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Cosmology and Argument in Ancient Philosophy
The aim of this conference is to gather a select group of scholars working on ancient cosmology, logic, epistemology, and metaphysics to explore the interaction between ancient cosmologies and arguments from the Presocratics to Late Antiquity, how different modes of argumentation interact in a single author or a group of authors, and whether there was, if any, an evolution of these themes in the history of ancient Greek philosophy. The conference will take place at K. Donelaitis Room, Faculty of Philology, Universiteto st. 5.
Keynote speakers
Gábor Betegh
University of Cambridge
Caterina Pello
University of Geneva
Thomas Kjeller Johansen
University of Oslo
Barbara Michaela Sattler
University of St. Andrews
Klaus Corcilius
University of Tübingen
Matthew Duncombe
University of Nottingham
Chiara Ferella
Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
Aistė Čelkytė
Leiden University
Mantas Adomėnas
Vilnius University / Baltic Institute of Advanced Technology
Vilius Bartninkas
Vilnius University
Luca Gili
Vilnius University
Chiara Ferella
Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
Chiara Ferella is Graduiertenkolleg and adjunct lecturer at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. Previously, she was a visiting scholar at the University of Edinburgh. She has published Reconstructing Empedocles' Thought (CUP, 2024), co-edited Living Bodies, Dead Bodies, and the Cosmos (Mohr Siebeck, 2024) and Paths of Knowledge: Interconnections between Knowledge and Journey in the Graeco-Roman World (Berlin, 2016) and published many articles on ancient cosmology and metaphors in ancient philosophy in Classical Quarterly, Mnemosyne, Rhizomata and elsewhere.
Abstract
From the Derveni Papyrus to Plato: The Cosmological Context of Parmenides’ Mounogenes Being
Parmenides’ B8.1–4 opens the philosophical account of Being with a programmatic catalogue of defining markers (sēmata): its ingenerate and deathless nature, wholeness, stillness, and perfection. Among these, mounogenes stands out as both conceptually rich and semantically elusive. Traditionally understood to support strict monism or internal uniformity of Being, the term has often been subsumed too readily into broader ontological frameworks, without sufficient attention to its specific meaning.
This paper re-examines mounogenes on its own terms. A methodological difficulty arises from the outset: unlike other markers, no explicit verbal cue in the extant text of B8 clearly elaborates this adjective, leaving scholars divided over which lines develop the concept. To address this, the paper turns to external sources for semantic insight. It first explores earlier uses of mounogenes, focusing on its mythological resonance in Hesiod and the Orphic theogony of the Derveni Papyrus. With this background in place, it then returns to B 8 to identify lines that align with this enriched semantic field and proposes a renewed interpretation of Being as mounogenes. Finally, a retrospective reading of Empedocles’ Sphairos and Plato’s Timaeus highlights the enduring significance of motifs that may trace back to the Parmenidean formulation.
Thus, spanning early myth to Platonic cosmology, the investigation positions mounogenes as key to grasping the ontological distinctiveness Parmenides attributes to Being.