The 2021 SAGP Distinguished Lectureship

Abstract: In Greek usage one is at liberty to refer to or address a divinity without naming it. It has gone largely unremarked, however, that a philosophical tradition running from Xenophanes to Aristotle, and prominently including Socrates, went well beyond that permissive practice, keeping gods systematically anonymous. The reason? Not a leaning towards monotheism, but respect for the moral homogeneity of the divine.

David Sedley, Emeritus Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy, University of Cambridge, has been a leading figure in the study of Ancient Philosophy for the last five decades. His work has been deeply influential in every major area of the field, from the Presocratics to Plato, Aristotle, the Hellenistic Philosophers, the philosophers of the Roman era, and the tradition of the commentators. Sedley’s books include Lucretius and the Transformation of Greek Wisdom (Cambridge 1998), Plato’s Cratylus (Cambridge 2003), The Midwife of Platonism. Text and Subtext in Plato’s Theaetetus (Oxford 2004), and Creationism and its Critics in Antiquity (University of California, 2007). He co-authored The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge 1987) with Tony Long, co-edited Ancient Models of Mind: Studies in Human and Divine Rationality (Cambridge 2010), and edited The Philosophy of Antiochus (Cambridge 2012). Sedley has served as editor of The Classical Quarterly, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, Cambridge Classical Studies, and other series. Among his previous honours are visiting lectureships at Princeton, Yale, Cornell, University of Toronto, and Berkeley.