Seventeenth Annual Conference Programme
Being Human in a Divine Universe
27–29 June 2025
Purley Chase Centre, Mancetter,
Warwickshire, UK
Abstracts
Friday, 27 June 2025
Keynote Address – Professor Danielle A Layne
The Khôratic Dance of the Platonic Tradition
Beginning with Plato’s description of Khôra as Mother and host of Becoming, this talk reconsiders the Platonic cosmos not through Demiurgic mimesis, but through the receptivity, movement, and care of the femininely coded “third kind” (Tim. 52b)” and “wandering cause (48a).” Etymologically tied to both place and dance, Khôra emerges in the Timaeus as a paradoxical, maternal ground – an older mistress (34c) who provides space for the soul, offering a shrine where form, flux, and becoming meet. Described as “most perplexing”, “unconquerable” and accessible only through “bastard reasoning” (52b), Khôra destabilizes the primacy of rational form and gestures toward an alternative path to divinity. Drawing on Socratic appeals to prohetic and dreamlike logoi in the Republic, Symposium and elsewhere, I argue that philosophical perplexity is not a deficiency but a nourishing enticement to grasp and bear the impossible, to erotically move and mix – vaguely remember – that we are not (as the conference theme suggests) insignificant mortals in a divine cosmos but immortal, erotic, guides and daimons, eternally embraced by the wondrous power of this wandering, dancing, “such-like (49d-e” existence. Yet, to truly embrace this divine vitality, to speak of her power and nature, requires – as Timaeus and Socrates declare – real risk, failure, even the possibility of heresy as we all stand before a seemingly dimly lit abyss: an infinite chasm echoing our ever-shifting questions and confusion. Yet like Nietzsche’s free spirit before his own (arguably Platonic) abyss, the more-than-human must leap into this unknown and begin – like a child – no to destroy, but create ever-new worlds and possibilities, valuing one’s audacious dreamlike reasoning, so that the dancing philosopher can continue to provide each generation with ever new spaces born not from static imitation, but through the often wild and unpredictable choreography of Khôratic imagination.
Danielle A. Layne is Professor of Philosophy at Gonzaga University, specializing in ancient philosophy, Neoplatonism, and continental thought. Her reearch explores the metaphysical and spiritual dimension of the Platonic tradition, with particular focus on prayer, theurgy, the divine feminine, and philosophical eros. Layne’s scholarship brings ancient insight into dialogue with contemporary philosophical concerns, offering a vision of philosophy as a spiritual and erotic practice rooted in both intellect and imagination.
Saturday, 28 June 2025
First Session
Alcibiades I: On Humanity?
Anthropos is one of the commonest words in Greek philosophy. It is ridiculously often translated ‘man’, but it is of course not gender-specific. Any member of the human race qualifies, and it usually defines our place relative to both gods and other animals, to which we are inferior and superior respectively. We lack the perfection and consequent immortality of the former, but we possess the uplifting power of reason, which other mortal animals are normally (if uncritically) presumed to lack, a feature attributed also to many quasi-human montrosities. In these circumstance it is surely rather odd that ordinary Greek discourse did not have a word for ‘humanity’, whether as a collective noun, or a quality that can be revelaed in human feelings and actions, or simply as a word for being human. Plato’s critic Antisthenes, however, does imagine a Platonic Form of ‘humanhood’, contrasted with another for ‘horsehood’. Platonic thought on the nature of the human being was linked from the beginning with the Delphic inscription that gave the order: ‘Know yourself’, interpreted less as an invitation to us to know our individual place as might have been the case in traditional wisdom that often stressed class differences, but rather to know what being human really is. The most relevant work of the Platonic corpus was in some respects the First Alcibiades, subtitled On the Nature of Man – which might have read On Humanity if only that word had been readily availabl. Its lessons became the subject of the first lectures that the student of Platonism would hear, but remarkably it is ultimately about our relationship with the divine, leaving our relationship with animals untouched.
Professor Harold Tarrant taught Greek and ancient philosophy for many yars at Australian Universities, and has written or edited several books on the subject. He is now retired to his native England, and is a Trustee of the Prometheus Trust.
