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336A More 'Exact Grasp' of the Soul? Tripartition of the Soul in Republic IV and Dialectic in the PhilebusIn José Medina & David Wood (eds.), Truth, Blackwell. pp. 57-135. 2005-01-01.At Republic 435c-d and again at 504b-e, Plato has Socrates object to the city/soul analogy and declare that a “longer way” is necessary for gaining a more “exact grasp” of the soul. I argue that it is in the Philebus, in Socrates’ presentation of the “god-given” method of dialectic and in his distinctions of the kinds of pleasure and knowledge, that Plato offers the resources for reaching this alternative account. To show this, I explore (1) the limitations of the tripartition of the soul that…Read more
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38The philosopher in Plato's StatesmanParmenides. 2004.In the Statesman , Plato brings together--only to challenge and displace--his own crowning contributions to philosophical method, political theory, and drama. In his 1980 study, reprinted here, Mitchell Miller employs literary theory and conceptual analysis to expose the philosophical, political, and pedagogical conflict that is the underlying context of the dialogue, revealing that its chaotic variety of movements is actually a carefully harmonized act of realizing the mean. The original study …Read more
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52One and Many in Aristotle's Metaphysics: The Central Books by Edward C. Halper (review)Classical World: A Quarterly Journal on Antiquity 88 55-55. 1994.A review of Edward Halper's brilliant exegesis of the middle books of Aristotle's Metaphysics, in which he shows that Aristotle keys his search for the hierarchy of senses of being to his quest for the hierarchical array of the senses of unity.
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378The Pleasures of the Comic and of Socratic InquiryArethusa 41 (2): 263-289. 2008.At Apology 33c Socrates explains that "some people enjoy … my company" because "they … enjoy hearing those questioned who think they are wise but are not." At Philebus 48a-50b he makes central to his account of the pleasure of laughing at comedy the exposé of the self-ignorance of those who presume themselves wise. Does the latter passage explain the pleasure of watching Socrates at work? I explore this by tracing the admixture of pain, the causes, and the "natural harmony" that Socrates' gen…Read more
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323Non-bifurcatory Diairesis and Greek Music Theory: A resource for Plato in the Statesman?In Ales Havlicek, Jakub JIrsa & Karel Thein (eds.), Plato's Statesman: Proceedings of the Eighth Symposium Platonicum Pragense, Oikoymenh. pp. 178-200. 2013.At 287c of the Statesman the Eleatic Visitor — or, more deeply, Plato — faces a daunting task. Because statesmanship has been shown to collaborate with “countless” other arts that share with it the work of “caring” for the city, to understand statesmanship requires distinguishing these arts into an intelligible set of kinds and recognizing how these might go together. Accordingly, the Visitor abandons the mode of division he has practiced without exception up until this moment, bifurcation or …Read more
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291Review essays-dialectic and dialogue-by Dmitri NikulinGraduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 32 (1): 177. 2011.Dmitri Nikulin extends his earlier study of oral dialogue (On Dialogue [Lexington, 2006]) to an investigation of dialectic, moving from a narrative of its development in Plato and the history of philosophy (ch.s 1-3) through a renewed phenomenological account of oral dialogue (ch.s 4-5) to a critique, from the perspective of oral dialogue, of the limitations of written dialectic (ch. 6). I take up some of the provocations of his bold and open-ended argument. Does his own “writing against writi…Read more
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42The God-Given WayIn Daniel John and Shartin Cleary (ed.), Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy 6, University Press of America. pp. 323-359. 1990.A close reading of the presentation of the method of dialectic at Philebus 16c-18d and, I argue, of its display in the account of the kinds of art necessary for a good city at Statesman 287c-290a and 303d-305e.
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402The Attainment of the Absolute in Hegel's PhenomenologyIn Jon Stewart (ed.), The Phenomenology of Spirit Reader: A Collection of Critical and Interpretive Essays, State University of New York Press. pp. 427-443. 1998.A close reading of the final chapter of Hegel's Phenomenology, with special attention to phenomenological method, to the structure of overcomings and preservations that makes for the integrated totality of the ascent to the absolute, to the determinate negations that bind ch.s 6c on Objective Spirit and 7c on Revealed Religion to one another and to ch. 8 on Absolute Spirit, and to the relations of the absolute standpoint to time and to history.
Poughkeepsie, New York, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
19th Century Philosophy |
History of Western Philosophy |
Plato |