Catherine Osborne

Research Interests

Early Greek Philosophy (that is Presocratic philosophy from Thales to the Sophists) has been a longstanding focus of my work since my early work on Hippolytus of Rome, and on the use of embedded texts (Rethinking Early Greek Philosophy). My contribution in this field includes challenging the traditional division of Empedocles' work into two poems (on which my initial work antedated the identification of the Strasbourg papyrus by ten years). In more recent work I have been challenging the traditional assumption that thinkers after Parmenides were aware of Parmenides and responding to him, and questioning received opinions regarding the relation between Heraclitus and Parmenides.

My interests in Plato often relate to issues in Neoplatonic thought and early Christian thought. In the book Eros Unveiled and various articles I have focused on the dialogues on love (Lysis, Symposium and Phaedrus), and I frequently return to issues in the Timaeus. My current work is on the Protagoras, Theaetetus, Sophist, Cratylus and other dialogues on knowledge. (see Research Projects).

Much of my work on Aristotle has been around issues of mind, soul and imagination, some of it related to my work on animal minds (in Dumb Beasts and Dead Philosophers). I have worked on the De anima and De sensu, Ethics, Metaphysics and Physics. I am interested in Aristotle's work on perception, memory, self awareness, teleology, animal minds, the scala naturae and self-love (among other things).

In the philosophy of late antiquity I range widely in Middle Platonism, Neoplatonism, and early Christian thought. In the Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca I have focused primarily on the Alexandrian Christian Neoplatonist John Philoponus. I have recently finished some work on Clement of Alexandria for the Cambridge History of Philosophy in Late Antiquity.

In history of modern philosophy I have explored how the Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth uses Presocratic philosophy in the True Intellectual System of the Universe. I retain an occasional interest in the history of science and mathematics.

In contemporary philosophy I am interested in recent work in epistemology, the concept of truth, rule-following and ethical dilemmas, various issues in metaphysics including the notion of 'matter' and the location or usefulness of 'values', and in the role of the imagination and literary sensitivity in ethics.

I welcome enquiries from potential PhD students in these areas of philosophy. It is also possible to begin your postgraduate career with a Masters degree centred on Ancient Philosophy by enrolling for the MRes at UEA. Ancient philosophy components are also available in the MA in Philosophy and Literature and in the MA in Social Philosophy.

To access my publication list (which includes links to a number of published papers that can be downloaded or read online) click on "websites" in the menu on the left. Some papers currently awaiting publication can be found by clicking "papers" in the menu on the left.

Research Projects

Plato on Knowledge and Truth. I am currently engaged in work on the idea that Plato's concept of knowledge and the related concept of truth do not map well onto the concerns of modern epistemology since Russell and Wittgenstein, and especially with the idea of propositional attitudes. The focus is on a range of dialogues including Theaetetus, Sophist, and Cratylus. The aim is to show how sensitivity to Plato's own conceptual map will make those dialogues speak about something quite other than what they are usually taken to be about, and can assist in destabilising some modern preconceptions about propositional attitudes and propositional knowledge. In 2007-9 I was funded for the early stages of this work by the Leverhulme Trust under their Research Fellowship scheme.

I have been a contributor to the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle project, in which I am responsible for the English translation, introduction and notes for two volumes of Philoponus (Commentary on Physics I).

Future individual and collaborative projects under construction include (a) a project on Presocratic Philosophy; (b) an investigation of the notion of matter (its metaphysical status, its usefulness, its historical and contemporary meaningfulness); (c) some collaborative work on issues in metaphilosophy.

At UEA we have a developing centre for the study of the nature and practice of philosophy. I also participate in the work of current research groups working on Wittgenstein, Philosophy and the Arts Group; Ancient Philosophy.

Biography

At Cambridge (King's College) I took both parts of the Classics Tripos, specialising in Ancient Philosophy in Part II. I also took an option paper from the Theology Tripos, in Early Christian Life and Thought (for which I was supervised by Rowan Williams, then a tutor at Westcott House). My first philosophy teachers were (Sir) Geoffrey Lloyd, G.E.L. Owen, and Myles Burnyeat.