Δίκη beyond τιμωρία – The need for justice beyond natural retribution in Plato’s Laws, V, 728a-c
I propose to examine how Plato develops his penal theory in the laws, in regard to the nature of injustice as self-punishing. Penalties raise a difficulty in the Laws, as the Athenian stated that injustice carries its own punishment. He made it the core of the founding myth told to the settlers upon their arrival in the territory in book IV: injustice is harmful to unjust people as “Justice [Δίκη], who takes retribution [τιμωρός] on those who abandon the divine law, never leaves his (the god) side”. The world enacts retribution, for the just man derives the reward of his virtue from it, while injustice naturally leads to unhappiness, a regularly affirmed tenet of the Platonic corpus. Yet, to recognize that injustice is self-punishing, but also that the laws must punish the unjust, may seem redundant. If injustice carries punishment, why should penal laws be established? I aim to show that the Athenian tackles this problem in V,728a-c, by distinguishng between two types of punishments: one that occurs naturally because of injustice, called “retribution”(τιμωρία), and the other that shall be inflicted by men, and called “justice” (δίκη).. I will argue that Plato highlights criminal sociability as the key mechanism of retribution to explain that it leads to the moral degradation of the soul. Consequently, retribution is not sufficient to be called “justice”; rather it is the consequence of injustice spreading by itself. Justice, understood as the purpose of the laws, should seek to make the wicked person better, not worse. I intend to demonstrate that this need for justice, beyond natural retribution, justifies the practice of penal law in political institutions. Human justice must not simply punish unjust people, as the world already handles that. It must rather aim to make them better, thus reversing the natural tendency of injustice to perpetually worsen.hers, and their joint legacy still has prescience today.
Adele Marin-Le-Bras is a PhD student in the Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3, supervised by Pr. Jean-François Pradeau, and works on Plato’s theory of punishment in the Laws.
Made for God: A Thomistic Vision of the Human Being
In this lecture, the human relationship with God is explored using Aristotelian and Thomistic metaphysics. The talk opens with Aquinas’ understanding of Aristotelian hylomorphism and teleology, developing an account of the inherent directionality of all beings. The lecture then moves through the hierarchical distinctions of the soul – vegetatative, sensitive, and rational – each affecting an increasing complexity in the tendency toward fulfilment. The human being, possessing the rational soul, emerges as the unique creature capable of self-reflection and cnscious longing for the Good Itself, which is God. Through the faculties of intellect and will, humans recognise the inadequacy of finite goods and come to grasp their ultimate end in union with the divine essence. This analysis shows that human nature is not only created by God but is fundamentally oriented towards God as its final cause. The talk concludes with an understanding of human existence as a vocation to union with the First Cause, placing human life within a broader metaphysical and teleological framework that link the natural world to the divine.
Gwen Murphy is a philosophy graduate from Trinity College, Dublin. Her final year dissertation dedicated itself to the problem of philosophy itself. Her interests include metaphysics, epistemology and ethics, and she has a special interest in understanding (and living in) the triad of beauty, truth and goodness. She has a HDip in Montessori Education and is a qualified ESL teacher. She has nurtured students of all ages and abilities. In 2018, she set up Paideia Philosophy, an educational initiative that aims to help thos ewho struggle to fit established educational moulds. She can also weld.
Second session
Pantheism for the 21st century
Spinoza argued forcefully for the divine nature of the universe. Yet his pantheism has often been interpreted as a form of atheism. Recently, however, there has been a remarkable revival of interest in Spinoza’s idea of God, religion and amor dei intellectualis. Indeed, Spinoza’s idea of the good life cannot be understood without grasping the proper significance of the love of God and of acquiescence in God. Nevertheless, Spinoza
stresses not only the importance of the love of God, but also earthly life and political engagement. Drawing inspiration from some recent literature on Spinoza, I articulate a view of pantheism as a genuine religion and not just as a philosophical conception of God. While the position explored here is thoroughly inspired by my reading of Spinoza, it is not presented as an exegesis but as a kind of neospinozism for the 21 st century. The pantheistic view presented here argues the following points. First, pantheism is a genuine conception of God, which is both immanent and transcendent and the two concepts are not logically opposed. Second, I show that pantheism offers the resources to understand our own relations with ourselves, other people, the whole biosphere and God or the universe. These views offer empowering resources to deal with the challenges of the 21 st century and to provide solid grounding for ecological concerns, nonviolence, and to reject nihilism and
endorse the world and active engagement in it. Finally, I outline the nature of the practices that can make pantheism into a proper religion (although a fully non-sectarian, non-coercive and tolerant one) that reconciles
contemplation and active engagement.
