Previous Meetings

Organizer

• Brennan McDavid

Keynote Speaker

• Mark Johnstone (McMaster University), "Plato on Becoming Bad: Character Formation in Republic 8-9"

Speakers

• John Proios (University of Chicago), "The Dynamics of Social Transformation in Republic VIII" — Commentator: Mateo Duque (Binghamton University)
• India Griffiths (University College London), "Sorting out the (really) Bad Apples: An Investigation into Moral Degeneration in Republic IX" — Commentator: George Walter (Pasco-Hernando State College)
• Eva Odzuck (University of Regensburg), "Beautiful and endangered in its liberty: Understanding Plato's critique of democracy" — Commentator: Merrick Anderson (University of Southern California)
• Andrew Culbreth (Boston College), "Shameless Capitulation: Plato on the Fear of Death, Shame, and Resisting Tyranny" — Commentator: Sam Berrettini (Boston University)
• Geoff Sayre-McCord (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), "Socrates's (much better than often thought) Defense of Justice in The Republic" — Commentator: Sarale Ben-Asher (University of New Mexico)
• Wenjin Liu (Duke University), "Empeiria in Plato's Republic" — Commentator: Jack Condie (The New School for Social Research)
• Eric Solis (University of Alabama), "The Tyrant's Regret" — Commentator: Madeline Brenchley (Boston College)

Organizer

• Patricia Marechal

Keynote Speakers

• Cinzia Arruzza (Boston University), "Alcibiades’ Thumotic Problem and the Shadow of Tyranny"
• Fiona Leigh (University College, London), "Soul-turning: Moral Development, Self-knowledge, and Plato’s Alcibiades"

Speakers

• Jack Condie (The New School for Social Research), "Underneath the Beginning: On Alcibiades 104a-104c" — Commentator: Brennan McDavid (Chapman University)
• Emily Kress (Brown University), "Alcibiades’ Ambition and Socrates’ Business" — Commentator: Evan Rodriguez (Idaho State University)
• Wenjin Liu (Duke University), "The Anatomy of Self-Care in Alcibiades I" — Commentator: Rachel Singpurwala (University of Maryland, College Park)
• Sarale Ben-Asher (University of New Mexico), "Properties as Valuable Possessions in Alcibiades I" — Commentator: Jozef Müller (UC Riverside)
• Frank Li (Harvard University), "Self-knowledge and Teleological Agency in Alcibiades I" — Commentator: Zack Brants (UC San Diego)
• Ryan Christensen (Brigham Young University), "Reciprocity and Role Reversal" — Commentator: John Proios (University of Chicago)
• Jake Haagenson (Columbia University), "Knowledge in Alcibiades I" — Commentator: David Jennings (UC Merced)
• Zara Amdur (Texas Tech University), "Privilege and Avoiding the Risk of Self-Satisfaction in Alcibiades I" — Commentator: Subin Park (UC San Diego)
• Peter Larsen (Dublin City University), "Sense Perception in Plato’s Alcibiades I" — Commentator: Marc Gasser-Wingate (Boston University)

Organizer

• Yancy Dominick

Keynote Speakers

• Thomas C. Brickhouse & Nicholas D. Smith (University of Lynchburg & Lewis & Clark College), "Socrates on the Explanatory Relevance of Caring and Other Kinds of Conation in Plato's Apology" — Commentator: Sara De Leonardis (Cornell University)
• Emily Austin (Wake Forest University), "Socrates on What Makes Vice Amusing"

