Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy: Volume XV (1999)

This volume represents some of the activities of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy from the academic year 1997-98. It contains nine colloquia that were hosted by eight different colleges and universities in the greater Boston area. Discussions of the work of Plato dominate this volume, with six of the nine colloquia based on Platonic texts. The colloquia begins with an analysis of division in the ancient atomists. Later, a study of truth in Arostotle gives a counterpoint to the Platonic interplay of drama and pedagogy or logic and rhetoric examined in papers about the Theaetetus and Symposium . A presentation of Proclus’s account of evil revisits some of the issues of sophistry and morality discussed in relation to Plato’s Republic and Euthydemus . Finally, the remaining Platonic papers are in a way not about Plato at all, but about Socrates and Xanthippe, supplementing Platonic dialogues with Xenophon and others. Underneath these discussions of ancient texts current modes of writing philosophy run along, providing alternative interpretative schemes.