Prof Catherine Osborne
| Job Title | Contact | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Professor of Philosophy |
Tel: +44 (0)1603 59 2719 |
Arts Building 3.29 |
- Personal
- Research
- Teaching
- Publications
- External
- Admin
Biography
At Cambridge 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 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. 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 Norwich as a Lecturer in Philosophy, promoted to Reader in 2006. I was on sabbatical leave, for the Spring and Autumn semesters of 2004, of which the second semester was funded by the AHRC. I have been Head of School since 2005. During this period I have overseen the growth of the School from 5 to 8 research-active 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 am a visiting scholar at New Hall in Cambridge, and I attend a variety of research seminars and conferences in Cambridge.
To view my publications list, please click here
To download a CV please click here
Website
Key Research Interests
Researches: Ancient and medieval philosophy, history (ancient) and philosophy of science, epistemology, ethics, environmental philosophy, Wittgenstein
Core topics: Presocratics; Empedocles; Matter; Knowledge and Truth in Plato; late antiquity; ancient commentators on Aristotle; Philoponus; Clement of Alexandria; love (in ancient and early Christian thought); animals.
Research Interests
Early Greek Philosophy (that is Presocratic philosophy from Thales to the Sophists) has been a longstanding focus of my work since my groundbreaking 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 the relation of 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 am currently writing 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 History 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.
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 in 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. This work is funded by the Leverhulme Trust under their Research Fellowship scheme (2007-9).
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 the embedded texts of 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 I am involved in these research groups: The Wittgenstein Research Centre; The Philosophy and the Arts Group; Ancient Philosophy; Ethical, Social and Political Philosophy; Philosophy of Religion.
Past Research Projects and Grants
| Project Title | Start Date | End Date | Funding Body |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plato on Knowledge and Truth | 1/9/2007 | 31/8/2009 | Leverhulme Trust |
| Mind Conference Grants: Wittgenstein and Literature | 16/7/2007 | 18/7/2007 | Mind Association |
| Ancient Philosophers and Animals | 1/9/2004 | 31/12/2004 | Arts and Humanities Research Council |
Teaching Interests
Publications
- Catherine Osborne, 2001, 'Comment mesurer le mouvement dans le vide? Quelques remarques sur deux paradoxes de Zénon d'Elée', in N/A (ed), Les anciens savants, Les cahiers philosophiques de Strasbourg, N/A. (ISBN: 0000-0000).
- Catherine Osborne, 2003, 'Knowledge is perception: a defence of Theaetetus', in N/A (ed), Ideal and Culture of Knowledge in Plato, Franz Steiner Verlag. (ISBN: 3515083375).
- Catherine Osborne, 2004, Presocratic Philosophy: a very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, (ISBN: 0192840940).
- Catherine Osborne, 2005, 'Sin and moral responsibility in Empedocles's cosmic cycle', in N/A (ed), N/A, Institute for Philosopical Research, Patras. (ISBN: 9608818311).
- Catherine Osborne, 2006, Philoponus Commentary on Aristotle's Physics book 1.1-3, Duckworth, (ISBN: 0715634097).
- Catherine Osborne, 2006, 'Was there an Eleatic Revolution in philosophy?', in N/A (ed), Rethinking Revolutions through Ancient Greece, Cambridge University Press. (ISBN: 9780521862127).
- Catherine Osborne 2006, 'Socrates in the Platonic dialogues', Philosophical Investigations, pp. 1-21.
- Catherine Osborne, 2007, Dumb beasts and Dead Philosophers: Humanity and the Humane in Ancient Philosophy and Literature, Oxford University Press, (ISBN: 9780199282067).
- Catherine Osborne, 2009, Philoponus: On Aristotle Physics 1.4-9 (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle), Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd, (ISBN: 978-0715637876).
Professional Activities
- 0
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
Key Responsibilities
Professor Osborne is Research Director for the School of Philosophy.