International Plato Society, Newsletter, Issue 2 (2007-10) Tokyo, July, 2008

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to issue the second Newsletter of the IPS (2007-2010).

The IPS Tokyo Organizing Committee (contact: notomi@z8.keio.jp)

1. IPS Regional Meetings

The IPS is currently organizing three regional meetings. Further meetings, including “Socratica 2008” (Napoli, 11-13 December, 2008) and “Platon Aujourd’hui” (Paris, 12-14 March, 2009), will be announced in the next issue.

Here are the announcements from the organizers of the three current meetings:

(1) The World Congress of Philosophy in Seoul

5 August, 2008, 14:00-17:00; Seoul National University, Korea The KPA (Korean Philosophical Association) Invited Session

“Plato and Greek Philosophy in the Contemporary World” Organizers: Shinro Kato and Noburu Notomi (notomi@z8.keio.jp)

Although many years have passed since Plato wrote his masterpiece, the Republic, we moderns are still in some sense living in the Cave his book took as its central metaphor. For when Plato’s Socrates says that the prisoners in that Cave are “like us” insofar as they cannot really see each other, so we moderns remain separated from one another by language and cultural boundaries that are not easily removed. This recognition is the starting point of our panel discussion. Here we want to ask: “Does Plato’s philosophy — and all those subsequent ancient thinkers such as Aristotle who responded to his work — still possess meaning for us? Does Plato’s vision still have some use as we attempt to build a peaceful world that promotes ‘living together in harmony’ in the present age of globalization?”

This session examines the message of the master works of Greek political philosophy, namely Plato’s Republic and Laws, and Aristotle’s Politics, by bringing together Asian, European, and American scholars of Greek Philosophy, in order to begin to answer to these questions.

Shinro Kato (Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan): Explanation of the scheme and aim of the project

Kim Nam-Duh (Seoul National University, Korea): “The nature of political knowledge in Plato’s Republic”

Mark McPherran (Simon Fraser University, Canada): “Virtue, luck, and choice at the end of the Republic”

Yasuo Iwata (Tohoku University, Japan): “Reason and law as the foundation of Aristotle’s political thought”

Arnaud Macé (Université de Franche-Comté): “Plato between East and West: the place of man within nature”

Álvaro Vallejo Campos (University of Granada, Spain): “Plato and the categories of nihilism”

Noburu Notomi (Keio University, Japan): Comments and concluding remarks

(2) Scientific Meeting of the Mediterranean Area of the IPS 27-29 October, 2008, Barcelona

“ESTRUCTURAS FORMALES Y FORMA LITERARIA EN EL TEETETO, EL SOFISTA Y EL POLÍTICO” (“Formal structures and literary forms in the Theaetetus, the Sophist and the Statesman”)

Organizada por el GR Hermenèutica i Platonisme (Universitat de Barcelona) y la Facultat de Filosofia de la Universitat de Barcelona

Comité organizador: Francisco Lisi, Maurizio Migliori, Josep Monserrat Molas, Jordi Sales

Secretariat: Marta Lorente, Àngel Pascual, Pablo Sandoval, Bernat Torres (hp.eidos@gmail.com)

Uno de los ámbitos que ponen de manifiesto su actualidad en la situación de crisis contemporánea resulta ser el fundamento respecto del cual se han definido las principales opciones epistemológicas y políticas, generalmente a través de una labor de posicionamiento crítico. La imposibilidad manifiesta de ninguna de las opciones de presentar alternativas que logren reunir diversidad de posicionamientos teóricos y de voluntades de renovación, encuentra paradójicamente en la consideración del texto platónico un lugar de debate crítico que obliga a una renovada visita y revisión del mismo. Es por ello que se plantea atender específicamente a las estructuras formales y literarias sobre las que se construye el texto platónico, con la intención de establecer un consenso sobre aquello que objetivamente constituye la trama formal del texto platónico. Será a partir de tal consideración que podrá reiniciarse una labor de interpretación.

“Estructuras formales y formas literarias en los diálogos platónicos: Teeteto, Sofista, Político”, pretende generar un espacio de encuentro entre investigadores de Platón y el platonismo del más alto nivel científico, en un espacio de mayor proximidad territorial, la delimitada por los países del área mediterránea, un espacio que ofrezca la posibilidad de una mayor frecuencia en el contacto internacional entre investigadores, y que facilite la participación en estos contactos a jóvenes investigadores, doctores o doctorandos, con una tesis o investigación sobre los diálogos platónicos que sea afín con el tema concreto de cada uno de los encuentros. Resulta importante añadir que el tema escogido para el congreso, Estructuras formales y formas literarias en los diálogos platónicos, poniendo especial atención en el Teeteto, Sofista, Político sigue una de las principales líneas de investigación por las que se dirime la presente renovación de los estudios platónicos. Concretamente, tal línea trata de dar prioridad a una perspectiva hermenéutica que se aproxime a los diálogos teniendo en cuenta su estructura formal y literaria.

