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2II—Ownership, Property and Belonging: Some Lessons to Learn from Thinkers of Antiquity about Economics and SuccessProceedings of the Aristotelian Society. forthcoming.I explore some enlightening alternative economic theories in Plato’s Republic which help to cast doubt on standard models of rationality in economics. Starting from Socrates’ suggestion that things work best if everyone says ‘mine’ about the same things, I discuss a kind of ‘belonging’ which merits more attention in political and economic theory. This kind of belonging is not about owning property, but it can (better) explain the desire to do things for others and for the collective good. But di…Read more
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5Literary genres and judgements of taste: some remarks on Aristotle’s remarks about the poetry of EmpedoclesIn Michael Erler & Jan Erik Heßler (eds.), Argument Und Literarische Form in Antiker Philosophie: Akten des 3. Kongresses der Gesellschaft Für Antike Philosophie 2010, De Gruyter. pp. 305-314. 2013.
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7Marwan Rashed, La Jeune Fille et la Sphère. Études sur EmpédoclePhilosophie Antique 21 269-272. 2021.This book is an amazing treasure trove of riches, and my response, done properly, would probably occupy three monographs. Naturally, Rashed is addressing quite a few controversial issues concerning the interpretation of Empedocles, and on some of these I would heartily disagree with his conclusions, or have minor quibbles; but all his contributions are welcome and reflect a most impressive breadth of learning and scholarship. Where I disagree, it is mostly not that Rashed’s reports of the tex...
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31Philosophical Reflections on the Idea of a Universal Basic IncomeRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 91 81-102. 2022.A universal basic income is an unconditional allowance, sufficient to live on, paid in cash to every citizen regardless of income. It has been a Green Party policy for years. But the idea raises many interesting philosophical questions, about fairness, entitlement, desert, stigma and sanctions, the value of unpaid work, the proper ambitions of a good society, and our preconceptions about whether leisure or jobs are the thing we should prize above all for free citizens. Coming from the perspectiv…Read more
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64Analytic Philosophy, the Ancient Philosopher Poets and the Poetics of Analytic PhilosophyRhizomata 8 (2): 158-182. 2021.The paper starts with reflections on Plato’s critique of the poets and the preference many express for Aristotle’s view of poetry. The second part of the paper takes a case study of analytic treatments of ancient philosophy, including the ancient philosopher poets, to examine the poetics of analytic philosophy, diagnosing a preference in Analytic philosophy for a clean non-poetic style of presentation, and then develops this in considering how well historians of philosophy in the Analytic tradit…Read more
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18Heraclitus: Fragments: A Text and Translation With a Commentary (review)Philosophical Review 99 (1): 104-106. 1990.
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44On being reminded of Heraclitus by the motifs in Plato’s PhaedoIn Enrica Fantino, Ulrike Muss, Charlotte Schubert & Kurt Sier (eds.), Heraklit Im Kontext, De Gruyter. pp. 373-414. 2017.In this paper I argue that we can better understand Plato’s Phaedo, if we don’t concentrate solely on the hints of Pythagoreanism among the characters and their doctrines, as though that were the principal key to the dialogue’s dialec- tical targets. I suggest that the dialogue is intended to make us think of the meta-physics of at least one other Presocratic predecessor, besides any Pythagorean influence (which may be much less than has been thou…Read more
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8Matter, Space, and Motion: Theories in Antiquity and Their Sequel by Richard Sorabji (review)Isis 81 97-98. 1990.
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2765Successors of Socrates, Disciples of Descartes, and Followers of Freud (review)Apeiron 34 (2). 2001.All three books reviewed here are turning over again for us the pages of perennially irresistible thinkers whose ideas never cease to hold us transfixed; all three are inviting us to notice that the material that we thought we knew has got more to do with what Nehamas calls 'the art of living' than we might have realised; and all three are making space for attitudes, responses and areas of self-understanding that are, by traditional classifications, irrational and hence sometimes inadequately ac…Read more
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35Knowledge and Truth in Plato: Stepping Past the Shadow of SocratesOxford University Press. 2018.Catherine Rowett presents an in depth study of Plato's Meno, Republic and Theaetetus and offers both a coherent argument that the project in which Plato was engaging has been widely misunderstood and misrepresented, and detailed new readings of particular thorny issues in the interpretation of these classic texts.
