Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Invitation to the Protrepticus

Below is an address I recently gave to an Academy in Tripoli, Libya (via Skype). It is intended to serve as an overview of the project. An Arabic translation is available here.

An invitation to Aristotle’s lost work, the Protrepticus

2010 November 1

Dear Colleagues, Greetings.

Forgive me for speaking to you in English and thank you especially to those who are following along in a foreign language. I appreciate your extraordinary efforts to facilitate international philosophical dialogue. As Aristotle in the Protrepticus says: “wherever in the inhabited world the mind runs, it latches onto the truth equally as if it were present there”, and you have allowed your minds to run far and wide indeed.

Today we are going to discuss research into a lost work of Aristotle conducted by D. S. Hutchinson (Professor of Philosophy, University of Toronto in Canada) and myself, Monte Ransome Johnson (Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of California in San Diego).