The workshop ‘Medical Knowledge and Practices Facing Plato: New Perspectives on the Role of Medical Expertise in the Platonic Corpus’ will take place in Durham, in the Ritson Room of the Department of Classics and Ancient History (38 North Bailey) and will be streamed online via Zoom on 21-22 March 2025.
For the Zoom link or further information please contact giulia.bernardini@durham.ac.uk or giovanni.trovato@phd.unipi.it.
Programme
Friday, March 21
10.00-10.15. Welcome
Giulia Bernardini (Durham University) and Giovanni Trovato (Università di Pisa / Istituto Italiano di Studi Filosofici di Napoli)
Morning Session (chair: Giulia Bonasio)
10.15-11.00. Anna Novokhatko (Università di Trento / University of Thessaloniki) “Philosophers, physicians and spectators in Middle Greek comedy”
11.00-11.45. Giulia Bernardini (Durham University) “Eryximachus and the other Comedic Doctors”
Tea break
12.15-13.00. Matilde Berti (Durham University) “Plato’s Timaeus and the Hippocratic De Victu: A Medical Approach towards Virtue?”
13.00-14:30. Lunch break
Afternoon sessions (chair: Phillip Sidney Horky)
14.30-15.15. Francesco Pelosi (Università di Pisa) “Eugenics and music in Plato”
15.15-16.00. Caterina Pellò (University of Geneva) “Alcmaeon according to Plato: Physician and physikos”
Tea break
(Chair: Maria Cristina Mennuti)
16.30-17.15. Jilll Gordon (Colby College) “Disease and Sex Difference in Plato’s Timaeus”
17.15-18.00. Sonja Tanner (UCCS) “Happiness is… Playing Checkers with Socrates: Logotherapy in Plato’s Charmides”
Saturday, March 22
Morning Session (chair: Chiara Blanco)
10.00-10.45. Philip van der Eijk (HU Berlin) “What does the doctor’s “knowledge of the overall nature of bodies” (Laws 857d2) consist in?”
10.45-11.30. Sophia Connell (Birbeck, University of London) “Seeds, fruits and eggs: The biomedical basis to agricultural metaphors in Plato”
Tea break
12.00-12.45. Francesco Ferro (Pontificia Università Lateranense) “Philosophical rhetoric as medicine for the soul: Zeno of Elea as bad pedagogue in the Parmenides”
12.45-13.30. Giovanni Trovato (Università di Pisa / Istituto Italiano di Studi Filosofici di Napoli) “Trees won’t teach me anything”. Nonanimal psychology in Plato’s Timaeus.
13:30-14:30. Lunch Break
Afternoon session (chair: George Alexander Gazis)
14.30-15.15. Jurgen Gatt (University of Malta) “A Hippocratic Look at the Platonic Physiology of Hearing in Timaeus”
15.15-16.00. Hermann Crüwell (University of Oxford) “Archaia physis: on the Platonic adaptation of a Hippocratic concept”
Tea break
16.30-17.15. Giulia De Cesaris (Università di Torino) “How does the kosmos stay in good health?”
17.15-17.30. Concluding remarks