University of Gothenburg
University of Gothenburg
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  4. Börje Bydén

Börje Bydén

Researcher

Department of Philosophy, Linguistics, Theory of
Science
Mail
borje.byden@gu.se

Researcher

Philosophy and Philology
unit
Mail
borje.byden@gu.se
Visiting address
Renströmsgatan 6
41255 Göteborg
Room number
T303
Postal address
Box 200
40530 Göteborg

About Börje Bydén

I received my PhD from the University of Gothenburg in 2003. My thesis bore the descriptive title Theodore Metochites and the Study of Natural Philosophy and Mathematics in Early Palaiologan Byzantium. Since then, I have had various employments as a researcher and a teacher at the University of Gothenburg (2003–04, 2005–06) and Stockholm University (2007–11). I spent the year 2004–05 as a post-doc fellow at Freie Universität Berlin and the autumn term of 2006 as a senior fellow in Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks, Washington DC.

My field of expertise lies in the reception of ancient philosophy and science in the Greek Middle Ages, but I have also published on Presocratics, Plato and Aristotle, and taught a wide variety of topics from Greek grammar as well as Greek poetry and prose to the modern reception of Classical literature. I am a text editor, currently working on the editio princeps of Theodore Metochites’ commentary on Aristotle’s De anima. I have translated Aristotle’s De interpretatione, Sophistical refutations and Metaphysics into Swedish.

Within R&R I am Director of the section for the Greek Tradition. My own subproject is concerned with the interpretation of the Aristotelian notions of phantasia and nous and their use in theories of concept formation in late antique and Byzantine authors.

(I) Authorship

2018. ”Introduction: the study and reception of Aristotle’s Parva naturalia”, i Börje Bydén & Filip Radovic (red.), The Parva naturalia in Greek, Arabic and Latin Aristotelianism: Supplementing the Science of the Soul (Cham: Springer Verlag), 1–50.

2017a. ‘George Gemistos Plethon, On Aristotle’s Departures from Plato, 321.3–334.20: Text and Translation’, in Börje Bydén & Christina Thomsen Thörnqvist (eds), The Aristotelian Tradition: Aristotle’s Works on Logic and Metaphysics and Their Reception in the Middle Ages (Toronto: PIMS), 267–296.

2017b. ‘George Gemistos Plethon, On Aristotle’s Departures from Plato 0–19: Notes’, co-authored with Sten Ebbesen, Heine Hansen, Katerina Ierodiakonou, Ana Maria Mora-Marquez & Miira Tuominen, in Börje Bydén & Christina Thomsen Thörnqvist (eds), The Aristotelian Tradition: Aristotle’s Works on Logic and Metaphysics and Their Reception in the Middle Ages (Toronto: PIMS), 297–344.

2016a. Review of Vojtěch Hladký, The Philosophy of Gemistos Plethon: Platonism in Late Byzantium, between Hellenism and Orthodoxy (Ashgate: Farnham, Surrey, 2014), in Aestimatio: Critical Reviews in the History of Science 11: 290–311.

2016b. ‘Platon i Byzans’, in Jakob Fink & Kristian Larsen (eds), Platon: Værk og virkning (Copenhagen: Gyldendal), 423–444.

2014a. ‘Nikephoros Gregoras’ Commentary on Synesius, De insomniis’, in Donald A. Russell & Heinz-Günther Nesselrath (eds), On Prophecy, Dreams and Human Imagination: Synesius, De insomniis (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 163–88.

2014b. ‘Aristoteles kanon eller Vad är egentligen filosofi?’, in Eva-Carin Gerö & Hans-Roland Johnsson (eds), Periferi och centrum: Texter om marginalisering i förmodern tid (Lund: Nordic Academic Press), 51–76.

2013a. ‘Photios and the Non-Synonymy of Substance: Amphilochia 138’, in Sten Ebbesen, John Marenbon & Paul Thom (eds), Aristotle’s Categories in the Byzantine, Arabic and Latin Traditions (Copenhagen: Det Kongelige Danske Videnskabernes Selskab, Scientia Danica, series H, Humanistica 8, vol. 5), 9–34.

2013b. ‘“No Prince of Perfection”: Byzantine Anti-Aristotelianism from the Patristic Period to Plethon’, in Dimiter Angelov & Michael Saxby (eds), Power and Subversion in Byzantium: Papers from the 43rd Annual Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 147–76.

