Draft:Gerard Naddaf

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Gerard Naddaf (1950–) is a Canadian philosopher, academic, and educator. An emeritus professor of philosophy at York University, Naddaf specializes in ancient Greek philosophy, and in particular Plato and early Greek philosophy with a special emphasis on the origins of the radical new way of thinking that characterizes Western philosophy: we should never be bound to the uncritical acceptance of a particular position.

The focus of his most recent work is the role of myth in anthropogeny (from the origins of language), in the evolution of the self and of consciousness (culminating in the creation of the Western mind), and in multiculturalism.

Naddaf also has a keen interest in the origin and role of inspiration in human identity and religious authority since the advent of literacy.

He did his doctorate at the Sorbonne and his master’s at the École Pratiques des Hautes Etudes in Paris under the supervision of Pierre Hadot and Luc Brisson.

Authored and co-authored books:

(2024) Making Sense of Myth: Conversations with Luc Brisson, McGill-Queen’s University Press

(2005) The Greek Concept of Nature, State University of New York Press

(2003) Anaximander in Context (with Dirk Couprie and Robert Hahn), State University of New York Press

(1998) Plato the Myth Maker (with Luc Brisson), University of Chicago Press

(1992) L’origine et l’évolution du concept grec de phusis, Edwin Mellen Press

Selected articles in English (most of which are available on Naddaf’s academia.edu website):

“Discovering φύσις: Reductive Materialism, the Emergence of Reflexivity, and the First Secular Theories of Everything” in Studies in Ancient Greek Philosophy in Honor of Professor Anthony Preus (ed. David Spitzer), London: Routledge, 2023, 18–36.

“Revisiting the Religion of the Early Greek Philosophers, and Socrates’ Contribution to the Controversy,” in Ápeiron. Estudios de filosofía, monográfico «Presocráticos», n.º 11, 2019, 65–97.

“Poetic Myths of the Afterlife: Plato’s Last Song,” in Reflections on Plato’s Poetics. Essays from Beijing (edited by Rick Benitez and Keping Wang), Academic Printing & Publishing: Berrima Glen Berrima NSW, 2016, 111–136. “Philosophic and poetic inspiration in the Republic,” in Dialogues on Plato’s Politeia (Republic). Selected Papers from the Ninth Symposium Platonicum (Noburu Notomi and Luc Brisson eds.), Sankt Augustin: Academia Verlag, 2012, 188–193.

“Allegory and the Origins of Philosophy,” in W. Wians (ed), Logos and Mythos: Philosophical Essays on Greek Literature, Albany: SUNY Press, 2009, 99–131.

“What is Presocratic philosophy?,” Ancient Philosophy 26(1) 2006, 161–179.

“Literacy and Poetic Performance in Plato’s Laws,” Ancient Philosophy 20(4) 2000, 339–350.

“On the Origin of Anaximander’s Cosmological Model,” Journal of the History of Ideas 59(1) 1998, 1-28.

“Lefkowitz and the Afrocentric Question,” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 28(3) 1998, 451–470.

“The Atlantis Myth: An Introduction to Plato’s Later Philosophy of History,” Phoenix 48(3), 1994, 189–209.

“Plato: The Creator of Natural Theology,” International Studies in Philosophy 36(1) 2004, 129–150.

Work on inspiration available on academia.edu website

“Sacred Texts: From Inspiration to Philosophy and Allegory” (public lecture, University of Sydney, November 2011).

“The Origin and Meaning of Poetic Inspiration in Ancient Greece” (seminar presentation University of Sydney 2011)

Sources of information:

Academia.edu; Google Scholar; Faculty Profiles (York University); introduction to Making Sense of Myth