Edoardo Benati

The Pseudo-Platonic Definitions

My PhD, which I am writing at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa under the supervision of Mauro Tulli, is a critical edition with introduction and commentary on the pseudo-Platonic Definitions (Ὅροι). This text, which seems to be the result of a complex and chronologically stratified process, includes Academic, Aristotelian, and Stoic definitions of philosophical concepts; therefore, the aim of my PhD project is to cast light on the provenance of every single definition and, more generally, to place the Ὅροι within the history of Plato’s Academy.

In order to comment on an ancient Greek text, however, it is indispensable to make use of a reliable critical edition. Since the most recent critical edition of the Ὅροι dates back to J. Souilhé (1930), I have devoted time to examining all the extant witnesses (both manuscripts and indirect tradition) to the text of the Definitions. One of the most important results of this philological research – carried out in Pisa during the first year of my PhD program – was the discovery of Parisinus Gr. 1813 (G) as a primary and independent source. Some original conjectures have been proposed, as well.

Edoardo Benati is a visiting student at Durham from September 2018 to July 2019.