Giovanni de Grandis received his degree and PhD in philosophy from the University of Torino and a MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics of Health from UCL. Since his PhD he has taught Ethics, Political Philosophy and Applied Ethics in the UK. In the last 15 years he has worked in several inter- and trans-disciplinary projects in the UK
and Scandinavia, mostly in the areas of new technologies, public health, and responsible research and innovation. Recently he has become deeply interested in pantheism and nonviolence and is currently working on a book project on Pantheism, Peace and Utopia.
The View from the Crossroads
Those of us attempting to see the philosophy of the Platonic tradition as a unified and consistent teaching must find some way of reconciling two apparently conflicting positions which not only run through a significant
number of Plato’s dialogues, but also appear in many later commentators’ texts. Put briefly, on the one hand we have an affirmation that the human self – that is to say, the human soul – has a vital part to play in the cosmic scheme, providentially attending to the manifested world, acting as an intermediary between the eternal order and the temporal, and helping to ensure that intellectual order is brought to bear not only on the Cosmos as a whole (as she cooperates with the World Soul) but also in its parts through our own individual activities. On the other hand, we have an oft-stated claim that we must flee the world, liberating ourselves from the body and our material concerns. What appears to the student of Platonism as a theoretical problem in our understanding of Platonic doctrine is actually a shadow of a real problem – perhaps the problem – that besets the soul in its long journey through its many lives. In truth, wherever the soul is on that long journey, it is always at the crossroads between the way up and the way down, between the call of the beauty of forms and the ever-changing kaleidoscope of their material reflections. As Proclus says in his treatise on Providence (at §59) our faculty of choice “has been called the crossroads in us.” In other words the crossroad is not a moment on that journey but, by our very nature, we are the crossroad. The puzzle that this sets before us is, perhaps, best approached by pausing and taking the time to enjoy the view from the crossroads: what lies immediately ‘above’ us, what immediately ‘below’? And since we are souls, we might consider the order of soul stretching in both directions, attempting to become sensitive to the living intelligences that populate our surroundings but which so often go unnoticed and unappreciated. It may be that the unbearable tension of the lonely, deserted crossroads is waiting to be released in the company of fellow souls, higher, lower, and equal.
Tim Addey is the chairperson of the Prometheus Trust, the editor of the Thomas Taylor series, the director of its education programme, and the author of several books on the Platonic tradition.
Third Session
Tobias and the Angel
A showing of a heavenly effect in an earthly actor
(All’s Well That Ends Well II, iii, 24)
A Florentine Renaissance painting of Tobias and the Angel portrays a transformative encounter between human and divine. The story, taken from the Apocrypha, may be read as an initiatic adventure involving trials
by water and fire. By a miracle of imaginative composition, the artist has condensed this narrative into a single captivating image. While its richness of detail and beauty of form make an immediate appeal to the senses, its
talismanic power derives more subtly from an interplay of hermetic symbolism, drawing on alchemy and astrology, and constellated in a remarkable configuration of Platonic geometries. According to the New
English Bible: Apocrypha comes from the Greek word meaning hidden things. It was applied to writings which were considered so important and precious that they must be hidden from the general public and
reserved for the initiates. In fact, the geometries are not entirely hidden. There is nothing arbitrary, for example, about the angle of the ‘ricordo’ note which Tobias holds in his left hand, nor of the strings from which the fish is suspended. These all conform to the canons of sacred geometry, giving a glimpse of the otherwise invisible matrix which harmoniously underpins the composition, and sustains its salvific symbolism. While the painting is attributed to the workshop of Andrea del Verrocchio, certain details are believed to be by the hand of the young apprentice Leonardo. More unexpectedly, details in the composition (which has been on display in the National Gallery since the 1860s), together with stories of angels and demons taken from the Apocryphal Books of Tobit and Enoch, seem to have provided inspiration for Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes story.
Julia Cleave is a Fellow of the Temenos Academy and a member of its Council and Academic Board. As an independent scholar she has a special interest in the Pythagorean, Hermetic and Mystery traditions as they are to be found, still largely unacknowledged, in Renaissance and Early Modern art and literature.
Nature’s Magic
Humans live in a manufactured reality which limits consciousness to the material confines of the world. While this world does enjoy a derivative reality, consisting in the Heracleitian 'logos' or order of the universe which sustains its incessant change, the human birthright includes the possibility of using rational thought to penetrate Nature's veil of appearances in order to find the key to tracing the origin of logos back to its supra-rational source in the intelligible world of real being. Socrates reveals the way to experience this magical journey to Phaedrus, as they recline by the banks of a river listening to the enchanting music of cicadas. This paper will trace significant stages in the journey.
