Online Lectures

Thomas Taylor: The English Platonist by Adina Bezerita

Thomas Taylor (1758 – 1835) was an English translator of the complete works of Plato, Aristotle and the Orphic fragments. Born in London, he was devotedly self-taught in the study of classics. After working as a bank clerk, he was appointed Secretary of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, the precursor of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA), in which capacity he made friends with wealthy patrons who sponsored his many translations.

Taylor’s translations inspired Blake, Shelley, Wordsworth, possibly Coleridge, and Yeats. In American editions they were read by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott, Thomas Moore Johnson (founder of The Platonist Journal), William Torrey Harris, the United States Commissioner of Education, and G. R. S. Mead, secretary to Helena Blavatsky of the Theosophical Society.

In a series of three lectures, we will discuss Thomas Taylor’s influence on a wide range of movements including Idealism, Romanticism and Transcendentalism, and will revisit some of his most illustrious writings.

This event is being held in association with The Fintry Trust.

Saturdays, 11 Jan, 15 Feb, 8 Mar 2025
17.00 – 18.15 (London Time)

The Platonic Hieros Gamos of the Demiurgic Father and the Khoratic Mother by Danielle A. Layne

From within the Platonic tradition to 'become like God' (Tht. 176b) has often been associated with, at best, the possibility of Demiurgic mimesis or, in less optimistic tenors, the seeming demand that philosophers escape or 'flee' from the sensible, embodied world. This latter option, nevertheless, seems contradictory to the spirit of Plato's Timaeus insofar as the 'sensible living thing' is explicitly divinized, i.e. this world is already divine, already like the Intelligible Living Being insofar as it is both the product and progeny of a Demiurgic Father as well as a Khoratic Mother. Consequently, it is the contention of this talk to explore this divine coupling or hieros gamos which unites seemingly opposing principles, i.e. knowledge and ignorance, reason and madness, the divine masculine and feminine powers constitutive of the soul's theosis.

Lecturer Bio:

Danielle A. Layne, Professor of Philosophy at Gonzaga University, has published widely on Plato and the Platonic tradition, including the recent “Divine Names and the Mystery of Diotima” in the Routledge Companion to Women in Ancient Philosophy (2024). Founder of Palinode Productions, a Deep Learning Philosophy Platform (June 2024 marketing release), Layne eagerly embraces novel approaches to the study of antiquity that reanimate and vivify the uniqueness of the Platonic tradition.

This event is being held in association with The Fintry Trust.

Saturday, 1 Feb 2025, 17.00 – 18.15 (London Time)