The intellectual life of late antiquity is characterized by a strong concern with principles (archai): principles of reality, principles of the world, principles of knowledge. Regardless of how one groups intellectuals in late antiquity — into pagans and Christians, philosophers and theologians — they all speak about principles explicitly or implicitly and some of them actively seek to establish what the principles are (e. g., Plotinus, Porphyry, Origen, Damascius, Gnostics, Hermeticists, theurgists). They clearly deem the project of principles to be crucial for establishing how reality is structured, what the place of humans in the world is, what powers affect our lives, how free are we, how we can attain knowledge, and how we can attain happiness or salvation. The search for principles (understood as metaphysical or theological) is then an important issue both of itself and also for shaping ethics. The series of talks in the academic year 2025 of the research project The Platonisms of the Late Antiquity continue exploring, as in the previous year, this topic of principles in its broad application in the intellectual world of late antiquity and will examine questions such as how principles account for reality, how principles explain the interaction between the divine and the human world, and how human happiness and salvation is possible given the structure of reality.

Anna Van den Kerchove (IPT-LEM, CNRS), Anca Vasiliu (CNRS – Centre Léon Robin), Manon Gibot (EPHE-PSL/LEM), Dylan Burns (University of Amsterdam), Nicola Spanu (Foro di studi avanzati "Gaetano Massa"), Luciana Gabriela Soares Santoprete (LEM - CNRS, Paris), Fabienne Jourdan (CNRS, UMR 8167, Orient & Méditerranée), Enrico Volpe (Istituto Italiano per gli studi filosofici – Università degli studi di Salerno), Mariano Troiano (Universidad nacional de La Rioja – Conicet – Universidad nacional de Cuyo), Wendy Elgersma Helleman (University of Jos – University of Toronto), Claudia Lo Casto (Università degli studi di Salerno), Flora Vourch (CNRS – Centre Léon Robin, Paris), Mauricio Marsola (Unifesp, São Paulo), Svetla Slaveva-Griffin (Florida State University), Álvaro Bo (Accademia Vivarium novum), George Karamanolis (University of Wien).