Thesis: “Philoponus on place, void and motion”
The topic of my dissertation is Ioannes Philoponus’ accounts of place, void and motion which is presented in his commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, IV,1-9 and specifically in the digressions on place and void (Philop. in Phys., 557.8- 585.4, 675.12- 695.8, CAG XVII) and in the corollary on the moving bodies, in which Philoponus articulates the impetus theory (Philop. in Phys., 639.3- 642.26).
My dissertation consists of two parts. The first part is concerned with three main issues: first, the position of Philoponus’ commentary on Aristotle’s Physics within the Neoplatonic framework of physics in late antiquity. The second issue examined is the structure of the commentary which includes a note on the proems of the commentaries in the school of Alexandria in the 6th century C.E. and more precisely the presentation of the proem in Philoponus’ commentary on the Physics. The third issue is the presentation of the form of the commentary (‘θεωρία- λέξις’). Moreover, it deals with the reconstruction of the form as it is edited by H. Vitelli in the Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca series, the re-examination of the term ‘corollary’ and the establishment of the distinction between corollaries and digressions. The second part of my dissertation is dedicated to Philoponus’ accounts of place and void in the digressions of his commentary (Philop. in Phys., 557.8- 585.4, 675.12- 695.8, CAG XVII) and his account of moving bodies (impetus theory) in the corollary on moving bodies (Philop. in Phys., 639.3- 642.26) examining the criticisms against the Aristotelian accounts of place and void and Philoponus’ definition of place as three-dimensional extension.
CV
Currently I am a doctoral student of Graduate School of Ancient Philosophy, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and doctoral fellow of TOPOI Excellence Cluster 264; member of the Research Group D-II-2, “Place, Space and Motion”, writing my doctoral thesis on Philoponus’ accounts of place, void and motion. For the period (November 2011- February 2012) I was granted by Topoi Excellence Cluster 264 a scholarship to work my dissertation in Princeton University, USA. I’ve started my study on Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy, University of Patras, Greece (1999-2003), focusing on Ancient Philosophy (Plato, Aristotle) and especially on Neoplatonism working on Plotinus’ notions of matter and time. In 2006 (during my MPhil studies in the Department of Methodology, History and Theory of Sciences, University of Athens, Greece) I’ve participated to the Summer Course on “Philosophy and Science in the Greek-Roman world”, organized by the Center for Hellenic Traditions- Central European University, Budapest.
I was granted my MPhil degree on 2007, from the University of Athens (Master’s on “Philosophy and History of Science”), working on Plato, Aristotle, Hellenistic Philosophy, and systematized my study on Plotinus, on intellect and soul (discursive and non-discursive thought in Plotinus). In the meantime (2006-2009) I studied Greek Paleography (in the Historical and Paleographical Archive of the Educational Foundation of National Bank of Greece, MIET) focusing on philosophical manuscripts. In 2010 I was admitted to participate in the Summer School “Griechische Paläographie, Handschriftenkunde und Editionswissenschaft„ held by the „Zentrum Grundlagenforschung Alte Welt“ of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (BBAW).
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