Midis de l'Institut d'études anciennes et médiévales
Heure: 11h30 - 12h20
Lieu: Pavillon Charles-De Koninck, local 5242
Pour information
ieam@ieam.ulaval.ca
Description de l'événement
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
À propos du conférencier
After reading Classics at Christ’s College, Cambridge, George Boys-Stones went to St John’s College, Oxford to work for a PhD on Plutarch and the Stoics under the supervision of Michael Frede. He went on to a Junior Research Fellowship at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he wrote his first book: Post-Hellenistic Philosophy (newly available in Chinese!). George taught in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University for 20 years, until 2019, when he moved to Toronto as Professor of Classics and Philosophy, and where he now serves a Chair of the Classics Department. George’s publications cover a wide range of topics in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, but he retains a special concern to promote interest in the efflorescence of philosophical activity around the Mediterranean in the post-Hellenistic period.