Critical Approaches to Ancient Philosophy

Saturday 21 March 2009, 14:00 - Sun, 22 March 2009, 13:00
Verdon-Smith Room, Institute for Advanced Studies, Royal Fort House

Speaker(s): Kurt Lampe (Bristol), Miriam Leonard (UCL), Wilson Shearin (Stanford), Robert Wardy (Cambridge) & John Sellars (UWE)

With the support of the Institute for Advanced Studies

Critical Approaches to Ancient Philosophy

Convener: Kurt Lampe, Classics & Ancient History, Bristol

Chaired by:Christopher Rowe (Durham) & David Konstan (Brown) IAS Benjamin Meaker Visiting Professor

While the diversity of disciplines influenced by classical philosophers is a testament to their works' fecundity, all too often it happens that specialists approaching them from the perspective of the history of philosophy, literary theory and continental philosophy, and ancient cultural history do not communicate. When they do happen, encounters between these perspectives are sometimes marked by confusion and frustration. Even with abundant good will, we may get the feeling that we simply are not speaking about the same texts. The purpose of this workshop is to bring scholars from different backgrounds into a round-table format in order to consider the feasibility and desirability of breaking down these disciplinary walls. Speakers will give a series of methodologically self-conscious papers on ancient philosophical texts, reflecting on the preconceptions about the means and aims of philosophy particularly, and scholarship generally, that underlie their approaches. Equal time will be given to papers and discussion, and there will also be a closing discussion.

Speakers include Kurt Lampe (Bristol), Miriam Leonard (UCL), Wilson Shearin (Stanford), Robert Wardy (Cambridge), and John Sellars (UWE).

Christopher Rowe (Durham) will chair the first day's papers, and David Konstan (Brown), IAS Benjamin Meaker Visiting Professor, will chair the second day and introduce the closing discussion.

Workshop programme is available here (Word document, 46.5kB).

This workshop is supported by Bristol's IAS (Institute for Advanced Studies), BIRTHA (The Bristol Institute for Research in the Humanities and Arts) and the Bristol Institute of Greece, Rome, and the Classical Tradition.

For further details of this meeting, please contact Kurt Lampe (clkwl@bris.ac.uk).