30 Nov
2023
30 Nov
'23
6:58 p.m.
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 13:30and 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(a)univie.ac.at
<mailto: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 findcalendar and event information
at:https://vd-philosophy.univie.ac.at/phd-program/doctoral-training/wip-series/
<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