Martha Lyn happened upon a portrait of Thomas Taylor while lunching at The Ottawa Art Gallery in Canada, after perusing some of his writing in the course of obtaining a BA at Queen's University in Kingston in 1965. She sought out more of his work in the UK. She then joined forces with The Prometheus Trust to assist in the work of ensuring Taylor’s wonderful translations remain available. She is now a Patron of the Trust.
Fourth Session
Theurgy and the Gods of Place: Platonism, Relational Philosophy and the Environmental Emergency
What is the place of philosophy – and especially the philosophy of Plato and later Platonist philosophers – in our time, a time characterised by acute and interlocking environmental and ecological emergencies? Does philosophy – specifically the philosophy of Plato and that of later Platonist philosophers – have anything to offer us in relation to thinking through, dealing with, and responding appropriately to the most urgent problems of our time – the interlocking environmental problems that face us today, especially climate change? This presentation will consider the roles of environmental philosophy in addressing this emergency, with a focus on Platonic philosophy as a relational and participatory way of life rooted in the divine. Indeed, indigenous researchers (such as Shelbi Nahwillet Meissner and Shawn Wilson) have emphasised that indigenous research is primarily relational and participatory, and that the climate crisis is one facet of a much wider relational crisis that is at least five centuries in the making. Yet despite the parallels with indigenous research, philosophies and cultures, many of the resources and deepest insights offered by certain relational and animistic iterations of ancient philosophy lie untapped and largely overlooked. This presentation will explore the ways in which theurgic Platonism – as the most relational and participatory dimension of the Platonic tradition – might help us, with a focus on inspiration, wonder and recognition of the divine and ‘more-than-human’ dimensions of reality. The presentation will particularly explore: (1) the roles of the gods associated with place and landscape within theurgic practice; (2) the eco-centric dimensions of theurgic cosmology, metaphysics and ritual practices; and (3) theurgic iterations of the connections with and presence of the divine – the sacred – in animals and the natural world, including plants, trees, sea and land. What does it mean to think, act and live relationally in – and with – the more-than-human world we inhabit?
Crystal Addey is a Lecturer in the Department of Classics and a Principal Investigator of the Environmental Research Institute at University College Cork (UCC), Ireland. She is the Founder and Co-Convenor of the UCC Eco-Humanities Research Group. Her publications include Divination and Theurgy in Neoplatonism: Oracles of the gods
(Ashgate/Routledge 2014), Platonist Women (Cambridge Elements series ‘Women in the History of Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, forthcoming August 2025) the edited volume Divination and Knowledge in Greco-Roman Antiquity (Routledge 2021), and many chapters and articles on ancient philosophical and religious approaches towards
the environment and the natural world, on the connections between ancient Mediterranean religions (especially divination) and philosophy, and on the roles of women in ancient philosophy. She is a Trustee of the Prometheus Trust.
The Way of the Bodhisattva: some Tibetan perspectives on being human in a divine universe
This paper will explore the role of the bodhisattva in mahāyāna Buddhism as an ideal for being human in a divine universe. In doing so, it will discuss the Indo-Tibetan cosmology in which the bodhisattva way is embedded, and tantric practice in the lives of mahāyāna practitioners on the Bodhisattva path as method to awakening. Central to the mahāyāna Buddhism that contemporary Tibetan Buddhist practices are founded upon is the notion of the bodhisattva vow. This is an altruistic vow taken by aspiring bodhisattvas, beings on the path to awakening, to become awakened for the sake of all beings in order to bring them too to that enlightened state. It is this vow that forms the basis for meditational practices of a tantric nature, such as deity
yoga. The bodhisattva way will be examined through the lens of the seminal eighth century Śāntideva text outlining its virtues for the aspirational bodhisattva, “The Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life”. This will
be contextualised in the Indo-Tibetan cosmology and karma, or cause and effect, within which notions of bodhisattvahood are embedded. The Tibetan Buddhist tantric practice of deity yoga, as method on this path to
becoming awakened for the sake of all beings will be explored, with particular focus on the cosmic micro-macro correspondences that enable human practitioners in becoming deity—becoming divine.
