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The Cambridge Centre for the Study of Platonism

Each term, the Centre hosts various reading seminars devoted to Platonic themes and Authors. See below for both present and past reading groups:

Ongoing Reading Seminars
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Previous Reading Seminars

Michaelmas 2023:
  • Plotinus: Ennead III.6 (26), 'On the Impassivity of Things without Body'.

Lent 2023:

  • Plotinus: Ennead VI.7 (38), 'The Forms and the Good'.

Easter 2021:

  • Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite: Divine Names

Lent 2021:

  • Iamblichus: De Mysteriis

Michaelmas 2020:

  • Proclus: The Elements of Theology

Easter 2020:

  • Plotinus: Ennead II.9 (33), 'Against the Gnostics'.

Lent 2020:

  • Plotinus: Ennead IV.7 (2), 'On the Immortality of Soul'.

Michaelmas 2019:

  • Plotinus: Ennead V.5 (32), 'That the Intelligibles are not Outside the Intellect, and On the Good'.

Lent 2019:

  • Plotinus: Ennead III.2-3 (47), 'On Providence', & III.4 (15), 'On Our Allotted Guardian Spirit' - Thursdays 11.00-12.30, starting 17 January.
  • Hegel: Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion - Wednesdays 11.00-12.30, Room 4.
  • Levinas: Autrement qu’être ou au-delà de l’essence/Otherwise than Being, or Beyond Essence (1974) - Tuesday, 14:00-15:30, Room 4, starting January 23.
  • Eriugena: Periphyseon III - Tuesdays 11.00-12.30, Room 4, starting 15 January. 

Michaelmas 2018:

  • Plotinus: Ennead III.2 (47), 'On Providence'.
  • Schelling: The Ages of the World (Weltalter, 1815).
  • Kant: Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural 
  • Science to Physics.
  • Eriugena: Periphyseon II on Trinitarian processions & Primordial causes.

Latest news

Seminar | Neoplatonic Texts: Plotinus' Ennead I.8

7 October 2024

This term, the Centre's Neoplatonism reading seminar will study Ennead I.8, in which Plotinus discusses the nature and origin of evils. This seminar will take place on Thursdays, 9-10:30 (UK time). For more information and how to join, please contact Ben Davidson ( bcd31@cam.ac.uk ).

Seminar | Hadi Fakhoury & Douglas Hedley: Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit

7 October 2024

The Phenomenology of Spirit is perhaps the most decisive text in the history of German idealism. It was in this text that Hegel achieved, albeit in a provisional form, the structure of his mature thought that has come to be known as Absolute Idealism. It was this Absolute Idealism that furnished a point of critique for...

Book Launch | Anthony O'Hear, 'The Prism of Truth | 14th October 2024

4 October 2024

On Monday 14th October, the Centre will host a launch event for Prof. Anthony O'Hear's new volume, The Prism of Truth: Reflections on Myth . Further details of the volume can be found here: https://wipfandstock.com/9781666781014/the-prism-of-truth/#:~:text=After... . This event will take place in the Lightfoot Room of the...

Workshop | Cambridge Cabbalism | 24th October 2024

4 October 2024

On Thursday 24th October 2024, the Centre will host a workshop entitled 'Cambridge Cabbalism', exploring the interactions of the seventeeth-century Cambridge Platonists with the Cabbalistic tradition. This event will take place in the Runcie Room. The programme is here: cc_programme_-2.pdf cc_programme_-2.pdf Participants...

Talk | Curtis White, 'C.S. Lewis’s Via Positiva and T.S. Eliot’s Via Negativa' | 18th November 2024

4 October 2024

On Monday 18th November 2024, the Centre will host Dr Curtis White, who will give a talk, 'C.S. Lewis’s Via Positiva and T.S. Eliot’s Via Negativa: Two Writers Divided by a Common Faith'. This event will take place in the Runcie Room of the Faculty of Divinity, beginning at 5pm (UK time). The talk can be joined remotely...