On 28-30 November 2014, and in preparation for the publication of the eponymous volume edited by George Karamanolis and Vasilis Politis (CUP 2018), the Trinity Plato Centre hosted an international conference on the topic of: The Aporetic Tradition in Ancient Philosophy. This event brought together 14 leading scholars from around the world to present papers on, and discuss, various aspects of the use of aporia in ancient thinkers from the Presocratics to Damascius.
Programme
Friday 28 November
John Palmer (University of Florida)
“Dilemmatic arguments: the origins of aporia-based methods in the Eleatic and Sophistic traditions”
Jan Szaif (University of California at Davis)
“Aporetic Dialogue in Plato’s Early Works”
Vasilis Politis (Trinity College Dublin)
“Aporia and scepticism in Plato’s early dialogues”
Lesley Brown (Oxford University)
“Aporia in Plato’s Theaetetus and in the Sophist“
Saturday 29 November
Verity Harte (Yale University)
“Aporia in Plato’s Parmenides”
Friedemann Buddensiek (University of Frankfurt)
“Aproia in Aristotle, Metaphysics Beta”
Jessica Gelber (University of Pittsburgh)
“A case study of Aristotle’s use of aporia in natural science: Generation of Animals”
Christof Rapp (LMU Munich)
“Aproia and dialectical method in Aristotle”
Sunday 30 November
John Dillon (Trinity College Dublin)
“Aporia in Plutarch”
Luca Castagnoli (Durham University)
“Aporia and inquiry in ancient Pyrrhonism”
George Karamanolis (University of Vienna)
“The role of aporia in Plotinus”
Damian Caluori (Trinity University, Texas)
“Aporia and the limits of reason in Damascius”