Speakers

• Mateo Duque (Binghamton University), "The Multiple Audience of Socrates’ Apologia" — Commentator: Sophia Stone (Lynn University)
• Chad Wiener (Old Dominion University), "A Certain Sort of Wisdom: Socratic Ignorance as Wisdom and Virtue" — Commentator: Christopher Colvin (Independent Scholar)
• Brennan McDavid (Chapman University), "The Dangers of Craft Wisdom" — Commentator: George Walter (Virginia Military Institute)
• Andrew Payne (Saint Joseph’s University), "Willing Action and Socratic Moral Psychology in the Refutation of Meletus: Apology 25c5 -26a7" — Commentator: Anna Bates (University of Washington)
• Kirk Sanders (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), "Socrates’ 'divine sign' and the charge of 'introducing religious innovations'" — Commentator: Jason Rheins (Ayn Rand Institute)
• Douglas A. Shepardson (Hunter College, CUNY), "Thirty Minas, Votes, and Tyrants: A Defense of the Political Interpretation of Plato’s Apology" — Commentator: Jan Szaif (UC Davis)
• Andrew Culbreth (Boston College), "The Ethical Value of Socratic Hope in Plato's Apology" — Commentator: Nicholas R. Baima (Florida Atlantic University
• Melle van Duijn (University of Oklahoma), "Plato’s Apology as Consolation" — Commentator: Cody Spjut (California State University, Long Beach)
• Zachary Brants (University of California, San Diego), "Hoping to Die? Socrates on the Hope that Death is Good" — Commentator: Yidi Wu (Boston University)

Organizers

• Julie Piering and George Rudebusch

Keynote Speakers

• Christopher Rowe (Durham University), “Contemporary Politikoi and Other Sophists”
• Susan Sauvé Meyer (University of Pennsylvania), “Plato on the Rule of Law”

Speakers

• Evanthia Speliotis (Bellarmine University), “Paradigm and Method in Plato’s Statesman” — Commentator: Emily Hulme (University of Sydney)
• Sara De Leonardis (Cornell University), “The Place of the World-Soul in the Myth of the Statesman and its Ethical Dimension” — Commentator: Cynthia Shihui Ma (Tulane University)
• Sarale Ben-Asher (University of Chicago), “The Rule of Bisection in Statesman 262a–263b” — Commentator: Dong-geun Kim (University of Edinburgh)
• Freya Möbus (Loyola University Chicago) & Justin Vlasits (University of Illinois at Chicago), “Division and Animal Sacrifice in Plato’s Statesman” — Commentator: John Proios (University of Chicago)
• Pauline Sabrier (Université Libre de Bruxelles), “The Stoicheia tôn Pantôn at 278d1: Plato’s definition of an internal principle” — Commentator: Thomas Slabon (Stanford University)
• Ross Gilmore (University of Kansas), “The Statesman’s Craft in Context in Plato’s Statesman” — Commentator: Hande Akyar (Northwestern University)
• Lia Theodoroudi (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki), “Who are the Kompsoi of 285a1?” — Commentator: Vilius Bartninkas (Vilnius University)
• Catherine McKeen (Bennington College), “Laws and Political Expertise in Plato’s Statesman” — Commentator: Rupert Sparling (Stanford University)
• Jeremy Reid (San Francisco State University), “The Analysis of Constitutions in Plato’s Statesman” — Commentator: Christopher Turner (California State University Stanislaus)
• Joseph Bjelde (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin), “Making Divine Bonds” — Commentator: Holly Moore (Luther College)

Organizers

• Chris Bobonich and Thomas Slabon

Keynote Speakers

• Josh Ober (Stanford), “Glaucon’s Dilemma: Plato on the Origins of Social Order”

