Midis de l'Institut d'études anciennes et médiévales

Horaire: 11h30 - 12h20

Titre: Middle Platonist Ethics: An End Without Perfection

Conférencier: Georges Boy-Stones, professor of Classis and Philosophy, University of Toronto

Conférence donnée en anglais

The idea of perfectibility is closely bound up with ideas of happiness and virtue in many discussions of ancient Greek ethics: but, inspired especially by Plato’s Phaedrus, some of his later followers came to think that ‘perfection’ was impossible for a human being, and in general for any ethical agent. This presentation looks at one example of the tendency within ‘Middle Platonism’, Alcinous, and considers how the idea reshapes the practice of philosophical ethics