Dawn Collins PhD is an online tutor for modules on the MA Cultural Astronomy and Astrology and the MA Ecology and Spirituality at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, where she is member of the tutor team of the Sophia Centre for the Study of Cosmology in Culture. She is a Research Fellow of the Foro di Studi Avanzati Gaetano Massa
(FSA), Rome, Italy (Gaetano Massa Research Institute for Advanced Study of the Humanities) and a member of the translation team at 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha. She is also an independent researcher, writer, editor, dance artist and therapist.
Thomas Taylor Lecture—Professor Jan Opsomer
Where all powers unite: the human soul and the gods according to Proclus
Students of Platonism often feel the need to visualise the structure of reality as described in the works of the Platonists. This, they believe, gives them a better understanding of the system, although Plato himself emphasised the limitations of diagrams. In the divided line, Plato relegates the scientific practice that makes use of diagrams only to the second-highest segment. It is thus not even the highest of the discursive sciences. Nevertheless, even the best scholars use diagrams to represent the Platonic system, as it is found in what is arguably its most elaborated state, that of Proclus. The shape that readily comes to mind is that of a triangle, or perhaps a cone for those who prefer a three-dimensional representation: the One is at the top, below which reality spreads out, unfolding in the different hypostatic layers of the emanation. This representation is not wrong per se and would also agree with what we find in Plotinus. It represents the increasing division that
goes hand in hand with the procession of reality. However, the picture becomes more complicated if we take into account the so-called Proclean rule, according to which higher causes have effects lower down the ontological scale than lower causes. If we wanted to represent this visually, we could, for example mirror the first structure, resulting in a rhombus oriented in such a way that the One is represented by the top angle, and
matter is found at the bottom. Alternatively, we would mirror the original cone upside-down, attaching them at the base. The simple and the more complex representations can be reconciled if we consider that the original,
simple picture only represents the procession of realities that are self-constituted, whereas the more complex picture in addition includes those realities that are mere effects of the self-constituted causes. Further
metaphysical laws, explained in the Elements of Theology, require more complex diagrams, which will not be considered here. A focus on the products of demiurgy, however, reveals the special place of the human soul.
Demiurgy can be understood as the highly complex causal structure by which the world of becoming is created. Proclus distinguishes various demiurgic deities, presided over by the unique universal demiurge, the
central figure in the cosmogony of the Timaeus. Different causes produce different effects. The most complex of all demiurgic products is the human being, more specifically the human soul. The human being participates
in both mortality and immortality and thus stands at the fulcrum or axis of the unfolding reality. While the human intellect is not a product of demiurgic causation, the rational, immortal part of the soul is generated
directly by the demiurge, in conjunction with the life-giving cause. The lower, ‘mortal’ soul parts (or, rather, so-called soul parts), as well as their different ‘vehicles’, are the product of various lower demiurgic forces.
The human soul, together with all the powers attached to, thus stands at the centre of demiurgic causation.
Jan Opsomer is Research Professor of ancient philosophy at the KU Leuven in Belgium. He is the author of books and articles in the field of ancient Platonism. He currently holds an Advanced Grant of the European Research Council with the project “Not another history of Platonism. The role of Aristotle’s criticisms of Plato in the development of ancient
Platonism.”
Musical Interlude - James Tartaglia
Sunday, 29 June 2025
Fifth Session
Platonism and the Natural World: How far do Plato or later Platonists appreciate the Beauties of Nature?
Does the philosophy of Plato, despit hos elevation to a supreme position in the intelligible world of the Beautiful itself, or the Idea of Beauty, really exhibit any appreciation of the beauties of nature, or Natural Beauty? I have long been provoked t ask this troublesome question by the observation that, in Diotima’s Ladder of Ascent to the Beautiful in Symposium 210c-d, she is made to portray the progress of the lover upwards from the appreciation of beautiful bodies not, as one might have expected, to the appreciation of the beauties of the natural world, but rather to those of ‘institutions and laws’ (epitedeumata kai nomoi) – Nature does not look in at any stage of the Ascent. Can Plato be seen to permit any of his characters, from Socrates on down, to express admiration for the beauties of Nature; and that in turn has led me to explore the attitudes to Nature of later adherents of the platonist tradition: even the most obvious dialogue, the Phaedrus, seems to portray the scene around the Ilissus as being useful to humans rather than something fine in its own right. We must explore further if we are to understand the standpoint of the ancient world.