Grup de Recerca «Hermenèutica i Platonisme»

Departament de Filosofia Teorètica i Pràctica, Universitat de Barcelona c/ Montalegre, 6, 08001 Barcelona

Website: http://www.ub.edu/eidos/english/home.htm

E-mail: hp.eidos@gmail.com

(3) Caracas III Meeting of Greek Philosophy 11-13 November, 2008, Caracas, Venezuela “Plato’s Republic”

Organizer: Francisco Bravo (fbravovi@yahoo.com)

The third Caracas Meeting of Greek Philosophy – the first and second were held in 2002 and 2005 respectively – will take place at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV) from November 11th to November 13th 2008, as a triennial activity of the Centro de Estudios Clásicos (CECLA), founded in 1998, an institutional member of the International Plato Society. It will enjoy the sponsorship of the Departments of Philosophy of the Central University of Venezuela, the Simon Bolivar University and the Catholic University Andres Bello. Its general subject will be Plato’s Republic, thus serving, for our students and scholars, a first announcement and preparation of the Ninth Symposium Platonicum.

Among our foreign invitees, Thomas M. Robinson (Toronto University) will answer to this question: “Should Socrates have accepted the challenge of Glaucon and Adimantus?”; Graciela Marcos de Pinotti (University of Buenos Aires) will develop the epistemology of Republic V, and Dennys Xavier (Uberlandia University, Brazil) will read his paper “Prosografía y drama en los diálogos de Platón: una lectura cruzada de República y Teeteto”. Other papers from Venezuelan scholars will be as follows: Francisco Bravo, “La distinción entre doxa y episteme del Menón a la República”; Fabio Morales, “Placer y formas de gobierno en República IX”; José Ventura, “Dialéctica y matemática en República VI-VII”; Xavier Aoiz, “El concepto de aísthesis en la Repúbliaca”; and Blas Bruni Celli, “La matemática en República VI-VII y en el Timeo”.

The Proceedings of this meeting will be published in a special issue of Apuntes Filosóficos, a philosophical review of the Department of Philosophy of the UCV. As an event of particular note at this Meeting, we will have (for the first time in Spanish) a performance of Thomas M. Robinson’s Diaries of Socrates.

2. IPS on the Website

(1) The IPS Homepage

Thanks to Debra Nails and the internet task force, the IPS Web site has been renewed and is now hosted by Michigan State University: <http://www.platosociety.org>. Please send information and comments to Debra Nails: nails@msu.edu

(2) Bibliographie Platonicienne

The IPS is grateful to Luc Brisson and to his collaborator, Frédéric Plin, for providing the society with the Bibliographie Platonicienne 2007-2008. The IPS is fortunate to have on its website every annual bibliography of Plato since 2000 in a searchable format.

(3) The IPS Internet Journal: Plato 8 (2008)

The latest issue of Plato (The Internet Journal of the IPS) is now available: <http://gramata.univ-paris1.fr/Plato/>. We appreciate the hard work done by Dimitri El Murr, the new editor, and Olivier Renaut, the designer of the new site. It is now hosted by the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne and the Equipe d’Accueil Gramata (Groupe de Recherches Antiquité Moyen-Age Tradition Arabe).

Issue n°8 includes four papers: one by Barry Dixon (Dublin) on the Phaedrus and the Ion, one by Harold Tarrant (Newcastle, Australia) on the Philebus and the Magna Moralia, one by Francesco Fronterrota (Lecce) on the causal efficiency of Platonic forms and one by Sylvain Delcomminette (Brussels) on parts and faculties of the soul in Plato.

Gretchen Reydams-Schils is in charge of the Review section, which includes a review of recent scholarly work on the Symposium by Francisco Gonzalez (Skidmore College) and a review of Malcolm Schofield’s latest book (Plato. Political Philosophy, OUP 2006) by Stefan Schörn (Würzburg / Rutgers).

The deadline for submission for the next issue (Plato n°9, 2009) is the 31st December 2008. For the details and guidelines, please see the website.

3. Other information

The Editorial Board has been working on the Selected Papers of the VIII Symposium Platonicum. Their decisions will be communicated very soon to those who have submitted papers for inclusion in the volume.

Finally, as noted in the last newsletter, we normally circulate information via e-mail. But if you prefer to surface mail to email, we will happily send hard copy as well.