The Czech Plato Society is pleased to announce the XIVth Symposium Platonicum Pragense on Plato's Theory of Soul. The conference will be held in Prague, Czech Republic, from 19 to 21 October 2023, both in person and online. The conference programme and the link for online access can be found here: https://www.platonskaspolecnost.cz/en/.
Holger Thesleff 1924–2023 On October 6th we heard the sad news from Helsinki that our esteemed colleague Holger Thesleff passed away on October 3rd. According to his son, who was present, he did so “peacefully and without pain.” He had not been his usual self since an illness last year, even though he had been amazingly active well into his nineties. Among his best known works were two early studies of the Pythagorean corpus of the Hellenistic era (1961, 1965); and three monographs on Plato: Studies in the Styles of Plato (1967), Studies in Platonic Chronology (1982) and Studies in Plato’s Two-Level Model (1999), all conveniently included in Platonic Patterns (2009). He also helped build up a literature on Plato in the Swedish and Finnish languages. He was a regular and valued contributor at the symposia of the International Plato Society. Some months before his death he learned that his final paper, “Afterthoughts on ‘School Accumulation’ in Plato’s Academy,” was [...]
Prof. Tomás Calvo Martínez (1942-2023) It is with great sadness and difficulty that we must announce to our members the passing of our beloved former IPS President, Prof.Tomás Calvo Martínez. He passed away on 1st October, in the company of his son Néstor and members of his family. A dear friend and excellent colleague, he has been our mentor and a supportive, vibrant member of academia. Naturally generous and sympathetic, he has contributed to our Society in many fruitful ways. Prof. Tomás Calvo has contributed to putting Spain on the map of countries that carry out serious and fruitful research in the field of the history of ancient philosophy. He became President of the International Plato Society in the period 1992-1995, as organiser of the IV International Plato Symposium in Granada, bringing together the best specialists in the world in the study and interpretation of the dialogues Timaeus and Critias [...]
THOMAS M. ROBINSON Thomas More Robinson passed away on April 29, 2023, in Paris, France, at the age of 86, following an accident. Predeceased last year by his beloved wife, Erna Paris, he is survived by his stepchildren Michelle Paris and Roland Paris (Katie); grandchildren Julia, Simon and Jacqueline; brother Gerard Robinson in Newcastle, England; brother-in-law Peter Newman (Renée Bouthot) and sister-in-law Jill Solnicki; and numerous nieces and nephews. Born in 1936 to Alban and Emily Robinson in Houghton-le-Spring, a mining town in northeast England, Tom was the second-youngest of eleven siblings, nine of whom predeceased him: Sydney, John, Terry, Francis, Winifred, George, Lester, Joseph, and Bernard. The family’s encyclopedia was his childhood window onto the wider world. He went on to study classics and philosophy at the Universities of Durham and Oxford, spending summers as a tour guide in Europe. His adventures continued when he moved to [...]
It is with great sadness that we share the news of the passing of Charles Kahn and the obituary of Michael Weisberg. CHARLES H. KAHN 1928-2023 Charles H. Kahn, one of the most important historians of philosophy in the last century, has passed away at the age of 94. Kahn’s books and articles on ancient Greek philosophy, particularly on the Presocratics and Plato, are landmarks in philosophical and classical scholarship. Born in Louisiana, United States of America, in 1928, Kahn enrolled in the University of Chicago at the age of sixteen, where he completed his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. After further study at the Sorbonne, he completed his doctorate in classical studies at Columbia University, then served as Assistant and Associate Professor of Classics at Columbia from 1958 to 1965. He was appointed Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania in 1965, where he remained until his retirement in [...]
Julia Pfefferkorn, the winner of the third Conrado Eggers Lan Prize for Best Dissertation (2018-21), now has the monograph version of her dissertation—titled, Platons tanzende Stadt. Moralpsychologie und Chortanz in den Nomoi—just published in Brill's Plato Studies series (vol. 11). See the book page for more info » Abstract [German/Deutsch]: Weshalb ist der Chortanz (χορεία) in Platons Nomoiso prominent? Zur Beantwortung dieser Frage bietet dieses Buch eine eingehende Analyse der Moralpsychologie des Dialogs und argumentiert, dass der Tanz nicht nur ein erzieherisches Instrument, sondern – als körperlicher Ausdruck geordneter Lust – auch ein Symbolbild für das Hauptziel der moralischen Erziehung ist: die Mäßigung (σωφροσύνη). So wird der Chortanz zu einem wirkmächtigen Konstrukt zur Veranschaulichung der philosophischen Hauptanliegen Platons. Zu den Schwerpunkten des Buches gehören darüber hinaus eine innovative Erklärung des komplexen Aufbaus des Dialogs, neue Deutungen des Marionettengleichnisses und der Ansprache an die Tragiker sowie die erste Untersuchung der moralischen Funktion [...]
On Sept. 29, 10:30am, Livio Rossetti (U. di Perugia) will speak on "Critiquer Parménide est compliqué. Sur le parricide du 'Sophiste' et son contexte". Event hosted by Michel Fattal (Grenoble), occurring in Salle B1, Bât. Arsh, 1280 avenue centrale, Campus universitaire de Grenoble.
The Editorial Committee of the International Plato Society has chosen the winner of the 3rd Edition of Conrado Eggers Lan Prize. The edition was a very successful one. The IPS received 20 submissions of dissertations that had resulted in the award of the Ph.D. degree between July 31, 2018, and July 31, 2021. Congratulations to Julia Pfefferkorn! We are pleased to announce that the winner of the prize is: Julia Pfefferkorn: Platons tanzende Stadt: Moralpsychologie und Chortanz in den Nomoi, a PhD Dissertation completed in 2020 en cotutelle at the Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen and the Università degli studi di Salerno under the supervision of Irmgard Männlein-Robert and Franco Ferrari. Julia's book will be released in December in Brill's new Plato Studies Series (vol. 11): see the book page for more information. The Editorial Committee would also like to recognise the excellence of the dissertation written by Roberto Granieri: [...]
The annual Platonic Summer Seminar in Lanckorona (Poland) will hold its sixth meeting this Aug. 21-27. The theme this year will be “Οὐσία in Platonic-Aristotelian Psychology”, discussing Plato's and Aristotle's psychological writings in conjunction with Martin Heidegger’s 1921 interpretation of De Anima. The event is organized by the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Pedagogical University of Kraków, the Jagiellonian University of Kraków, and the Philosophical Journal Kronos. For further info, see the seminar's site: http://www.platon.up.krakow.pl/ - and to register, contact the organizers here: platonicsummerseminar@gmail.com.
The International Plato Society's journal, Plato Journal, has released its 23rd volume for 2022, available now at impactum-journals.uc.pt/platojournal. (See here for the full PDF.) Articles by Lucas Alvarez, Athanasia Giasoumi, Michael Wiitala, Manlio Fossati, Noburu Notomi, Bernard Suzanne, and Brennan McDavid, with book reviews by Livio Rossetti, Maicon Reus Engler, and Laura Marongiu. Plato Journal is available free access on line and printed on demand by Coimbra University Press. Are you interested in submitting to Plato Journal? Please, see the About the Journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the Submissions page.