Philosophising with the Greats
‘It takes a village’ to read a text – especially an ancient philosophical text. This is a call for the ‘village’ to get together and recognize the different roles we may each have in reading the ancients, and the different ways of contributing to extracting benefit from them.
The historical/textual tradition is well recognized for its valuable contribution. However, this has led to some skepticism about the value of ancient works for current philosophy. How should we respond to those who warn that focusing on the ideas of historic philosophers is an unhelpful distraction from work on contemporary philosophy? If we reject such views, embracing the ideas of philosophical Greats of the past as a valuable resource that could inform our philosophical thinking now, how should we best use this resource today?
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There are many ways in which the Greats can benefit today’s philosophy. Our focus will be on answering contemporary questions in metaphysics and philosophy of science where we think that Aristotle’s (and Plato’s) ideas could help. But help how? Various different alternatives have evolved. For instance, we can select an individual idea that Aristotle used, and ‘embed’ it within a contemporary and different philosophical framework, where it helps us resolve a problem or make an advance on it. Or, we can select an account Aristotle put forward in facing a problem, and develop it more fully into a theory that remains faithful to Aristotle’s philosophy, but contributes to a philosophical debate today. Or, one can offer a reading of Aristotle, and even offer new support to positions Aristotle had advocated in his own account. And possibly more.
This is a call to the ‘village of readers’ who read the ancient Greats to benefit today from them! We aim to motivate the creation of an international Network that will provide a forum to help us understand each other’s methodologies better. We will inaugurate the Network with a Conference.
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In this Conference, we aim to explore and discuss current methodological approaches in use for studying, promoting, and applying the ideas of great philosophers of the past to current philosophy. Taking Plato and Aristotle as our starting points, we will hear from leading philosophers concerning their own approaches as to how they engage with the ancient works. We have invited representatives of a variety of approaches to promote discussion.