Speakers

• André Luiz Braga da Silva (Universidade de São Paulo), “Plato’s Principle of Non-Contradiction in Republic and Sophist” — Commentator: Patrick Cox (Padua)
• Eric Brown (University of Washington), “Plato on Goods, From Socrates to Glaucon and Back Again” — Commentator: Casey Perin (UC Irvine)
• Jonathan Fine (University of Hawaiʻi), “What is it to act for the sake of the kalon?” — Commentator: Faith McFadden (University of Southern California)
• Thomas Slabon (Stanford), “Plato on Learning to Be Good: Typological Character Formation in Republic II–III” — Commentator: John Proios (University of Chicago)
• Rupert Sparling (Stanford), “A Reconsideration of Plato’s Function Argument” — Commentator: Jan Szaif (UC Davis)
• Sarale Ben-Asher (University of Chicago), “Poetry in Republic II” — Commentator: Julie Piering (Northern Arizona University)
• Natalie Hannan (University of Rochester), “Truth, Lies, and Doxa in Plato’s Republic” — Commentator: Jacob Abolafia (Stanford)
• Avshalom Schwartz (Stanford), “Divine Epiphany and Political Authority in Plato’s Republic” — Commentator: Peggy Zhu (Cornell)
• Grant Bartolomé Dowling (Stanford), “The Apraxia Consequence of the Republic’s Developmental Account of Psychological Virtue” — Commentator: Carey Seal (UC Davis)

Organizers

• Julie Piering and George Rudebusch

Keynote Speakers

• Mary Louise Gill (Brown University), “Images of the Philosopher in the Sophist”

Speakers

• Xin Liu (Nanjing University, China), “Koinōnia Megistōn Genōn: From the Exercise of One-Many in the Parmenides to the Exercise of Being-Nonbeing in the Sophist” — Commentator: Benjamin Keoseyan (University of Arizona)
• Pauline Sabrier (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany), “Change, Rest and Greatest Kinds in Plato’s Sophist” — Commentator: Chris Buckels (Junípero Serra High School, San Mateo, California)
• Colin C. Smith (University of Colorado Boulder), “Being as Communion: Sophist 248b2-8” — Commentator: Timothy Clarke (University of California Berkeley)
• Jan Szaif (University of California Davis), “Paideia and Philosophy in Plato’s Sophist” — Commentator: Fiona Leigh (University College London, Great Britain)
• Catherine McKeen (Bennington College), “The Private Sophist and the Public Sophist” — Commentator: Fernando Muniz (Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil)
• Ryan M. Brown (Boston College), “A Proto-Account of the ‘Convertibility of the Transcendentals’ in Plato’s Sophist” — Commentator: Emily Perry (University of California Berkeley)
• Peter Moore (Xavier University), “Sophistry as Mimicry of True Arts: Why There is a Sophist but Not a Sophistic Technitēs” — Commentator: Cristina Ionescu (Catholic University of America)
• Anna Pavani (University of Cologne and Brown University), “The Value Free Method that Values Names” — Commentator: Evan Rodriguez (Idaho State University)
• Christopher Izgin (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany), “Are Aristotle’s Definitions of Truth and Falsity Platonic? Aristotle’s Metaphysics Γ.7, 1011b26–7, and Plato’s Sophist, 240e10–241a1” — Commentator: Mark Wheeler (University of California San Diego)

Organizer

• Nick Smith

Keynote Speaker

• Irina Deretić (University of Belgrade)

Speakers

• Dan Larkin (Georgia Southern University) and Julian Rome (University of Michigan), “Finding Friendship in the Least Likely of Places: Understanding the Lysis through the Sophist” — Commentator: Gale Justin (Sacramento State University)
• Reid Comstock (University of Notre Dame) and Trevor Anderson (University of Notre Dame), “’Cutting Them Down to Size’: Socratic Eros and the Use of Protreptic in the Lysis” — Commentator: Inara Zanuzzi (University of Rio Grande do Sul)
• Evan Rodriguez (Idaho State University), “Three Modes of Protreptic in Plato’s Lysis” — Commentator: Jan Szaif (University of California, Davis)
• Nicholas Kerklaan (University of Calgary), “Flattering the Beautiful: Plato on Love Poetry” — Commentator: Susan Bencomo (Northwestern University)
• Freya Möbus (Loyola University Chicago), “Socratic Therapy for the Glutton” — Commentator: Steven Goldman (Portland State University)
• Justin Clark (Hamilton College), “The Role of the ‘What is F-ness?’ Question in Plato’s Lysis” — Commentator: Brad Berman (Portland State University)
• Evan Schultz (University of Notre Dame), “Lack and Desire in the Lysis.” — Commentator: Nara Ivette López-Contreras (Université de Montréal)
• Andrew Payne (Saint Joseph’s University), “Philia as Fellowship in Plato’s Lysis” — Commentator: Jeremy Reid (San Francisco State University)
• Yumi Suzuki (University of Bern), “Philosopher’s Friends – Does Plato Attempt to Define “Philosopher” in the Lysis?” — Commentator: Faith McFadden (University of Southern California)
• Yancy Hughes Dominick (Seattle University), “Gender and Discourse in Plato’s Lysis” — Commentator: Don E. Wayne (University of California, San Diego)
• David Jennings (University of California, Merced), “The Akin vs. the Good in Plato’s Lysis” — Commentator: Anna Bates (University of Washington)

