Michael Frede Annual Michael Frede Memorial Lecture Professor Eyjólfur Kjalar Emilsson (University of Oslo), “Idealist, dualist or something else? Plotinus on the status of the sensible world” Abstract: In this paper I shall discuss Plotinus’ views on causation of and in the sensible sphere—by “the sensible sphere” I mean the physical world around us. The […]

THE MICHAEL FREDE MEMORIAL LECTURE Professor Benjamin Morison (Princeton University), "Δόξα and ἐπιστήμη in Aristotle: some implications for ethical thought" Abstract: According to Aristotle, one part of our soul grasps scientific truths and can achieve ἐπιστήμη concerning them. A different part knows about practical truths, including truths about morality, and has a different kind of […]

Professor Ursula Coope (Keble College, Oxford), "Is happiness cumulative over time? An argument from Plotinus" Abstract Is happiness the kind of thing that is cumulative over time? To many modern philosophers it has seemed obvious that the answer is yes. For example, Richard Kraut, in his recent book The Quality of Life, argues that the […]

Professor Lesley Brown (University of Oxford), "Self-sufficiency in Aristotle and others: what’s so good about Autarkeia?" Abstract  Self-sufficiency – autarkeia – is a familiar Greek cultural value, and one of the hallmarks of the best life according to Aristotle. But what makes a life self-sufficient? I probe his claim that the life of philosophical reflection […]

(Image: Iliad 1.1, excerpt from British Library Add MS 8232, f.184) Professor Charles Brittain (Cornell University), "Protagorean Hermeneutics" Michael Frede Memorial Lecture, in partnership with the Department of the History & Philosophy of Science, National & Kapodistrian University of Athens. Abstract In this paper I argue that Protagoras’ method of poetic interpretation was not eristic. […]