2013c. Review of Colin Partenie (ed.), Plato’s Myths (Cambridge University Press, 2009), in Rhizomata 1, 115–31.

2013d. Review of Efthymios Nicolaidis, Science and Eastern Orthodoxy: From the Greek Fathers to the Age of Globalization (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011) in Isis 104, 387–88.

2013e. Review of Niketas Siniossoglou, Radical Platonism in Byzantium: Illumination and Utopia in Gemistos Plethon (Cambridge University Press, 2011) in Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 37, 151–52.

2012a. ‘A Case for Creationism: Christian Cosmology in the 5th and 6th Centuries’, in Börje Bydén & Katerina Ierodiakonou (eds), The Many Faces of Byzantine Philosophy, 79–107. Papers and Monographs from the Norwegian Institute at Athens 1.

2012b. ‘Greek Philosophy’, with Katerina Ierodiakonou, in John Marenbon (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Philosophy, 29–57. Oxford University Press.

2012c. ‘Imprimatur? Unconventional punctuation and diacritics in mss of mediaeval Greek philosophical works’, in Alessandra Bucossi & Erika Kihlman (eds), Ars Edendi Lecture Series, vol. 2 (Stockholm: AUS), 155–72.

2012d. ‘The Criticism of Aristotle in Nikephoros Gregoras’ Florentius’, in Denis Searby, Ewa Balicka-Witakowska & Johan Heldt (eds), ΔΩΡΟΝ ΡΟΔΟΠΟΙΚΙΛΟΝ: Studies in Honour of Jan Olof Rosenqvist (Uppsala: AUU), 107–22.

2012e. ‘Philosophy, Byzantine’, in Roger Bagnall (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Ancient History. Wileys-Blackwell.

2011a. ‘Natural Philosophy, Byzantine’, in Henrik Lagerlund (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy. Springer Verlag.

2011b. ‘Epistemology, Byzantine’, in Henrik Lagerlund (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy. Springer Verlag.

2011c. ‘Theodore Metochites’, in Henrik Lagerlund (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy. Springer Verlag.

2011d. ‘Leo Magentinus’, in Henrik Lagerlund (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Medieval Philosophy. Springer Verlag.

2010a. ‘Philosophy, Byzantine’, in Robert Bjork (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages. Oxford University Press.

2010b. ‘Arethas’, in Robert Bjork (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages. Oxford University Press.

2009. Review of David Sedley, Creationism and Its Critics in Antiquity. Sather Classical Lectures 66. Berkeley & Los Angeles, 2007. Bryn Mawr Classical Review

(II) Editorship

2018. The Parva naturalia in Greek, Arabic and Latin Aristotelianism: Supplementing the Science of the Soul. With Filip Radovic (Göteborg). Cham: Springer Verlag.

2017. The Aristotelian Tradition: Aristotle’s Works on Logic and Metaphysics and Their Reception in the Middle Ages. With Christina Thomsen Thörnqvist (Göteborg). Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies Press.

2012. The Many Faces of Byzantine Philosophy. With Katerina Ierodiakonou (Athens). Athens: The Norwegian Institute at Athens 1.

(III) Forthcoming publications 2019-2020

Articles, book chapters: • The Byzantine Fortuna of Alexander of Aphrodisias’ Commentary on Aristotle’s De sensu et sensibilibus, in Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 68 (2019) • “Aristotle’s Light Analogy in the Greek Tradition”, in the Anthology, vol. 1 • “Alexander of Aphrodisias on Concept Formation” • “Themistius on Concept Formation” • “Plutarch of Athens, Ammonius, Philoponus and Ps.-Philoponus on Aristotle’s ‘tabula rasa’”

Editions: • Theodore Metochites’ paraphrase of Aristotle’s De anima. • Theodore Metochites’ paraphrases of Aristotle’s De sensu, De memoria, De somno et vigilia, De insomniis and De divinatione per somnum.

Reviews: • Denis Walter: Michael Psellos: Christliche Philosophie in Byzanz. Mittelalterliche Philosophie im Verhältnis zu Antike und Spätantike. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter, 2017. IX, 206 S. (Quellen und Studien zur Philosophie 132). Forthcoming in Gnomon.