Richard Stalley reviews my book Platonic Legislations (2017) in The International Journal of the Platonic Tradition. "Dusenbury's ... suggestion that Plato engages in a critique of law undoubtedly offers a fresh and potentially illuminating approach to Plato's political and legal philosophy," Stalley writes, "and also raises some significant issues for the philosophy of law." He continues: "The… Continue reading Richard Stalley on Platonic Legislations (2017)
Author: David Lloyd Dusenbury
David Lloyd Dusenbury is a philosopher, historian of ideas, Times Literary Supplement contributor and senior fellow at Budapest's Danube Institute. The author of I Judge No One and The Innocence of Pontius Pilate (published by Hurst and Oxford University Press), he is also Chair for Jewish-Christian Relations at the University of Antwerp.
Did modern philosophy begin with an ancient joke?
From an essay I'm writing: "As Giambattista Vico maliciously points out, a proto-cogito is stated to comic effect in a Roman play, Amphitryon, in which a less-than-clever character mutters to himself: 'Yet when I think, I am equally certain that I am the same' (Sed quom cogito, equidem certo idem sum). It is certainly tempting… Continue reading Did modern philosophy begin with an ancient joke?
“Trouble in Paradise” in the Los Angeles Review of Books
"Isn’t it possible – or even, tautological – that many of us feel threatened by the idea of human-like machines precisely because they will be, in certain respects, like humans? Of course, this raises the question of what humans are like ..." In a new essay for The Philosophical Salon (Los Angeles Review of Books), Dusenbury asks… Continue reading “Trouble in Paradise” in the Los Angeles Review of Books
History of ideas Leuven
As part of a conference titled Marsilius of Padua between History, Philosophy and Politics, Dusenbury will give a short lecture on law, coercive power, and the importance of the Roman trial of Jesus in Marsilius of Padua's short text, Defensor minor (ca 1340). The conference will be held on 6-7 July 2018 at the Institute of… Continue reading History of ideas Leuven
“Data! Data! Data!” in the TLS Online
In a new essay for the TLS, Dusenbury notes the meteoric rise of the term 'data' in the 1890s, & suggests that the figure of Sherlock Holmes can be read as a precursor to IBM's Watson. Read "Data! Data! Data!" online here. Sunil Amoli, "Sherlock Holmes", Watercolour on paper saatchiart.com
Alex Long comments on Platonic Legislations (2017)
In the new issue of Phronesis, Alex Long takes note of Platonic Legislations (2017) — a book that moves, Long says, "at breakneck speed". Copied below: "In Platonic Legislations: An Essay on Legal Critique in Ancient Greece, Dusenbury considers the relationship between law and flux: as legislation is undertaken in a world of constant change, a lawgiver’s work… Continue reading Alex Long comments on Platonic Legislations (2017)
Ancient political philosophy Geneva
Dusenbury will be writing several chapters of his next book in residence at the gorgeous estate of The Hardt Foundation in Vandœuvres, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland, in May 2018. Baron Kurd von Hardt (d. 1958)
Ancient political philosophy Cardiff
Dusenbury will give a lecture titled "The World City" at the Seventh British Patristics Conference. The conference will be held on 5-7 September 2018, hosted by Cardiff University's Centre for Late Antique Religion and Culture. Mandorla Mappa Mundi (Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford), from a vellum MS of Ranulf Higden's Polychronicon sive Historia Polycratica ... (mid-14th c.)
“Immanuel Kant in the Garden of Eden” Budapest
As part of a conference on artificial intelligence (AI), Dusenbury will give a lecture on the unnerving implications of Kant's 1786 essay, "Conjectural Beginning of Human History". The conference will be held on 3 May 2018, from 11 a.m. to 2.30 p.m, at the Danube Commission Building in Budapest. Rachael and Deckard, Blade Runner (1982)
“When your climate seems a permanent home”
Remember when Your climate seems a permanent home ... What griefs & convulsions startled Rome, Ecbatana, Babylon. - W. H. Auden, "The Sea & the Mirror", 1943
D. L. Dusenbury 