My PhD, in the Classics Faculty in Cambridge, was interdisciplinary between Classics and Theology. My supervisor was the late Christopher Stead, then Ely Professor of Divinity. I attended the ancient philosophy seminars of G.E.L. Owen (until his death) and of Myles Burnyeat, and Patristic seminars in the Theology Faculty with Henry Chadwick, Rowan Williams and Christopher Stead. My PhD examiners were Henry Chadwick and Richard Sorabji. The PhD thesis, on Hippolytus of Rome and the Presocratics, formed the basis of my first book (Rethinking Early Greek Philosophy).

In 1984 I was appointed to a Junior Research Fellowship at New Hall in Cambridge, and in 1987 I moved to Oxford to a Senior Research Fellowship at St Anne's College which I held during my tenure of a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship (under the Oxford Sub-faculty of Philosophy). During these years I developed my interest in Platonic Love and the idea of the love of God in Patristic Thought, leading to my second book (Eros Unveiled).

In 1990 I was appointed to a lectureship in the Philosophy Department at Swansea. It was there that I became a philosopher and not just a classicist and patrologist. My role had been formerly held by Rush Rhees, and included 60 lectures on the Presocratics, compulsory for second years. The Swansea Department was large. It had grown as a result of the closure of two other Welsh departments, and besides DZ Phillips there were several other Wittgensteinian philosophers, such as H.O. Mounce, Ilham Dilman, and R.W. Beardsmore. It was probably the strongest Wittgensteinian department in the UK, and was to expand further over the next few years, recruiting a number of young lecturers from the same tradition. Unfortunately, not all the Wittgensteinians in Swansea agreed on philosophical or academic values, and the department was racked by bitter and often tragic internal strife throughout the nineties. It was eventually destroyed by its own forces of self-destruction. Nevertheless, in its heyday it was an inspirational School, and changed my life and my philosophical outlook for good.

During my time in Swansea I was commuting weekly from Oxford, where I was fortunate to be able to take some part in the philosophical scene. In particular I was a member from its earliest days of the legendary Friday morning De anima seminar run by David Charles and attended by Michael Frede.

In 2000 I left Swansea, along with some other members of that department. For three years (2000 to 2003) I was Reader in Greek Culture at the University of Liverpool in the Classics Department (part of the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology), where I taught Intermediate Greek, Tragedy, Women, and Myth to students taking degrees in Classical Studies and Ancient History. The fruits of my years in Swansea and in Liverpool emerged in my 2007 book Dumb Beasts and Dead Philosophers.

In 2003 I moved to UEA as a Lecturer in Philosophy, promoted to Reader in 2006 and Professor in 2008. I was on research leave for the Spring and Autumn semesters of 2004, of which the second semester was funded by the AHRC. I was Head of School from January 2005 to July 2008. During this period I oversaw the growth of the UEA School of Philosophy from 5 to 13 active research staff, the development of a lively Wittgensteinian research group, the development of two new masters programmes, and a gradual expansion of the undergraduate and graduate provision in ancient philosophy. I was on research leave during 2008-9 funded by a Leverhulme Research Fellowship.

During 2007-9 I was a visiting scholar at Murray Edwards College in Cambridge (formerly New Hall). In 2008-9 I was also an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Philosophy in Aberdeen, where I spent some time on research in the Autumn term. In Spring 2009 I was a Visiting Fellow at Oxford Brookes University for two weeks, and in May 2009 I spent three weeks at the Fondation Hardt in Vandoeuvres, Geneva.

If you are looking for Robin Osborne, the ancient history professor at Cambridge, his web site is listed under my websites in the menu on the left.

Please note that the name "Osborne" is spelled without any 'u', although Google will probably have sent you to this page even if you spelled it wrong. I'd be grateful if you would spell it right if you are citing my work. Thank you.