Aristotle’s Metaethics…and other Historical Monstrosities

Sylvia Berryman (University of British Columbia)

The Symposium of Aristotelian Studies was created to consolidate the tradition of Aristotelian studies of the Post-Gradute Programa Logic and Metaphysics (PPGLM/UFRJ). Our intention is for the Symposium to become a perennial activity spanning all through the academic year where our students and colleagues will be able to meet with some of the best specialists in Aristotle’s thought.

Sylvia Berryman got her Ph.D at the University of Texas, in Austin, in 1996. After that, she was a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in King’s College London, where she worked as editorial assistant for the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle project, and then she spent five years with the Department of Philosophy at Ohio State University before joining the Department of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia in 2004. During her career, professor Berryman has received fellowships and grants from Center for Hellenic Studies, National Humanities Center, Institute for Advanced Study Princeton, National Science Foundation and SSHRC. 

Professor Berryman is the author two books, “Mechanical Hypothesis in Ancient Greek Natural Philosophy” (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and “Aristotle on the Sources of the Ethical Life” (Oxford University Press, 2019) and of several articles on Aristotle and other Greek which have appeared in Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Apeiron, Ancient Philosophy, Review of Metaphysics, Metaphilosophy, Isis and British Journal of the History of Philosophy.

Her current research focuses on ancient Greek natural philosophy and the impact of Greek science on natural philosophy but she also is interested, and currently working, on topics of contemporary applied ethics, like the challenges presented by extreme poverty in contemporary societies.