Each year the Foundation awards an annual prize for final year students studying at King’s College, London, for the best dissertation on some aspect of Ancient Philosophy. The prize was named after Mary Margaret McCabe, Emerita Professor of Ancient Philosophy at King’s, a leading authority on Plato who has inspired countless students in their study of his works.
The prize was won this year by Bonita Choda. Her dissertation, on ‘Empedocles: the four Elements of Matter and the Three Elements of Perception’ focusses on the Pre-Socratic philosopher, Empedocles, and his theory of perception.
At the prize giving ceremony, which was held in the Council Room at the University on 12 June 2025, Dr Shaul Tor from the Departments of Classics and Philosophy presented the prize to Bonita who thanked the academic staff at Kings for their generous support and the freedom they gave her to pursue her particular interests. Dr Tor said of the dissertation that:
Bonita Choda’s thesis undertook the difficult task of reconstructing and assessing Empedocles’ theories of sensory perception. It defended convincingly original reconstructions of some especially thorny aspects of Empedocles’ argumentation, showing new and more textually-grounded ways of resolving some longstanding interpretive puzzles. In addition, Bonita’s thesis built on these foundations to show how Empedocles can have a plausible response to some of the criticisms that Aristotle will later go on to level against him. This is a fine work of scholarship, very deserving of the prestigious honour of the MM McCabe prize.
We wish Bonita well in her future academic studies.