Organizer

• Mark Wheeler

Keynote Speaker

• Deborah Modrak (University of Rochester), "Protagoras and Socrates—More Alike Than Different?" — Commentator: Eric Morelli (Point Loma Nazarene College)

Speakers

• Adam Beresford (Univ. of Massachusetts, Boston), "Protagoras and Socrates—More Alike Than Different?" — Commentator: Jan Szaif (University of California, Davis)
• Clerk Shaw (Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville), "Motivational Conflict and the Moral Paradox in Plato's Protagoras" — Commentator: BBlythe Greene (University of California, San Diego)
• Oksana Maksymchuk (University of Arkansas), "An Anthropological Defense of the Measure Doctrine in the Protagoras" — Commentator: Grant Dowling (Stanford University)
• Aliza Ashraf (Queens College, City University of New York), "Protagoras and Socrates on Courage and Knowledge" — Commentator: Ryan Drake (Fairfield University)
• Marta Jimenez (Emory University), "Equality in Love: The Education of Lover and Beloved in Plato’s Protagoras" — Commentator: Keitel Del Rosario (San Diego State University)
• Deborah Modrak (University of Rochester), "Piety in the Protagoras: Plato’s Thoughts on the Great Speech" — Commentator: Jan Szaif (University of California, Davis)
• Carissa Phillips-Garrett (Loyola Marymount University), "Socratic Intellectualism in the Protagoras" — Commentator: David Hoinski (West Virginia University)

Organizer

• Nick Smith

Keynote Speakers

• Russell Jones (Harvard University) and Ravi Sharma (Clark University), "Epistēmē and Technē in the Republic"
• Jessica Moss (New York University), "There is No Doxa of Forms: Plato's Theory of Doxa in the Republic"

Speakers

• Joanne Waugh (University of South Florida), "Socrates, Female Guardians, and the Very Soul of Philosophy" — Commentator: Joel A. Martinex (Lewis & Clark College)
• Rosemark Twomey (Simon Fraser University), "What Do People Say in the Cave?" — Commentator: Toomas Lott (University of Tartu)
• Michael Arsenault (University of California, Berkeley), "The Lovers of Sights and Sounds and the Argument from Relatives" — Commentator: Nicholas Baima (Florida Atlantic University)
• Margaret Scharle (Reed College), "Memory and the Republic's Divided Line" — Commentator: Evan Scultz (University of Notre Dame)
• Hugh Benson (University of Oklahoma), "Dialectic in the Cave" — Commentator: Emily Austin (Wake Forest University)
• Andrew Payne (Saint Joseph's University), “Dianoia, Dialectic and Giving an Account of Hypotheses in Republic 6 and 7” — Commentator: Sophia Stone (Lynn University)
• Joseph Bjelde (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin), "What EpistēmēDoes" — Commentator: Zenon Culverhouse (Univérsity of the Incarnate Word)
• Catherine McKeen (Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts), "The Problems of Philosophical Rule in Plato's Republic" — Commentator: Christopher C. Raymond (Vassar College)
• Mark Johnstone (McMaster University), "The Desires of Reason in Republic V-VII" — Commentator: Jan Szaif (University of California, Davis)
• Christopher Moore (The Pennsylvania State University), "Philosophoi and Other Philotoioutoi in Plato's Republic 5.474b-6.479e" — Commentator: Charles Ives (University of Washington)
• Abida Malik (University of Bonn), "The Return to the Cave" — Commentator: Darby Cameron Vickers (University of California, Irvine)
• Michael Griffin (University of British Columbia), "The Republic's Analysis of Images as Dissuasion from Politics" — Commentator: Yancy Hughes Dominick (Seattle University)

