Whew.

Well, it's been an intense three days...

Class starts at 10:00. Which means we need to leave the dorms around 9:15 to take the train. It then goes on to 4:00. Afterwards people often go out for drinks. And then to dinner. So Monday and Tuesday night I got home after 10 PM. So yeah, it is intense. I'm completely exhausted. Luckily today things ended early today -- around 5:30. Unluckily, I have a lot of reading to do. We'll see how much I do. I may just need to decompress a bit.

So I guess one of the popular things in Budapest right now is to run bars out of old abandoned buildings that are waiting to be renovated. The nearby bar doesn't quite fit the mold -- it is a relatively nice building that hasn't found a new lease for some reason. The bar is set up in the courtyard. Very nice, relaxed, funky atmosphere. See picture.

The sessions have been extremely good. There have been four seminars on Plato's Phaedo, a dialogue I am quite interested in (and will be teaching when I get back). They have been excellent. There have been two sessions on Greek Medicine (by Schiefsky who is in Classics at Harvard). I can't say that I'm that interested on my own, but it is useful for getting the general intellectual background in Ancient Greece. I guess he has made a good case that Ancient Medicine plays an important role in pre-Socratic philosophy, whereas it is normally thought that this is mostly cosmology. This is probably a fundamental change in the way I think about Socrates' predecessors. Today the third series of seminars began -- on Aristotle's Biology. They look to be extremely good. I think that the work done in the last ten years on this subject has been pretty exciting and Alan Gotthelf, who is giving the seminars, seems to have some interesting ideas on how to push that work forward. I chatted with Gotthelf over a beer -- he is an extremely friendly and interesting guy who I am very glad to have met.

Yesterday I gave my presentation. I think it went pretty well. I got a lot of good questions and was surprised by my ability to respond to them. David Sedley, who I think is one of the top people doing work today, said some incredibly nice things to me afterwards. So overall I am quite happy with it. I also got some quite useful feedback that I will need to think about some more.

The intellectual atmosphere here is quite nice. People chat about all sorts of things, moving in and out from philosophy. I have had some very good conversations with people. The two Hungarians organizers are quite well read, insightful and friendly. One of them, in particular (Gabor), I have had a couple of really good conversations with.

But I am tired. I would say all of the participants are (although probably only a third have been going out for drinks and dinner afterwards). The course organizers invited me to a meeting of Central European Ancient Philosophers Association (or some such) who are discussing Aristotle's Physics (Physics II.4-6, to be specific) for three days. I think I'll do it -- it will last until the day before I leave. It should be a great opportunity to meet some more ancient philosophers from the area, interact more with those I've met, and do some philosophy.

Alright, well I think that's enough for now. I'm exhausted. I hope you are all doing well. I was going to attach a second picture of the main campus buildings, but I guess I failed to download it. There are four interconnected (only graduate studies, no undergraduates associated with the university). I'll attach a few pictures of the university next time.

-- David