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Södertörn Center for Ancient Philosophy (SCAPh) brings together researchers and students from around to the world specializing in ancient Greek philosophy. Its purpose is to promote scholarship, foster collaboration, exchange ideas, and explore innovative applications of ancient wisdom to address contemporary challenges. The center organizes workshops, conferences, hosts guest lecturers and provides resources for researchers and students with the purpose of building a vibrant and relevant community. The center is housed at Södertörn University, in Stockholm, and its research is generously sponsored by the Axel and Margaret Ax:son Johnson Foundation for Public Benefit. Read more about the center and its vision here.

• Negotiation, Dialogue & Democracy
  

  On the 13th of februari, Olof Pettersson will visit the history of philosophy seminar at Stockholm University and present a paper entitled: “Negotiation, Dialogue, and Democracy: Can Ancient Greek Philosophy Help Resolve Contemporary Political Problems?” (sv. “Förhandling, samtal och demokrati: Kan den antika grekiska filosofin hjälpa oss lösa samtida politiska problem?”). The presentation will be in Swedish. The event is free and open to all. For more info, send an email to olof.pettersson@filosofi.uu.se
• PLATO & POLITICAL LANGUAGE
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  On the 15-16 April 2026, SCAPh will organize an international workshop on PLATO AND POLITICAL LANGUAGE –> Did Plato develop the language of dialogue to supplement existing public discourse with a novel concept of political deliberation? Plato’s critical appraisal of poetry, rhetoric, and sophistry is well-documented, as is his employment of the dialogue form to challenge the social and political relevance of prominent intellectuals such as Gorgias, Prodicus, and Protagoras. However, Plato’s own discursive preference, sometimes labeled dialectic, is rarely taken to matter for his political interests. Commonly identified as the antithesis of eristic discourse or discursive competition, Plato’s political commitments to dialectic – characterized by shared deliberation, joint inquiry, and consensual ideals – are yet to be thoroughly identified and described. The purpose of this symposium is to explore this topic, discuss the difference between eristic and dialectic discourse, to ask why collaborative deliberation is often favored over competitive, and to reinvigorate Plato’s relevance for questions about the nature of public deliberation. PROGRAM (Preliminary) Wednesday 15th of April (Venue: F11) 1000-1115 Claudia Baracchi (Milano-Bicocca): “Plato’s Republic: The Melancholy of Politics” 1115-1215 Olof Pettersson (UU/SH): “Topics as Tools: Instrumentalization and Competition in Plato’s Gorgias” Lunch 1400-1500 Kristian Larsen (NTNU): “Nature, the Value of Inquiry, and Politics in Plato’s Statesman” 1500-1600 Hans Ruin (SH): “The Vital Meausure: on Plato’s Heraclitism” Thursday 16th of April (Venue: PA238 before lunch & PA239 after) 1000-1115 Albert Joossee (Groningen): “Dialogue and the Conditions of Political and Philosophical Deliberation” 1115-1215 Brandon Jablon (UU): “Reasoning by Likeness: Plato’s Use of Analogy in Gorgias” Lunch 1300-1400 Oda Tvedt (NTNU): “Power and Persuasion in Democratic Rhetoric” 1400-1500 Pauliina Remes (UU): “Plato’s Crito on Joint Commitment” 1500-1600 Charlotta Weigelt (SH): “Socrates as a Doctor: The Rhetoric of Craft Analogies in the Gorgias” CONTACT For more information or if you have any questions, please send an email to olof.pettersson@filosofi.uu.se
• Mini-workshop on Heraclitus
  

  On the 23rd of April, the Uppsala Seminar in the History of Philosphy, chaired by Pauliina Remes, will organize a mini-workshop on Heraclitus, with talks by Petri Lahtinen (Helsinki) and Hans Ruin from SCAPh. The workshop is free and open to all. The workshop runs between 12 and 3.30pm, with a lunch break in between. For more information, please write to pauliina.remes@filosofi.uu.se.
• Aristotle’s Rhetoric Seminar
  In this semester’s Advanced Seminar in Ancient Philosophy, led by Charlotta Weigelt, we will read Aristotle’s Rhetoric. The schedule for the fall is as follows. Anyone is welcome to join. 23/1: 13-15: Book I.1-8 27/2: 10-12: Book I.9-15 27/3: 10-12: Book II.1-18 8/5: 13-15: Book II.19-26 + Book III.1-2 22/5: 10-12: Book III.3-19 We meet in room PC249 on campus. If you cannot attend in person, it is also possible to join via Zoom. If you are interested in this possibility, please write to charlotta.weigelt@sh.se and she will send you an invite link.
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  NEWS
• Platonic Autonomy (CUP)
  

