Symposium of workshops
Dates: 28 June – 2nd July, 2026
Venue: Purley Chase, Mancetter, Atherstone, Warwickshire, CV9 2RQ
Deadline for booking 26th April 2026. Accommodation fees are payable by 30th May. There are bursaries available to help cover accommodation costs – these are only available when booking shared accommodation. To book for both this and the conference please complete this form. Please email us if you had any other questions: conference@prometheustrust.co.uk
The accommodation fees include full board. Non-residential is available for the conference only, and includes all meals apart from breakfast. The following fees are for the conference: £190 (shared), £250 (private ensuite), £140 (non residentials). Symposium of workshop only: £360 (shared), £450 (private ensuite). Both: £550 (shared), £700 (private ensuite). Please make sure you have paid by 30 May- otherwise we will assume you can’t come, and we won’t be able to refund the conference fee. Please complete the online booking form here to book your places at both the conference and the Symposium of Workshops.
To find out more about the conference please visit the page here.
Following the conference (and separate from it, although linked by theme), we have booked the conference centre for a further four days (from Sunday evening (28th June) to Thursday afternoon (2nd July). We hope we can further explore and expand the conference theme in mini-workshop formats, generating our own explorations, at a more relaxed pace, and in ways which will allow a greater exchange of perspectives, and deeper conversations.
These sessions would situate Plato’s conception of philosophy against a wider background, including the cultural practices he describes as transformative – such as ancient myth and drama, practicing visual arts, engaging in contemplative practices (such as light meditation or mindful exercises), and shared readings. The conference centre, Purley Chase, has plenty of space, both inside and out, being set in beautiful gardens and being held at the height of summer, we hope that this will enhance the experience of philosophy with colleagues in a welcoming, encouraging space for shared exploration.
This vision of philosophy as communal transformation has deep roots. As the sixth-century CE Platonist Simplicius puts it: “In the investigation of existent things, a great light of truth reveals itself in souls united in this way; and in the practice of virtue, when the advantages of each individual are pooled in common and exercised together, a single complete virtue easily comes about, shared by them all, and in each of them individually.” (Simplicius, On Epictetus Handbook, 88)
Confirmed workshops:
Sonsoles Costero-Quiroga
Painting the Forms: Watercolour as Contemplative Practice
What would it mean to see one of the Platonic Ideas (eidē)? According to Plato, it is possible to contemplate the Forms. But how? In Ennead I.6.4, Plotinus urges us to ‘climb up’ beyond sensation to behold the forms of beauty directly, face to face. For certain ancient traditions, such ascent demanded more than reasoning, since it called for a turning of the whole soul – through purification, through practice, through a sustained awakening of inner sight. The late Platonists taught that phantasia, the image-making power of the soul, could itself become a luminous instrument, shaping agalmata (living inner images) that mirror the radiance of higher realities.
Could painting and meditation open a path toward that vision? This hands-on workshop invites participants to find out. Taking up watercolour and brush, we will move through a guided meditation aimed at awakening contemplative attention, and give shape to the images of a Platonic Form that arise in the mind. We will explore how the act of painting can become an attempt to glimpse the intelligible through the sensible.
No prior artistic experience is required – only a willingness to look, to wonder, and to let colour become a vehicle of philosophical insight. If you have never painted before, that is no obstacle! All materials will be provided at the workshop
Michael Griffin
Professor Mark Sutton
Plato’s Polyhedral Universe: building community through dialogue and hands-on engagement
It might be argued that the practice of philosophy as transformation needs both private space for reflection and shared activity. While the first develops ideas and depth, the second is needed to test ideas, honing thinking and building community.
This mini workshop aims to develop shared engagement, firstly through challenging discussion and then by practical activity.
Crystal Addey
Platonic Relational Philosophy, Transformation and Environmental Ethics
This workshop explores the ways in which Platonic philosophy might be considered as a mode of relational philosophy and the ways in which relational philosophy might prove transformative. If philosophy is seen as practice for relating to oneself and other beings (both human and non-human), and place, landscape, and the cosmos itself, might this relational philosophy transform environmental ethics and practice, allowing us to re-imagine and transform our relationship with the land and the many beings who inhabit it? By focusing on ancient virtue ethics as a mode of practice for simultaneous and interconnected self-directedness and other-relatedness, and on our relationship to place and the cosmos, this workshop aims to explore the many facets of Platonic relational philosophy and their implications for environmental ethics
Tim Addey
The Soul entering into herself
“The soul entering into herself will behold all other things, and deity itself”
– Socrates, First Alcibiades.
Proclus, in his first book of the Theology of Plato, offers his readers an extended meditation on a single affirmation made by Socrates in the Phaedrus: “All that is divine is Beautiful, Wise and Good.” Having drawn our attention to this in chapter 21, he then explores each element of this triplicity in the following three chapters, expanding the initial triad into a triad of triads. The meditation is held up to the light like a beautiful diamond so that in all nine faces are seen refractions of each other. He completes this exercise in a fifth chapter in which the philosopher-theurgist-lover is urged to approach the divine through love, truth and faith. I hope we can explore this meditation in a unhurried way – taking a morning or an afternoon.
