[MaFLa] Invitation: Lindsay Judson (Oxford University), Thursday 27 February, 17:30 (fwd)

[Istvan Bodnar]

---------- Forwarded message ----------

The Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies

cordially invites you

to the next Lecture

of its 9th Colloquia Series  

 

by

 

Lindsay Judson (Oxford University)

 

on

 


                           Aristotle's Astrophysics



 

Time: 27 February, 17:30

Place: CEU, Room 001, Nádor 13, Budapest

 

Abstract

 

As a physicist Aristotle usually gets a very bad press from scientists and
historians of science, in particular for his endorsement of the geocentric
picture of the cosmos and for his supposedly pernicious influence of the
subsequent course of physics and cosmology.  In this talk I shall try to
undermine this assessment of Aristotle, focusing on what we might call his
astrophysics ? that is, his integration of astronomy (the theory of what the
motions of the heavenly bodies are which produce the observed phenomena in
the sky) with physics (the theory of what produces those motions, what
physical reality underlies them).  I shall argue that this integration,
though of course far from perfect, embodies a degree of comprehensiveness,
sophistication and elegance unparalleled in the ancient world. 

 

Lindsay Judson is Official Student and Tutor in Philosophy at Christ Church,
Oxford.  He is General Editor of the Clarendon Aristotle Series, and (with
Julia Annas) of Oxford Aristotle Studies.  He works principally on Plato and
on Aristotle?s metaphysics and natural philosophy; his publications include
?Aristotelian Teleology?, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 29 (Winter 2005),
Remembering Socrates: Philosophical Essays (with Vassilis Karasmanis, Oxford
University Press, 2006), ?John Lloyd Ackrill: a memoir?, Proceedings of the
British Academy 161 (2009), and ?Carried Away in the Euthyphro?, in David
Charles (ed.), Definition in Greek Philosophy (Oxford University Press,
2010).  He is currently working on a translation and commentary on
Aristotle, Metaphysics Lambda.

 

http://cems.ceu.hu/events/2014-02-27/aristotle%E2%80%99s-astrophysics