Organizers

• Jan Szaif and Carey Seal

Keynote Speakers

• Agnes Callard (University of Chicago), "Socrates’ Protreptic Theory of Desire"
• Nicholas Smith (Lewis & Clark College), "Socrates: Apprentice at Politics (on 521d6-e1)"

Speakers

• Amos Espeland (Stanford University), "Law and the Legislative Art in the Gorgias" — Commentator: Andrew Payne (Saint Joseph's University)
• Casey Perin (University of California, Irvine), "Why Socrates Fails to Refute Polus" — Commentator: Daniel Drucker (University of Michigan)
• Sebastian Odzuck (Goethe Universität Frankfurt), "What does it mean to want our actions?" — Commentator: Naomi Reshotko (University of Denver)
• Mini-Symposium: Callicles and Socrates on the Nature of Human Desire
  Rachana Kamtekar (University of Arizona), "The Calliclean Conception of Nature"
  Willie Costello (Stanford University), "The Real Dispute between Socrates and Callicles"
  Commentator (on both talks): Jozef Müller (University of California, Riverside)
• Katharine O’Reilly (University of Oxford), "The Myth of the Water Carriers" — Commentator: Kathryn A. Morgan (University of California, Los Angeles)
• Marta Jimenez (Emory University), "Empeiria in the Gorgias" — Commentator: Justin Vlasits (University of California, Berkeley)
• Giulio di Basilio (University College Dublin), "The Gorgias on knowledge, benevolence, and frankness" — Commentator: Claire Griffin (Penn State University)
• Christopher Moore (The Penn State University), "Socrates and Callicles on philosophia" — Commentator: Tushar Irani (Wesleyan University)

Organizers

• Sarah Jansen, Julie Piering, and George Rudebusch

Keynote Speaker

Speakers

• Cristina Ionescu (Catholic University of America), “Pleasures of Learning and the Role of Due Measure in Experiencing Them”
• Justin Vlasits (University of California, Berkeley), "Using the Divine Method in Plato’s Examination of Knowledge"
• Allauren Forbes (University of Pennsylvania), “The Nature of Desire in Plato's Philebus”

Organizer

• Rachana Kamtekar

Keynote Speaker

Speakers

• Franco Trivigno (University of Oslo), “The Argument against Traditional Theism in Laws 10.905d8-907b4”
• Yancy Dominick (Seattle University), “Likening Small to Great: Images and Arguments in Laws 10”
• David O'Connor (University of Notre Dame), “Images in late Plato: Laws X”

Organizer

• Klaus Corcilius

Keynote Speakers

• Paul Woodruff (University of Texas, Austin), “What is the Question in the Hippias Major?”
• Rachana Kamtekar (University of Arizona), “Is it the good person, or no-one, who does wrong willingly?”

