Workshop at Uppsala University: Collective Characters in Greek Literature
October 16, 2025Reflections on the International Conference “Group Minds in Ancient Philosophical Thought” University of Cyprus, 14–15 November 2025
November 21, 2025Our postdoctoral researcher Dr Stephan Stephanides participated in the international conference Socratica VI, the sixth meeting of the International Society for Socratic Studies (ISSS), held at the University of Crete in Rethymno from 19 to 23 October 2025.
The event brought together leading scholars from around the world to explore new perspectives on Socratic thought and its reception from antiquity to the present. Organised by Chloe Balla (University of Crete), Christopher Moore (Penn State University), and Gabriel Danzig (Bar-Ilan University, President of the ISSS), the conference featured keynote lectures by Douglas Cairns (University of Edinburgh) and Frisbee Sheffield (University of Cambridge). This year’s meeting included a special thematic focus on “Emotions in the Socratic Circle.”
Within this thematic framework, Dr Stephanides presented a paper entitled “Collective Emotions in the Socratic Circle”. The paper applied a modern conceptual framework of collective or socially extended emotions to the interpretation of emotional experience within the Socratic circle. Challenging the traditional view that emotions act as obstacles to virtue, Dr Stephanides argued that the Socratic dialogues in fact point towards an ideal of shared emotional understanding — an ethical community built on “feeling with” others. Using Plato’s Phaedo as a detailed case study, the paper examined how Socrates orchestrates his companions’ emotional responses to his death, transforming their fear, grief, and affection into an emotionally intelligent and rationally guided collective experience. In this reading, Socrates emerges as a ‘conductor’ of emotions, inviting his circle to participate in a model of philosophical togetherness grounded in empathy and moral reasoning.
Reflecting on his experience, Dr Stephanides commented:
“The conference was an incredibly enriching and stimulating academic experience. I learned a lot about Socratic studies in Plato, Xenophon, and other ancient authors, as well as about the role of emotions in the Socratic circle. My paper received generous feedback and encouragement. It was also wonderful to reconnect with colleagues and mentors. I leave Crete feeling encouraged, confident, and excited to develop this work further.”
Dr Stephanides’ participation in Socratica VI forms part of the ongoing outreach and international engagement of our ERC-funded project, which investigates the representation of collective mentality, shared emotion, and distributed cognition in ancient Greek literature.
Through such contributions, our project continues to build bridges between literary, philosophical, and cognitive approaches, showing how ancient narratives articulate sophisticated models of group thought and emotion. The enthusiastic reception of Dr Stephanides’ work at Socratica VI confirms the growing relevance of our research to current international debates on collective agency, empathy, and moral psychology in antiquity — and beyond.