Online Lecture on «Aristotelian and Neoplatonic Ethics Between Alexandria and Baghdad» by Cristina D’Ancona
Within the framework of the Research Project “Between Athens & Alexandria. Platonism, 3rd-7th c. CE” (2022-2024) supported by the A. S. Onassis Foundation, the IMS-FORTH, in collaboration with the Bibliotheca Alexandrina’s Center for Hellenistic Studies (ACHS), organizes a monthly online lecture series on late antique Neoplatonism (3rd-7th c. CE).
The series hosts invited talks in English or French by leading scholars in the field. Lectures take place via Zoom at 7pm Athens & Alexandria. Prior registration is required.
The topic of the 2022 talks is “Alexandrian and Athenian Neoplatonism”, with a special focus on Plotinus (204/5-270) as well as on later Neoplatonic developments on, and criticisms to, Plotinus.
All welcome!
Οn Thursday Dec. 1, at 19:00 (Athens time) Prof. Cristina D’Ancona (University of Pisa) will give a lecture on «Aristotelian and Neoplatonic Ethics Between Alexandria and Baghdad».
Abstract
The Arab learned men had at their disposal a wonderful survey of the books circulating in the capital of the Abbasid empire: the Book of the Catalogue by Ibn al-Nadim (end of the 10th cent.). Here, in the entry on Aristotle, a “Summary by the Alexandrians” of the Nicomachean Ethics is mentioned. A convoluted history of transmission of a work which is lost in Greek begins with this piece of information. The talk discusses the data left in Arabic and Latin, as well as the possibility, suggested by some, that the Arabic tradition bears the traces of Porphyry’s lost commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics.
You can register in advance to our seminar meetings using the following LINK.