What's on at The Plato Centre
Socrates: "Of the body that belongs to us, will we not say that it has a soul?"
Protarchus: "Quite obviously that is what we will say."
Socrates: "But where does it come from, unless the body of the universe which has the same properties as ours, but more beautiful in all respects, happens to possess a soul?"
Protarchus: "Clearly from nowhere else."
Socrates: "We surely cannot maintain this assumption, with respect to our four classes (limit, the unlimited, their mixture, and their cause—which is present in everything): that this cause is recognized as all–encompassing wisdom, since among us it imports the soul and provides training for the body and medicine for its ailments and in all other cases order and restitution, but that it should fail to be responsible for the same things on a large scale in the whole universe (things that are, in addition, beautiful and pure), for the contrivance of what has so fair and wonderful a nature."
Protarchus: "That would make no sense at all."
Socrates: "But if that is inconceivable, we had better pursue the alternative account and affirm, as we have said often, that there is plenty of the unlimited in the universe as well as sufficient limit, and that there is, above them, a certain cause, of no small significance, that orders and coordinates the years, seasons, and months, and which has every right to the title of wisdom and reason."
(Philebus 30a–c)Trans., D. Frede
For the remainder of the spring semester 2012 we will be reading Aristotle's De caelo. The meetings will take place every Tuesday at 4pm in the Centre Seminar Room throughout the semester. The next meeting will be held on Tuesday 20 March 2012 at 3:00pm in order to accommodate the 2012 Stephen MacKenna Lecture. For more information, please click here.
The Plato Centre is delighted to announce that the 2012 Stephen MacKenna Lecture will be delivered by Professor Jan Opsomer. Professor Opsomer's talk, "Why The Christians are wrong about creation, according to Julian the Apostate" will take place on Tuesday 20 March 2012 at 7:30pm in the Neill/Hoey Lecture Theatre, Long Room Hub Building, Fellows' Square, Trinity College (map). All are welcome. For more information, please click here.