CFP: Bernard Williams and the Ancients

Submission deadline: April 1, 2016

Conference date(s):
September 19, 2016 - September 20, 2016

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Conference Venue:

University of Cambridge
Sidgwick Avenue, United Kingdom

Topic areas

Details

The work of Bernard Williams covered an astonishing diversity of topics, but the ancient history, philosophy and literature he studied as an undergraduate at Oxford in the late-1940s remained a touchstone throughout his career. He published extensively on Plato and Aristotle, proving himself both a sensitive expositor of the texts and a provocative critic. Despite his disciplinary affiliation in philosophy, his lifelong engagement with the ancient world extended to other branches of classical studies. From his early reflections on irresolvable dilemmas in Aeschylus (‘Ethical Consistency’) to his influential Sather Lectures at Berkeley on ideas of agency and responsibility in Homer and the Athenian tragedians (Shame and Necessity) to his late reflections on ideas of historical truth in Herodotus and Thucydides (Truth and Truthfulness), Williams repeatedly demonstrated what he often asserted: that there are innumerable ways in which we today can put the ancients to use.

This conference invites papers that use Williams’s reflections on the classical world as invitations to fresh work on the themes that concerned him. These include, but are not restricted to, the ethics, moral psychology and political philosophy of Plato and Aristotle; Greek ideas of philosophical method; ethical ideas in Greek tragedy; the relationship between philosophy and literature; the use of literary texts in philosophy; Nietzsche’s reception of Greek thought; contemporary virtue ethics; luck and justice; tragedy and pessimism; Thucydides and political realism; the origins of the idea of historical time in antiquity. Papers are invited from philosophers, philologists, historians, literary scholars, and others in classical studies whose interests intersect with Williams’s.

Speakers will present their papers in panels, followed by responses from invited commentators. Papers will be no longer than 20 minutes.

Extended abstracts of 500–600 words may be e-mailed, preferably as PDFs, to Dr Nakul Krishna on or before 12 noon on the 1st of April 2016. Scholars submitting abstracts must make it clear in their abstracts how their papers address the conference theme.

Additional information regarding the schedule for the conference and other logistical details will be announced in April 2016. For more information, please write to Dr Sophia Connell .

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