Speakers

• Joseph Barnes (Humboldt University Berlin), “Socrates and the Development of ‘Wisdom’” — Commentator: Tim Clarke (UC Berkeley)
• Gale Justin (California State University, Sacramento), “The Logic of “Beautiful – Ugly” in the Hippias Major” — Commentator: William Prior (Santa Clara University)
• Franco Trivigno (Marquette University), “The Moral and the Literary Character of Hippias in the Hippias Major” — Commentator: John Ferrari (UC Berkeley)
• Emily Fletcher (University of Wisconsin - Madison), “Unity, Pleasure and the Fine” — Commentator: George Rudebusch (Northern Arizona University)
• Agnes Callard (University of Chicago), “Being Good at Being Bad” — Commentator: Sven Weigand (Stanford)
• Derin McLeod (UC Berkeley), “Hippias, The Laws, and the Wise Men of Old” — Commentator: Paul Woodruff (University of Texas, Austin)
• Russell Jones (Harvard) & Ravi Sharma (Clark), “Craft, Power, and Virtue in the Hippias Minor” — Commentator: Tony Long (UC Berkeley)
• Zenon Culverhouse (Stanford), “Plato’s Hippias Minor: Dunamis in Action” — Commentator: Yancy Dominick (Seattle University)
• Paul Carelli (University of North Florida), “Power in the Lesser Hippias” — Commentator: David Ebrey (Northwestern University)

Organizer

• Zenon Culverhouse

Keynote Speaker

Speakers

• Yancy Dominick (Seattle University), “No Small Risk: Images in the Cratylus”
• David Ebrey, “The Enemies of Stable Being in the Cratylus”

Organizer

• Naomi Reshotko

Speakers

• David Ebrey (Northwestern University), "A New Philosophical Tool in the Meno" — Commentator: Michelle Jenkins (Whitman College)
• Elaine Landry (University of California-Davis), "Recollection and the Mathematician’s Method in Plato's Meno?" — Commentator: Debra Nails (Michigan State University)
• Chad Wiener (Portland State University), "Meno’s Eristic Paradox" — Commentator: Elliot Welch (University of Maine-Farmington)
• John Martin (University of Denver/Iliff School of Theology), "The Paradox of Inquiry and the Structure of Recollection" — Commentator: Andre Archie (Colorado State University)
• Robert Colter (University of Wyoming), "Forgetting Recollection: Why Socrates does not (really) endorse recollection in the Meno" — Commentator: Gale Justin (California State University, Sacramento)
• Jeffrey Turner (Bucknell University), "Right Opinion and Knowledge in Meno 98b-100b" — Commentator: Jan Szaif (University of California, Davis)
• Joseph Barnes (University of California, Berkeley), "The Stability of Knowledge" — Commentator: William Quincy Faircloth (University of Colorado-Boulder)
• Klaus Corcilius (University of California, Berkeley), "Divine Dispensation" — Commentator: William Prior (Santa Clara University)
• Ronald Baumiller (University of Western Ontario), "The Desire for Bad Things, Ignorance, and the Third Definition of Virtue in Plato’s Meno" — Commentator: Paul Carelli (University of Northern Florida)
• Zenon Culverhouse (Stanford University), "Dunameis in Plato’s Meno" — Commentator: Caleb Cohoe (Metropolitan State University of Denver)

Organizer

• Nick Smith

Keynote Speaker

Speakers

• Mark Ralkowski, “The Politics of the Phaedo” — Commentator: Josh Wilburn (University of Victoria)
• Mark McPherran, “Socrates and Aesop” — Commentator: John Ferrari (University of California, Berkeley)

Organizer

• Monte Johnson

Keynote Speakers

• Coleen Zoller (Susquehanna University), “Nectar and Ambrosia for Plato’s Philosophers”

Speakers

Organizer

• David Ebrey

Keynote Speakers

Speakers

• Dominic Bailey (University of Colorado, Boulder), “Megaricism and the Secret Doctrine” — Commentator:
• David Ebrey (University of California, Berkeley), “Three Problems with the Royal Art”
• Carrie Swanson (Rutgers University), "Self-refutation in Plato’s Euthydemus"

Organizers

• Rachana Kamtekar and Jan Szaif

Keynote Speakers

Speakers

• David Ebrey (University of California, Berkeley), “Socrates and Plato on the Value of Knowledge”