GRADUATE STUDENTS IN ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY
London is a thriving community for ancient philosophy. Below are students who are currently studying on graduate programmes in ancient philosophy.
LUCA DONDONI
PhD Student, Department of Philosophy
Luca Dondoni is a Keeling Doctoral Scholar at UCL, supervised by Dr Fiona Leigh (UCL) and Prof. Raphael Woolf (KCL). His thesis studies the metaphysics of Plato’s Timaeus, with connections to some contemporary discussions in the metaphysics of science and philosophy of mind. In particular, he is interested in the explanatory import of the geometric theory of the elements, and the integration of structural properties in a power-based ontology. In Spring 2024, Luca was an exchange scholar at Yale University, under the supervision of Prof. Verity Harte. Prior to joining UCL for his PhD, he completed an MPhil. Stud. in Philosophy at KCL, and studied at Collegio Ghislieri (Pavia, IT), where he received a B.A. and M.A. from the University of Pavia, and an M.A. from IUSS. In October 2024, Luca entered the CRS (“writing-up”) phase of his degree, for which he has been awarded a fellowship by the Foundation for Platonic Studies, and a bursary by the Royal Institute of Philosophy.
YAQUB ENEBORG
MPhil Stud Student, Department of Philosophy
Yaqub Eneborg is an MPhil student in Philosophy at UCL, funded by the Keeling scholarship. His thesis, supervised by Dr Simona Aimar, presents a reassessment of Aristotle’s theory of signification as presented in the De Interpretatione. Before UCL, Yaqub read for an MA in Philosophy at Koç University, Istanbul, where his thesis—on the body’s role in sensation, desire and belief in Plato’s Phaedo—was supervised by Dr Damien Storey. His undergraduate studies were in Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies (Stockholm), Classical Arabic (Amman), and Islamic Theology (Cambridge). Yaqub’s primary research interests are in language, psychology, and metaphysics, in both the Ancient Greek and Medieval Arabic intellectual traditions.
LAWRENCE EVANS
Keeling Research Assistant, PhD Student, Department of Philosophy
Lawrence Evans received his MPhil. Stud. from UCL at the end of 2019, with a thesis on Aristotle’s function argument in the Nicomachean Ethics. He started his PhD at UCL in 2020, with a thesis on Aristotle’s conception of happiness (eudaimonia) in the Nicomachean Ethics, jointly supervised by Dr Fiona Leigh and Dr Elena Cagnoli Fiecconi. Before coming to UCL, he completed an MSc in Philosophy of Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Besides Aristotle’s ethics, he has research interests in Plato and in happiness and the good life in Ancient Greek philosophy. He has taught a number of modules in the philosophy department at UCL, including Introduction to Ancient Philosophy, Plato, and Applied Ethics, and a module titled ‘Evolution, Science and Morality’ at Birkbeck, University of London. He has also taught at the UCL Summer School in Ancient Philosophy for the past three years. In May 2023, he was appointed Keeling Research Assistant in the Keeling Centre for Ancient Philosophy at UCL.
INDIA GRIFFITHS
PhD Student, Department of Philosophy
India is a PhD candidate in the Philosophy department at UCL, supervised by Dr Fiona Leigh (UCL). Her thesis focuses on Plato’s depiction of the tyrannical character in the Republic, specifically she investigates the process of moral degeneration that a person’s soul must undergo in order to possess a fully developed tyrannical character. Her thesis aims to understand whether the soul of a fully developed tyrannical character who goes on to become a political tyrant is morally incurable for Plato, or if the tyrant’s soul is still capable of undergoing moral repair. India received her BA in Philosophy at UCL (2021), and completed the MPhil. Stud. in Philosophy at UCL (2023).
ANTONIO LAI
PhD Student, Department of Philosophy
Antonio Lai is a PhD student in the Philosophy Department at UCL. He is writing his thesis on Plato’s ideal of ‘Homoiōsis Theōi’ (Becoming like God) under the supervision of Dr Fiona Leigh. Previously, he received a B.A. in Philosophy from National Taiwan University. He then joined the MPhil. Stud. programme in Philosophy at UCL, with a thesis on the concept of immortality in the Symposium. His main research interests are in Plato’s ethics and moral psychology. He also has broader interests in ethics in Stoicism and Epicureanism, Existentialism, and Taoism.
JELENA MILOSAVLJEVIC
PhD Student, Department of Philosophy
Jelena Milosavljevic is a PhD candidate in the Philosophy Department at UCL. Her thesis is on the intemperate person’s failure and the role of bodily pleasures and appetite in Aristotle’s ethics, and how these are consistent with his teleological commitments. She has wider interests in ancient moral psychology and theories of action, and is funded by the Department’s Keeling scholarship.
ALBA MIRIELLO
PhD Student, Department of Philosophy
Alba Miriello is a PhD student at UCL. Previously, she obtained a BA and MA in Philosophy from the University of Pisa, an MA from Birkbeck College, and an MPhil from UCL where she defended a thesis entitled “The Form of the Good and the Soul’s Transformation in Plato’s Republic VI-VII”. Her research interests are Ancient Philosophy, Ethics, Moral Psychology and Medieval Philosophy. Her main research project is on Platonic Goodness in the Republic, with current research on the relationship between powers of the soul and the power of intelligibility of the Form of the Good, under the supervision of Prof. Mark Eli Kalderon and Dr Simona Aimar. Her publications include work on Plotinian kinesis (“Kinêsis and the Value of tês and pros in the Plotinian Hypostases ‘Intellect’ and ‘Soul’”, Philosophia 51.3 (2023): 1449-1458) and a philosophical commentary on Apuleius’ De Deo Socratis (Primiceri, 2016).
JOSEPH SIBLEY
PhD Student, Department of Philosophy
Joseph Sibley is a PhD student at UCL. His main research focus is Plato’s moral psychology, and in particular the account of appetite presented in the Republic. He has broad interests in ancient ethical thought, particularly moral psychology, the place of the emotions in ethical theory, and moral development, as well as in philosophy as a written form. Prior to the PhD, Joe studied for the MPhil at UCL, the MSt in Ancient Philosophy at Oxford, and a BA in PPE, also at Oxford.