David Sedley, PhD, an internationally acclaimed Greek philosopher, will deliver the annual John and Penelope Biggs Lecture in the Classics for the Assembly Series at 4 p.m. Thursday, March 19, in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom of Anheuser-Busch Hall on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis. The lecture, “What Is Plato’s Theory of Forms?” is free and open to the public.
Sedley, the Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy and Fellow of Christ’s College at the University of Cambridge, is an expert in first-century philosophy. His research interests include skepticism, stoicism, atomism, Lucretius, pre-Socratic epistemology, peripatetic ethics and Plato — one of the most influential philosophers in the Western canon.
Sedley believes Plato’s theory of forms is his most iconic doctrine, as it enables us to understand abstract qualities such as equality or goodness. Sedley’s talk will focus on illuminating the theory’s meaning, motivation, attractions and complexities.
Sedley’s major publications include “Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity” (2007); “The Midwife of Platonism: Text and Subtext in Plato’s Theaetetus” (2004); “Plato’s Cratylus (Cambridge Studies in the Dialogues of Plato)” (2003); and the two-volume “The Hellenistic Philosophers” (1987).
For information on this and other Assembly Series events, visit assemblyseries.wustl.edu or call 314-935-4620.