War and Strife in Ancient Philosophy

Since war, both internal and external, was an ever-present part of life in the ancient world, it is no surprise that it played a central role in ancient philosophy. War, and more broadly strife, played a central role in ancient political philosophy; moreover, the metaphor of war is frequently deployed in ancient metaphysics, cosmology and psychology. We see this in Empedocles' use of Strife as a cosmological principle; in Plato's Sophist, where a fundamnetal question of ontology is described as a 'battle' between gods and giants; and in his Republic, which uses civil conflict and strife as a model for its moral psychology.

For the Cambridge 2015 Graduate Conference in Ancient Philosophy, we are interested in exploring the ways war and strife are thematised in ancient philosophy, both in terms of how these concepts are themselves conceived, and how they serve as themes for wider metaphysical concerns. Although our primary interest in in ancient philosophy, from Thales to Philoponus, we would welcome discussions on philosophical approaches to, and uses of war in ancient medicine, history and science; later receptions of ancient philosophies of war would also be considered.