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410An attempt to answer four unsettled questions about the Stoic definition of passions. (I am no longer working on this paper, but have incorporated some of its thoughts into subsequent work.)
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7Plutarch charges that Stoic theory is inconsistent with Stoic political engagement no matter what they decide to do, because the Stoics' endorsement of the political life is inconsistent with their cosmopolitan rejection of ordinary politics (Stoic.rep., ab init.). Drawing on evidence from Chrysippus and Seneca, I develop an argument that answers this charge, and I draw out two interesting implications of the argument. The first implication is for scholars of ancient Stoicism who like to say tha…Read more
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105Women in Plato’s Political Theory (review)Ancient Philosophy 22 (1): 189-193. 2002.Review of Morag Buchan, Women in Plato's Political Theory
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1Politics and societyIn James Warren (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism, Cambridge University Press. 2009.An overview of Epicurus' thoughts about politics and society, including his attitude toward political engagement, his account of friendship, and his account of justice.
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1409Socrates the CosmopolitanStanford Agora: An Online Journal of Legal Perspectives 1 (1): 74-87. 2000.I argue that the Stoics were right to portray Socrates as a cosmopolitan, because this portrait is fully consistent with the Socrates of Plato's Socratic dialogues. His rejection of ordinary political engagement in favor of an extraordinary way of doing the political work of improving others lives by examining them is also the rejection of locally engaged politics in favor of benefiting human beings as such. It is less clear whether his cosmopolitanism is moderate (admitting special obligations …Read more
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873Contemplative withdrawal in the Hellenistic agePhilosophical Studies 137 (1): 79-89. 2008.I reject the traditional picture of philosophical withdrawal in the Hellenistic Age by showing how both Epicureans and Stoics oppose, in different ways, the Platonic and Aristotelian assumption that contemplative activity is the greatest good for a human being. Chrysippus the Stoic agrees with Plato and Aristotle that the greatest good for a human being is virtuous activity, but he denies that contemplation exercises virtue. Epicurus more thoroughly rejects the assumption that the greatest good …Read more
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26Topics in Stoic Philosophy, and: Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy (review) (review)Journal of the History of Philosophy 38 (3): 432-434. 2000.Review of Ierodiakonou (ed.), Topics in Stoic Philosophy, and Bobzien, Determinism and Freedom in Stoic Philosophy
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270Plato's ethics and politics in the republicStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.Plato's Republic centers on a simple question: is it always better to be just than unjust? The puzzles in Book One prepare for this question, and Glaucon and Adeimantus make it explicit at the beginning of Book Two. To answer the question, Socrates takes a long way around, sketching an account of a good city on the grounds that a good city would be just and that defining justice as a virtue of a city would help to define justice as a virtue of a human being. Socrates is finally close to answerin…Read more
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184A Defense of Plato's Argument for the Immortality of the Soul at Republic X 608c-611aApeiron 30 (3). 1997.Despite the bad press, Plato has a valid argument for immortality from three premises: (1) if the natural evil of a thing cannot destroy it, then it is indestructible; (2) the natural evil of the soul is vice; and (3) vice cannot destroy the soul. These premises are contestable, of course, but Plato has some good reasons for advancing them.
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Areas of Specialization
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |