Linos G. Mpenakis

Linos G. Benakis was born in Corfu on January 31, 1928. He worked as a historian of philosophy, a university professor, and a researcher at the Academy of Athens. His wife is Anna Psarouda-Benaki, a lawyer, politician, and academic. He completed his secondary education at the First Boys' High School of Thessaloniki. He then studied at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Thessaloniki (1946-1950) and, with a scholarship from the State Scholarships Foundation (IKY), at the University of Cologne (1957-1960), where he earned his doctorate in philosophy. His doctoral dissertation was titled "Studies on the Commentaries of Michael Psellos," which influenced his early publications in German. He was a student of professors Ioannis Th. Kakridis, Stylianos Kapsomenos, Nikos Andriotis, Agapitos Tsopanakis, Charalambos Gieros, and Linos Politis, while at the University of Cologne, he attended the courses and seminars of the historian of philosophy Paul Wilpert, who also supervised his dissertation. In Greece, his academic supervisor was Vasileios Tatakis. He was also a scholar of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. After a brief tenure as a secondary education teacher in Preveza and Athens, in 1966, he began his collaboration with the "Research Center for Greek Philosophy" of the Academy of Athens, where he became director in 1971. There, he was responsible for the publication of the volumes of the scientific yearbook "Philosophy," where he published significant studies. In the early issues of the yearbook, members of the philosophical decade of the '30s, such as Ioannis Theodorakopoulos, Panagiotis Kanellopoulos, and Konstantinos Tsatsos, who participated in the editorial board of the journal, met with the new generation of Greek philosophers of the '60s. Linos Benakis's publications cover the entire period of Greek Philosophy, from Ancient to Byzantine and Post-Byzantine times. During the '70s, he continued his research activities and compiled a new bibliography of works related to Byzantine philosophy, which was added to the edition of the translation of Vasileios Tatakis's work, "Byzantine Philosophy," which he edited. In 1983, as a scientific collaborator of the Academy of Athens, he took on the direction of the series of critical editions of "Byzantine Philosophers" and "Byzantine Commentaries on Aristotle," published by the Academy under the auspices of the International Edition of Academies. In this series, his critical edition of Michael Psellos's "Commentaries" on Aristotle's "Physics" was published in 2009, with an extensive introduction in German, the ancient text, and bibliography. In 1984, Linos Benakis taught at Princeton University in the USA, and between 1987-88, he was a visiting professor at the University of Crete, where he taught again in the 2000s. Additionally, from 1990-1994, he served as vice president of the Ionian University in Corfu. He was a member of the board of directors of the "International Society for the Study of Medieval Philosophy" between 1982-1992 and was appointed president of the "Committee on Byzantine Philosophy" of the same Society. In 1983, as a collaborator of the Academy of Athens, he took on the position of responsible for the "Philosophical Library" of the Elli Lambridi Bequest. He participated in many scientific symposia and conferences, many of which he organized himself. Indicatively mentioned are the Symposium "Neoplatonism and Medieval Philosophy," held in October 1995 in Corfu, and the Symposium on Byzantine Philosophy organized in 1997 on the occasion of Thessaloniki being celebrated as the European Capital of Culture. On December 13, 1995, he was awarded the title of Honorary Doctor of the Department of Philosophy, Education, and Psychology at the University of Ioannina. In the same year, he founded the "Working Group for the Study of Byzantine Philosophy in Greece," which gathered and organized research from scholars across the country. Linos Benakis is a member of numerous organizations with scientific and humanitarian interests and participates in the editorial boards of international journals such as "Medieval Philosophy and Theology," "European Journal of Science and Theology," among others