•  65
    Selves and Other Selves in Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics vii 12
    Ancient Philosophy 29 (2): 349-371. 2009.
    Osborne argues against the idea that Aristotle thinks that friends are useful for assisting us towards self-knowledge, and defends instead the idea that friends provide an extension of the self which enables one to obtain a richer view of the shared world that we view together. She then examines similar questions about why the good person would gain from encountering fictional characters in literature, and what kinds of literature would be beneficial to the good life.
  •  53
    This is a review of the book by Kirk, Raven and Schofield.
  •  40
    On Calling the Gods by the Right Names
    Rhizomata 1 (2): 168-193. 2013.
    Do you need to know the name of the god you're praying to? If you get the name wrong what happens to the prayer? What if the god has more than one name? Who gets to decide whether the name works (you or the god or neither)? What are names anyway? Are the names of the gods any different in how they work from any other names? Is there a way of fixing the reference without using the name so as to avoid the problems of optional names? There is a type of formula used in prayer in ancient Greece whic…Read more
  •  10
    Companionable Aristotle (review)
    The Classical Review 49 (1): 115-116. 1999.
  •  63
    I argue that philosophy was naturally conceived and written in verse, not prose, in the early years of philosophy, and that prose writing would be the exception not the norm. I argue that philosophers developed their ideas in verse and did not repackage ideas and thoughts first formulated in non-poetic genres, so there is no adaptation or modification involved in "putting it into poetry". This also means that the content and the form are interdependent, and the poetic details are part of the mes…Read more
  •  64
    Ralph Cudworth (1617-88) was one of the Cambridge Platonists. His major work, The True Intellectual System of the Universe, was completed in 1671, a year after Spinoza published (anonymously) the Tractatus Logico-philosophicus. It was published a few years later, in 1678. Cudworth offers a spirited attack against the materialism and mechanism of Thomas Hobbes. His work is couched as a search for truth among the ancient philosophers, and this paper examines his use of the Presocratics as a tool f…Read more
  •  81
    Space, time, shape, and direction: creative discourse in the Timaeus
    In Christopher Gill & Mary Margaret McCabe (eds.), Form and Argument in Late Plato, Oxford University Press. pp. 179--211. 1996.
    There is an analogy between Timaeus's act of describing a world in words and the demiurge's task of making a world of matter. This analogy implies a parallel between language as a system of reproducing ideas in words, and the world, which reproduces reality in particular things. Authority lies in the creation of a likeness in words of the eternal Forms. The Forms serve as paradigms both for the physical world created by the demiurge, and for the world in discourse created by Timaeus: his discour…Read more
  •  66
    A study of Hippolytus of Rome and his treatment of Presocratic Philosophy, used as a case study to argue against the use of collections of fragments and in favour of the idea of reading "embedded texts" with attention to the interpretation and interests of the quoting author. A study of methodology in early Greek Philosophy. Includes novel interpretations of Heraclitus and Empedocles, and an argument for the unity of Empedocles's poem.
  •  40
    I explore the connections between love, resentment and anger, and challenge Nussbaum's assumption that love is self-seeking, leads to resentment when the benefits are withdrawn, and that anger is invariably a vicious response. I sketch an alternative view of genuine love, and of the importance of the anger that springs from seeing a loved one unjustly treated.
  •  6
    Relativism in Plato's Protagoras
    In Verity Harte & Melissa Lane (eds.), Politeia in Greek and Roman Philosophy, Cambridge University Press. pp. 191-211. 2013.
    The character Protagoras in Plato's Protagoras holds similar views to the one in the Theaetetus, and faces similar problems. The dialogue considers issues in epistemology and moral epistemology, as a central theme. The Protagorean position is immune from Socrates' attacks, and Socrates needs Protagorean methods to make any impact.
  •  365
    Eros Unveiled: Plato and the God of Love
    Oxford University Press. 1994.
    This unique book challenges the traditional distinction between eros, the love found in Greek thought, and agape, the love characteristic of Christianity. Focusing on a number of classic texts, including Plato's Symposium and Lysis, Aristotle's Ethics and Metaphysics,, and famous passages in Gregory of Nyssa, Origen, Dionysius the Areopagite, Plotinus, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas, the author shows that Plato's account of eros is not founded on self-interest. In this way, she restores the place…Read more
  •  3
    Editorial
    Rhizomata 3 (1): 1. 2015.
    A brief introduction to the selection of papers on Heraclitus that form the contents of the Special Issue.
  •  7
    Aristotle on the Fantastic Abilities of Animals in De Anima 3. 3'
    Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 19 253-85. 2000.
    A discussion of De anima 3.3 designed to show that phantasia serves to prevent a dualism of different objects for perception and thought, and ensures that attention is directed to real objects in the world, for both animals and humans. when they perceive and when they think about things in their absence. There is a continuity between animal and human behaviour, based on the common use of perceptual attention as the basis of mental attention. The objects of thought are not any more propositional …Read more
  •  13
    The Presocratic Philosophers (review)
    British Journal for the History of Science 18 (1): 93-94. 1985.