John M Dillon is Regius Professor of Greek (Emeritus) at Trinity College, Dublin. Educated at Oxford (BA,MA) and University of California at Berkeley (PhD, The Fragments of Iamblichus’ Commentary on the Timaeus of Plato). On faculty at Berkeley, Regius Professor of Greek, TCD. Widely published: main works The Middle Platonists, Alcinous: The Handbook of platonism; Iamblichus, De Anima; The Heirs of Plato; The roots of Platonism; Philo of alexandria; on the Life of Abraham, and Perspectives on Plotinus, just published by the Prometheus Trust.
How ridiculous is it, to be ‘superior to oneself’? A serious enquiry into the relationship between virtue and governance in Book IV of The Republic
In Book IV of The Republic, Socrates asks Glauco, (and therefore us, the readers), ‘Is not the expression ‘superior to oneself, ridiculous?’ (431a) Perhaps not, as the resulting enquiry is a serious examination of the nature of the soul, with the soul demonstrated partite and virtue implicated as conditional on the good governance of the better part over the worse. Followiong a fine lineage, this paper takes the ostensibly ‘ridiculous’ question seriously. In doing so, it will explore the implication of The Republic that there is a microcosm/macrocosm relation between the human soul and cosmos analogous to that of the human soul and ideal city. By tracing the signification of 431a across Book IV and in the works of later Platonists Olympiodorus and Proclus, this paper explores a potential correspondence with a theurgic ascent through the virtue and knowledge of different orders, ‘dramatised’ here byt the dialectical progression.
Annie Beverley is a writer and researcher who has been practising philosophy with the support of The Prometheus Trust since 2022. she currently lives in Manchester, UK, where she facilitates a reading group on Plato’s Republic every fortnight.
Intelligent Virtue
The nature of the Human Soul in Platonic Philosophy
If, in a passing moment, we were asked what Plato’s dialogues and Platonic philosophy are basically about, an immediate ideal reply might be Being Human in a Divine Universe. But with the passage of time, from Plato to Plotinus, and on to the Cambridge Platonists in the 17th century, we find an expansive shared knowledge of intellect, reason, motivation, and moral choice, reflecting the nature of the human soul. Ancient philosophy, or love of wisdom, can be understood from an empirical or ethical standpoint. Temporal virutes and choices reveal a sense of human aspiration, telos, for goodness and well-being for the soul. Plato’s Socrates asks in the Phardo,’but is one soul said to have intelligence and goodness, and to be good, while another is said to have folly and wickedness and to be bad?'(93b). He then argues that the nature of each soul is to find its own attunement between good and bad, gaining control over bodily passions, ‘opposing nearly all of them throughout life and mastering them in all sorts of ways’ (94d). My point here is that Plato’s dialogues speak of morality in the moment that is becoming increasingly relevant to various humanitarian crises in today’s world. Plato is raising questions about intelligent virtue now. This is not to deny Plato’s metaphysics of ontological ideas and eternal being. The Phaedrus begins with a walk on a woodland path into open country. With intelligent virtue, Socrates asks, ‘do you think that the nature of the soul can be sufficiently known without the nature of the universe?'(270c). Temporal sense perception has effect on the nature of the human soul, but in the cosmos of Plato’s Timaeus, human well-being may become tuned to intellect by reason and interwoven with truth and beauty in the Good.
Rodger Sykes has contributed to the Neoplatonic Studies Seminar at the Warburg Institute since 2018, and for the past two years he has acted as Seminar Co-organiser. Attending Prometheus Trust events has also inspired a growing interest in Ancient Greek philosophy. He has an MA in Renaissance Studies, Birkbeck, University of London, and a Research MA in Philosophy, University of Buckingham.
