Dear Colleagues,

This is an email to remind you that the next presentations in the Work-In-Progress series will be given by Bogdan Mićić and Philipp Quell this coming Monday. Please see their titles and abstracts below.

"The ontological foundation of Pletho’s virtue ethics" by Bogdan Mićić

The short but dense treatise Perì aretôn 'On Virtues' is not the only work in which Pletho deals with moral-philosophical topics and questions, but it is indeed the work in which Pletho presents and develops his moral philosophy in the most systematic way. There is surprising amount of literature which has been written and published since the 1840s about Pletho's life and work. However, only a small part of the otherwise relatively rich secondary literature is dedicated to Plethonic ethics and an even smaller part wo the work Perì aretôn, while the largest part is dealing with Pletho’s theology and metaphysics. One reason (though, probably not the only one) for this is that Pletho's (moral) philosophy, especially at first glance, hardly has any originality. Further, it seems to be affected by a profound eclecticism, which makes Plethon's ethics seem more like a disjointed piecemeal: Different, sometimes even seemingly incompatible, thoughts of various thinkers appear. A universal principle which could unify the scattered thoughts seems to be lacking. In short, Pletho’s ethics, at first glance, does not seem like a coherent theory. The eclectic features of Pletho’s moral philosophy has led some researchers to accuse Pletho of arbitrariness or a lack of critical reflection in advance.

This is wrong. I venture out to show that Pletho’s moral philosophy is not a more or less arbitrary 'catalogue' of virtues collected without adhering to an overarching principle and to show that this view is short-sighted and excessive. To prove this, I will first show that the Plethonic doctrine of virtue is thoroughly determined by a unifying principle that underpins the theory. I will then identify this principle as the ontological-metaphysical requirement for every being to adhere to the specific ontological hierarchy. From this it will follow that it is possible to draw conclusions about Pletho's ontology starting from his doctrine of virtues (since the latter follows from the former). This will prove that the relative neglect of treatise Perì aretôn by previous researchers is inappropriate not only in a historical respect (Perì aretôn was the most distributed and cited work out of Pletho’s texts in his time), but also in a systematic respect: Because Perì aretôn provides remarkable insights in Pletho's ontology, Plethon's doctrine of virtues should also be read and worked on also and especially by people who are only interested in his theoretical philosophy.

In my talk, I will illustrate this by giving a detailed interpretation of the first 14 lines of the text (Peri aret. A 1, 1.1–16).

"Aristotle’s Systematic Essentialism" by Philipp Quell:

Although many of Aristotle’s scientific findings are revised, for example the geocentric thesis, his understanding of scientific structures and the criteria for them to be able to discover truth is still very similar to our scientific world. My thesis and argumentation will focus on the Aristotelian system of sciences, mainly elaborated in his logical writings. Within this argumentation one fundamental difference will be found, too and I am excited to hear your opinon about the fundamentality of this difference.

The presentation will take place in Hörsaal 3A (NIG, Universitätsstraße 7, 3.Stock) at 13:30 and will last up to sixty minutes. All are invited to join afterwards for refreshments and snacks before the Writing Evening begins.

Please let us know (wip.philosophie@univie.ac.at) if you have any questions or if you would like to present for the Work-in-Progress series yourself. You can find calendar and event information at: https://vd-philosophy.univie.ac.at/phd-program/doctoral-training/wip-series/.

Best wishes and we hope to see all of you there!

The organizing team