Professor John Dillon

Emeritus Fellow

I studied Classics at Oxford, and subsequently completed a Ph. D., at the University of California, Berkeley, joining the faculty there in 1969. In 1980, I took up the Regius Chair of Greek at Trinity College, and remained in that post until my retirement in 2006. I am founder and Director Emeritus of the Plato Centre.

Research interests

My chief field of interest is Ancient Philosophy, and in particular the philosophy of Plato, and the tradition stemming from him, through the Old Academy, the 'Middle Platonic' and 'Neoplatonic' periods, to the Arabic, Christian and Renaissance periods, as well as the Jewish Platonism of Philo of Alexandria. My particular concerns at the moment are with Philo, Plotinus, and Dionysius the Areopagite.

Selected publications

• Iamblichi Chalcidensis Commentariorum Fragmenta, 1973 (repr. With corrections 2010).
• Iamblichus of Chalcis, The Letters (with Wolfgang Polleichner), 2009.
• Salt and Olives: Morality and Custom in Ancient Greece,  (Edinburgh 2004).
• The Heirs of Plato: A Study of the Old Academy, (Oxford 2002).
• Iamblichus. De Anima. Text, translation and commentary (with John Finamore), 2002.
• The Middle Platonists, 1977 (2nd ed. 1996).
• Alcinous, The Handbook of Platonism, (Oxford 1993).

My articles up to 1996 have been gathered in two collections, The Golden Chain (Ashgate 1990), and The Great Tradition (Ashgate 1997).

Professor Dillon on the TCD Research Support System

Contact Details

Department of Classics,
Trinity College,
Dublin 2.

Fax: 00 353 1 6710862
Email: dillonj@tcd.ie