Sixth Session
The Aspiration to Godlikeness
Following a remark by Socrates in the Theaetetus (176b), it became established within the Platonist tradition that the aim of philosophy, its telos, was to make ourselves godlike – to “elevate the god within us to the
divine in the universe”, as Plotinus put it in his last words. We should identify with and develop our intellectual lives, live the life of the mind, one in which understanding and contemplation are what we honestly care most about. In living these intellectual, godlike lives, we would keep our irrational bodily instincts firmly under control, knowing these pulls on our psychologies are a consequence of the biological nature we share with other animals. This Platonist ideal is as good now as it ever was: it is a vision of our
evolving into more intellectually focused beings and hence of humans becoming a more advanced lifeform. The currently dominant alternative is to treat ourselves as pleasure-seeking animals and let the market decide
which new pleasure-generating technologies will be developed to advance the human race – “advance” in the sense of humans having longer and healthier lives of pleasure-seeking, with these improvements facilitated by
more advanced machinery, which, with the advent of artificial intelligence, we will probably not even be capable of understanding before long. I will show how the Platonist ideal presents a far more positive aspiration for humanity, an alternative future we could achieve. I will address the concern that it is an austere ideal, and hence an unattractive or unrealistic one, by recalling Plato’s statement in the Laws (803c) that we should “spend life in making our play as perfect as possible”. Concentrating on “play” that emphasises intellect, whether that be philosophy, art, music or sport, is being ambitious for our fun, and not at all self-denying or boring.
James Tartaglia is Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at Keele University, UK, and a jazz saxophonist who makes “Jazz-Philosophy Fusion”. He is the author of Philosophy in a Meaningless Life (Bloomsbury 2016), Philosophy in a Technological World (Bloomsbury 2020), Inner Space Philosophy (Iff 2024) and his latest book is The Daily Platonist: 366 Meditations on how to live like a god (Agenda 2026).
Constructive Realism
The question of how to live is closely tied to the question of what is moral in the platonic tradition. In contemporary metaethics, moral realism is the view that there is a mind-independent moral reality to be discovered. It is in discovering this moral reality that a human can be in touch with what might be considered divine, truths that are not created but discovered by human agents. Plato thought that reality is found in immaterial forms, and it is these forms which allow access to moral truths and therefore answer the question as to how to live. Yet at least one interpretation of Plato is that accessing the forms can be achieved through mathematics and it is here where I depart from Platonic thinking and establish what I call constructive realism. There is a constructive element to the theory I propose because despite acknowledging a mind-independent moral reality, this reality is nevertheless realised by human agents and constructed into moral claims, rules, principles and so forth. If moral truth is divine, the pressing question of course is how we humans access such truths and in essence be in touch with divinity. I propose a theory of innate ethical awareness, which is the idea that humans are born with an ethical capacity that takes the form of ethical intuitions. It is the ability and predisposition to access moral truths and thus become ethical agents. This is not to say that humans are born with any ethical knowledge or come to attain it by default. Instead, humans are born with the potential to be ethical; thus, an ethical agent is what one becomes through appropriate development. Therefore, our innate ethical awareness is a capacity that can be stunted in an inappropriate environment but flourish in an appropriate one.
Dannish Kashmiri is an independent postdoctoral researcher based in the UK. His research is primarily in metaethics, and his interests span across most areas in philosophy. He completed his PhD at Reading University, and the title of his thesis was ‘Capturing Moral Universality’. He argued that Moral Universality requires mind-independence and the support of ontology. Since then, he has extracted papers from his thesis and branched out into new areas by writing papers about the ethics of climate change and metaphysical injustice. A long-term book project of his is to develop a
metaethical theory (in the making for a very long time in his mind!), which he provisionally calls constructive moral realism – the idea that our moral reality is in part discovered and in part created.
Closing Remarks - Tim Addey
Programme Schedule
Friday
5.00 pm: Registration
7.00 pm: Supper
8.00 pm: Keynote lecture
Professor Danielle A Layne
Saturday
8.15 am: Breakfast
9.10 – 11.10 am / 1st session
Harold Tarrant, Adele Marin-Le-Bras, Gwen Murphy
11.10 am: Coffee
11.35 – 12.55 pm / 2nd session
Giovanni di Grandis, Tim Addey
1.00 pm: Lunch
2.10 – 3.30 pm / 3rd session
Julia Cleave, Martha Lyn
3.30 pm: Tea
4.00 – 5.20 pm / 4th session Crystal Addey, Dawn Collins
5.30 pm: 17th Thomas Taylor lecture Professor Jan Opsomer
7.00 pm: Supper
8.00 pm: Musical Interlude
Sunday
8.15 am: Breakfast
9.15 – 11 am / 5th session
john Dillon, Annie Beverley, Rodger Sykes
11 am: Coffee
11.30 – 12.50 pm / 6th session
James Tartaglia, Dannish Kashmiri
12.50 pm: Closing Remarks
1.00 pm: Lunch
Email for further details: education@prometheustrust.co.uk or write to The Education Co-ordinator,
35 Greenways, Lydney, Glos, GL15 5HY, UK