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95Socratic authorityArchiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 90 (1): 1-38. 2008.This paper offers a critical examination of the notion of epistemic authority in Plato. In the Apology, Socrates claims a certain epistemic superiority over others, and it is easy to suppose that this might be explained in terms of third-person authority: Socrates knows the minds of others better than they know their own. Yet Socrates, as the text makes clear, is not the only one capable of getting the minds of others right. His epistemic edge is rather a matter of first-person authority: while …Read more
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2Aristotle: Eudemian Ethics (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2012.Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics has been unjustly neglected in comparison with its more famous counterpart the Nicomachean Ethics. This is in large part due to the fact that until recently no complete translation of the work has been available. But the Eudemian Ethics is a masterpiece in its own right, offering valuable insights into Aristotle's ideas on virtue, happiness and the good life. This volume offers a translation by Brad Inwood and Raphael Woolf that is both fluent and exact, and an introd…Read more
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43Review: John M. Cooper, Pursuits of Wisdom: Six Ways of Life in Ancient Philosophy from Socrates to Plotinus (review)Philosophical Explorations 124 (2). forthcoming.
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40Spectacles of Truth in Classical Greek Philosophy. Theoria in its Cultural Context (review)The Classical Review 56 (1): 49-51. 2006.
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35Pleasure and desireIn James Warren (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Epicureanism, Cambridge University Press. pp. 158. 2009.
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93A Shaggy Soul Story: How not to Read the Wax Tablet Model in Plato’s TheaetetusPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 69 (3). 2004.This paper sets out to re-examine the famous Wax Tablet model in Plato's Theaetetus, in particular the section of it which appeals to the quality of individual souls' wax as an explanation of why some are more liable to make mistakes than others (194c-195a). This section has often been regarded as an ornamental flourish or a humorous appendage to the model's main explanatory business. Yet in their own appropriations both Aristotle and Locke treat the notion of variable wax quality as an importan…Read more
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64Colloquium 1: Misology and TruthProceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium of Ancient Philosophy 23 (1): 1-24. 2008.
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140Truth as a value in Plato's republicPhronesis 54 (1): 9-39. 2009.To what extent is possession of truth considered a good thing in the Republic? Certain passages of the dialogue appear to regard truth as a universal good, but others are more circumspect about its value, recommending that truth be withheld on occasion and falsehood disseminated. I seek to resolve this tension by distinguishing two kinds of truths, which I label 'philosophical' and 'non-philosophical'. Philosophical truths, I argue, are considered unqualifiedly good to possess, whereas non-philo…Read more
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36Plato and the Hero: Courage, Manliness and the Impersonal GoodPhilosophical Review 111 (1): 95. 2002.The main title of this work is a little misleading. Hobbs does not begin to consider in any detail Plato’s relation to traditional Greek models of the hero until chapter 6, nearly two-thirds of the way through the book. In fact, Hobbs’s treatment of Plato’s re-working of the hero-figure is embedded in a nexus of themes revolving round the Greek virtue of andreia and its psychological basis in that part of the soul that Plato in the Republic calls the thumos. Commonly translated ‘spirit’, the ter…Read more
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31Cicero and GygesClassical Quarterly 63 (2): 801-812. 2013.The tale of Gyges' ring narrated by Cicero atDe officiis3.38 is of course originally found, and acknowledged as such by Cicero, in Plato (Resp.359c–360b). I would like in this paper to address two questions about Cicero's handling of the tale – one historical, one philosophical. The purpose of the historical question is to evaluate, with respect to the Gyges narration, Cicero's quality as a reader of Plato. How well does Cicero understand the role of the story in its original Platonic context? T…Read more