The 2025 SAGP Distinguished Lectureship

André Laks

Professor Emeritus of Ancient Philosophy

Universidad Panamericana, Campus Mexico/Paris-Sorbonne

 “The kouros´ descent. A methodical reading of Parmenides’ route of search?”

Commentator: Michael Della Rocca

Sterling Professor of Philosophy 

Yale University

October 15, 2025 

12:00pm EDT (US)

Abstract: Given that there are only two routes that one can fathom, that of being and that of non-being, and given that one of the two routes, that of non-being, is an absolute non-starter, one would expect that the two sections of the goddess’ exposition, the ontological and the physical, are sections of the same route. I shall explore the conditions, conceptual and hermeneutical, under which this expectation can be made compatible with the textual evidence. Decisive in this respect is a reflection about the scope of the recurring phrase hodos dizêsios, the ‘route of search’: what is the search the search of? And can hodos be read as an archaic equivalent of method, which would suggest a quasi-Cartesian relationship between the two sections? I shall suggest a reading of B6.2-3, B8.53-54– arguably the most problematic lines of the poem – and B8.61DK that goes in this direction. 

André Laks is Professor Emeritus of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Paris-Sorbonne and at Princeton University, now teaching at the Universidad Panamerícana, México City. Recent books: Historiographies de la philosophie antique, Belles-Lettres (2021), Plato’s Second Republic: An Essay on the Laws, Princeton UP (2022). He is currently preparing with Glenn Most the second edition, corrected and actualized, of their Loeb Early Greek Philosophy in 9 volumes.

Michael Della Rocca is Sterling Professor of Philosophy at Yale University where he has taught since 1991. He works in the history of philosophy, especially early modern rationalism, and in contemporary metaphysics and, most recently, in ethics. His book, The Parmenidean Ascent (Oxford University Press, 2020) is an exploration of the rationalist underpinnings of monism, an exploration inspired by the likes of Sextus Empiricus, Spinoza, Bradley, Wittgenstein, and, of course, Parmenides.

This event will be held via zoom. To register, email apreus@binghamton.edu

The SAGP Distinguished Lecturer is chosen annually by the Board of Directors in recognition of very substantial contributions to scholarship in our field. This lectureship is a high professional distinction in its own right, an honour bestowed upon a scholar by their peers under the auspices of SAGP.