |
''Aristotle’s Metaphysics K - beyond the dualistic approach'' - CANCELLED |
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Frisbee Sheffield (Cambridge) |
Why Speech Matters: The Ethics of Communication in Plato’s Gorgias | |
| Week 6 (4th June) |
Sara Magrin (UC Berkeley) |
CANCELLED |
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Katerina Ierodiakonou (Geneva) |
Aristotle on Taste and Flavours | |
| Week 2 (30th January) |
Chiara Martini (Oxford) |
Geometrical Changes: Change and Motion in Aristotle’s Geometry |
| Week 5 (20th February) |
Klaus Corcilius (Tübingen) |
Practical Reasoning and Participation in Plato’s Timaeus |
| Week 1 (17th October) | Michael Peramatzis (Oxford) | Aristotle on How Essence Grounds Necessity |
| Week 2 (24th October) | Suzanne Obdrzalek (Claremont McKenna) | Plato on Soul-Body Unity |
| Week 4 (7th November) | Damian Caluori (Edinburgh) | Relatives and Relations in Plotinus Ennead VI.1.6-9 |
| Week 5 (14th November) | Milos Arsenijevic and Sandra Scepanovic (Belgrade) | The Origin of the Manifestly Heterogeneous World in Anaxagoras’ Physics |
| Week 6 (21st November) | Susanne Bobzien (Oxford) | Stoic indemonstrables and demonstration |
| Week 8 (5th December) | Naoya Iwata (Oxford) | Collection and Division in the Phaedrus |
| Ricardo Salles (UNAM) | 'Stoic and Pythagorean Theories of Everlasting Recurrence' | |
| Week 2 (24th January) | Maria Michela Sassi (Pisa) | 'Ancient Reflections on the Nature of Colour' |
| Week 3 (31st January) | Harry Alanen (Oxford) | 'The Aporia of Physics III.3: Aristotle on the Sameness of Action and Affection' |
| Week 5 (14th February) | Tosca Lynch (Oxford) | '‘The most beautiful harmony arises from conflicting elements’: Harmonia and the ‘Soul of the Whole’ in Plato’s Timaeus' |
| Elena Cagnoli Fiecconi (UCL) | 'Aristotle on self-improvement and self-annihilation' | |
| Week 7 (28th February) | Thomas Benatouil | Cambridge / Lille | | 'Speusippus and the Theaetetus' |
| Dominic Scoot (Oxford) |
'Plato's Tyrant' Aristotle on Loving Other Selves" |
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| Week 2 (18th October) | Marta Jimenez (Emory) | 'Aristotle on Justice as Virtues' |
| Week 4 (1st November) | Katharine O'Reilly (Oxford) | 'The Jellyfish's Pleasures' |
| Week 5 (8th November) | Paolo Fait (Oxford) | 'Categories on Topics 1.9' |
| Week 7 (22nd November) | Paulina Remes (Uppsala) | 'Wanting to be Determinate? Self-Perception and Self-Knowledge in Aristotle's EE 7,12' |
| Philipp Kurbel (Oxford) |
'Aristotle on Metaphor' |
| Sarah Broadie (St Andrews) |
"The Form of the Good in the Republic" |
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| Week 2 (3rd May) | Saloni de Souza (Balliol College) | "Platonic Zombies" |
| Week 3 (10th May) | Dhananjay Jagannathan (Columbia) | "Reciprocity and the Character of Particular Justice in Aristotle" |
| Week 4 (17th May) | Emily Fletcher (Wisconsin-Madison) | "Cosmology and Human Nature in the Timaeus" |
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Sophia Connel (Birbeck) |
"Nutritive and Sentient soul in Aristotle's embryology" |
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| Week 6 (31st May) | Beatrice Lienemann (Frankfurt) | "Two Controversial claims in Aristotle's conception of the voluntary and in his theory of responsibility" |
| Jacob Klein (Colgate) | "Original Sins: the Older Stoics on Mistakes and Moral Progress" |