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Why the Philosopher Kings will Believe the Noble LieOxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 50 67-100. 2016.
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66XI*—Perceiving Particulars and Recollecting the Forms in the PhaedoProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 95 (1): 211-234. 1995.I ask whether the Recollection argument commits Socrates to the view that our only source of knowledge of the Forms is sense perception. I argue that Socrates does not confine our presently available sources of knowledge to empirically based recollection, but that he does think that we can't begin to move towards a philosophical understanding of the Forms except as a result of puzzles prompted by the shortfall of particulars in relation to the Forms, and hence that our awareness of the Forms is …Read more
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48David Furley. Cosmic Problems: Essays on Greek and Roman Philosophy of Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Pp. xiv + 258. ISBN 0-521-33330-X (review)British Journal for the History of Science 23 (3): 367-368. 1990.
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31Matter, Space, and Motion: Theories in Antiquity and Their Sequel. Richard Sorabji (review)Isis 81 (1): 97-98. 1990.This is a book review of the book by Sorabji.
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138Aristotle, De anima 3. 2: How do we perceive that we see and hear?Classical Quarterly 33 (02): 401-411. 1983.The most important things in this seminal paper are (a) showing that the first part of the chapter is only setting up the aporia and does not provide the solution; (b) showing that the rest of the chapter provides the material for resolving the aporia; (c) showing that the question is not about how we perceive that we perceive, but how we can distinguish between seeing and hearing—how we are aware that we are seeing rather than hearing; (c) showing that this is reducible to how we are aware that…Read more
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29Philoponus on the origins of the universe and other issuesStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 20 (3): 389-395. 1989.
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42Scott Austin: Parmenides, Being, Bounds and Logic (review)Ancient Philosophy 11 (2): 393-396. 1991.This is a book review of the work by Scott Austin.
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27George Klosko, "The Development of Plato's Political Theory" (review)Journal of the History of Philosophy 27 (1): 146. 1989.
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50Love, Sex and the Gods: Why things have divine names in Empedocles’ poem, and why they come in pairsRhizomata 4 (1): 80-110. 2016.
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44"No" means "Yes": The Seduction of the Word in Plato's PhaedrusProceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium of Ancient Philosophy 15 (1): 263-281. 1999.The motifs of love and seduction in the Phaedrus are not about sexual love but about philosophy, and particularly about two different approaches to philosophy, one engaged and emotionally, even poetically, involved and one cold, rational and detached. Socrates' palinode speech in the Phaedrus contrasts the lover of beauty whose philosophical sensitivities enable the wings to grow and intellectual vision to occur, with the cool rational character of the non-lover who has no place for love of beau…Read more
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19Sources of Significance in Hippolytus's Account of Greek PhilosophyApeiron 27 (3). 1994.L'A. étudie l'oeuvre d'Hippolyte de Rome qui présente, moins qu'un véritable intérêt philosophique, l'avantage d'une certaine connaissance de l'histoire de la philosophie, sur laquelle il fonde sa défense de la doctrine chrétienne. Le débat s'articule autour de l'originalité de l'interprétation de la philosophie grecque, des Présocratiques en particulier, par Hippolyte. Il s'agit, par comparaison avec Plotin, de délimiter les sources philosophiques de son oeuvre empreinte d'un moyen platonisme t…Read more
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44“If all things were to turn to smoke, it’d be the nostrils would tell them apart”In Enrique Hülsz Piccone (ed.), Nuevos Ensayos Sobre Heráclito: Actas Del Segundo Symposium Heracliteum, . 2009.I start by asking what Aristotle knew (or thought) about Heraclitus: what were the key features of Heraclitus's philosophy as far as Aristotle was concerned? In this section of the paper I suggest that there are some patterns to Aristotle's references to Heraclitus: besides the classic doctrines (flux, ekpyrosis and the unity of opposites) on the one hand, and the opening of Heraclitus's book on the other, Aristotle knows and reports a few slightly less obvious sayings, one of which is in my tit…Read more
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University of East AngliaSchool of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication StudiesRetired faculty
Norwich, Norfolk, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
Plato |
Areas of Interest
13 more