Please join us for this week's History of Philosophy Works-in-Progress Luncheon, co-sponsored with the ND Workshop on Ancient Philosophy! This week's presenter is Dr. Rareș Marinescu (CSAMP, University of Toronto), who will present on "Plato's Laws X and Psychological Dualism in Middle Platonism," (abstract below).
Each meeting consists of a presentation by a graduate student or faculty member on a project that they are working on in the history of philosophy, followed by a period of comments/questions from other participants. The workshop is designed to give contributors the opportunity to develop ideas and receive helpful feedback on projects/papers in a friendly and low stakes environment.
Lunch is provided for registered attendees. Sign up here!
Abstract: In the tenth book of the Laws Plato seemingly introduces the concept of an evil world-soul which clashes with the general cosmological framework in Plato. In turn, most scholars reject the idea that Plato really introduces such an entity and interpret the reference to it rather as a hypothetical remark. Not so some of the most important Platonists of the Imperial Age (1st - 2nd c.). In this paper I investigate some of their reactions and situate them in their philosophical context. I aim to show that they not only offer us sensible interpretations of Plato's text but also recur to the concept of an irrational soul to account better for evil and disorder in the universe.