  Fresh from the press: Platonic Autonomy: Self-Determination, Unity, and Cooperation, edited by Olof Pettersson (together with Pauliina Remes) was just published by Cambridge University Press. The volume highlights Plato’s relevance for the notion of personal autonomy, offers discussions of self-legislation, self-determination, self-rule, law, preference, and freedom from a wide range of perspectives, and includes an important chapter on “Self-Government and Law in the Crito and the Statesman” by Charlotta Weigelt. Together the essays of the volume show how deeply these concepts are intertwined with Plato’s more familiar inquiries into knowledge, moral psychology, ethics, politics, and metaphysics. The book also reveals how some of the Platonic worries about self- and other-determination become interpreted and given explicit expression by the Neoplatonists. Many chapters question an exclusively individualistic account of autonomy. The autonomous subject, for Plato, is not primarily the possessor of individual preferences, nor someone with a personally unique take on the world, but, rather, a unified agent who in both collaborative and personal activities originates her own motions and reasons and commits in a profound sense to her own actions. It is this understanding of personal autonomy we label Platonic. Read more here.
• Interview in Swedish Philosophy
  

  The Swedish e-journal Swedish Philosophy (Svensk filosofi) has spoken with Charlotta Weigelt and Hans Ruin about what makes ancient philosophy relevant today. Here is a brief (translated) exerpt: Antiquity was a world distinct from our own. Ancient Athens was a city-state with a citizenry so small that its politically active members could recognize one another. Rome, in contrast, was a hierarchical global empire defined by a culture of honor. Both were patriarchal, slave-holding societies. How, then, can ideas that emerged in that world inform us in our modern one? – I’m thinking primarily of Plato, who seems to write with the awareness that he’s facing a new kind of society, says Charlotta Weigelt. The older warrior society is in the back of his mind. The questions Plato sees as necessary to ask are fully applicable to our society today because they are so fundamental. – Ultimately, these are questions about how we can live together. How can we do that when we are facing a society that is much more heterogeneous than the one we are leaving behind? What is governance? What does it mean to be governed? What different types of governance exist? What is a citizen? Read the full interview here.
• Weigelt Talks about Socrates in the Philosophy Podd with Mogensen & Tsapos
  

  The philosophy podd (filosofiska podden), with Melina Tsapos and Lars Mogensen, has visited the Geijer Society’s summer course in philosophy at the Ransäter folk high school. There, they met Charlotta Weigelt, professor of philosophy at Södertörn University who specializes in ancient philosophy, and discussed how Socrates’ way of thinking and seeing the world can help us today? Listen to it here (spotify) or here (apple).
• Ruin and Weigelt visits Bildningspodden to talk about Stoicism
  

  For a long time, the teachings of the ancient Stoics were regarded as detached from the world and apathetic. Today, Stoicism has become a trendy philosophy—an ancient self-help guide to mindfulness for those who want to endure a chaotic and incomprehensible modern world. In the process, thinkers like Marcus Aurelius and Seneca have become bestsellers. But how well does the hype align with what the Stoics actually wrote and thought? Is the famous “stoic calm” about being indifferent or maturely composed? Did the Stoics primarily aim to make life bearable for the individual, or did they also seek to make the world a better place? And what makes these ancient ideas so relevant today? *Bildningspodden* delves into the sources of Stoicism together with philosophers Charlotta Weigelt and Hans Ruin. Listen here (in Swedish).
• Swedish Philosophy & Ancient Philosophy Today
  

  Svensk filosofi (Swedish Philosophy) is a new journal (ISSN 3035-6598) aimed at promoting the role and presence of philosophy in society. The journal has recently launched a series of articles under the label of Ancient Philosophy Today, featuring contributions by Hans Ruin and Charlotta Weigelt. You can read the texts here. The journal describes the series in the following way: “Almost all programs in the humanities and social sciences require studies in ancient philosophy. But are Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle really relevant today? In what way? What can we learn from ancient thought – and do we truly know what the thinkers of antiquity actually thought?”