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Bryan C. Reece

University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
  •  Home
  •  Publications
    6
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 More details
  • University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
    Department of Philosophy
    Assistant Professor
University of Toronto, St. George Campus
PhD
Homepage
0000-0003-2324-4713
Areas of Specialization
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy
Causation
Grounding
Philosophy of Action
Virtue Epistemology
Virtue Ethics
1 more
Areas of Interest
Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy
Causation
Grounding
Virtue Epistemology
  • All publications (6)
  •  51
    Aristotle on Happiness, Virtue, and Wisdom
    Cambridge University Press. forthcoming.
    Aristotle thinks that happiness is an activity---it consists in doing something---rather than a feeling. It is the best activity of which humans are capable and is spread out over the course of a life. But what kind of activity is it? Some of his remarks indicate that it is a single best kind of activity, intellectual contemplation. Other evidence suggests that it is an overarching activity that has various virtuous activities, ethical and intellectual, as parts. At stake are questions about how…Read more
    Aristotle thinks that happiness is an activity---it consists in doing something---rather than a feeling. It is the best activity of which humans are capable and is spread out over the course of a life. But what kind of activity is it? Some of his remarks indicate that it is a single best kind of activity, intellectual contemplation. Other evidence suggests that it is an overarching activity that has various virtuous activities, ethical and intellectual, as parts. At stake are questions about how we should live and the correct balance of theoretical and practical activity. Numerous interpreters have sharply disagreed about Aristotle's answers to such questions. This book offers a fundamentally new approach to determining what kind of activity Aristotle thinks happiness is, one that challenges widespread assumptions that have until now prevented a dialectically satisfactory interpretation. This approach displays the boldness and systematicity of Aristotle's practical philosophy.
    HappinessVirtue Ethics and Practical WisdomAristotle: The Good LifeAristotle: EssenceVirtue Ethics a…Read more
    HappinessVirtue Ethics and Practical WisdomAristotle: The Good LifeAristotle: EssenceVirtue Ethics and EudaimoniaAristotle: HappinessAristotle: Moral VirtuesAristotle: The Two LivesAristotle: CharacterAristotle: Practical Wisdom
  •  61
    The Undivided Self: Aristotle on the 'Mind-Body' Problem (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 1. 2022.
    Aristotle: CausationAristotle: Active/Passive IntellectAristotle: Form and MatterAristotle: Substant…Read more
    Aristotle: CausationAristotle: Active/Passive IntellectAristotle: Form and MatterAristotle: Substantial FormsAristotle: SoulAristotle: On the SoulAristotle: EssenceAristotle: SubstanceAristotle: PerceptionAristotle: Philosophy of Mind, MiscAristotle: Matter and Material Change
  •  604
    Aristotle on Divine and Human Contemplation
    Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 7. 2020.
    Aristotle’s theory of human happiness in the Nicomachean Ethics explicitly depends on the claim that contemplation (theôria) is peculiar to human beings, whether it is our function or only part of it. But there is a notorious problem: Aristotle says that divine beings also contemplate. Various solutions have been proposed, but each has difficulties. Drawing on an analysis of what divine contemplation involves according to Aristotle, I identify an assumption common to all of these proposals and a…Read more
    Aristotle’s theory of human happiness in the Nicomachean Ethics explicitly depends on the claim that contemplation (theôria) is peculiar to human beings, whether it is our function or only part of it. But there is a notorious problem: Aristotle says that divine beings also contemplate. Various solutions have been proposed, but each has difficulties. Drawing on an analysis of what divine contemplation involves according to Aristotle, I identify an assumption common to all of these proposals and argue for rejecting it. This allows a straightforward solution to the problem and there is evidence that Aristotle would have adopted it.
    Aristotle: The Unmoved MoverAristotle: CosmologyAristotle: HappinessAristotle: Soul
  •  215
    Are There Really Two Kinds of Happiness in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics?
    Classical Philology 115 (2): 270-280. 2020.
    Aristotle appears to claim at Nicomachean Ethics 10.8, 1178a9 that there are two kinds of happy life: one theoretical, one practical. This claim is notoriously problematic and does not follow from anything that Aristotle has said to that point. However, the apparent claim depends on supplying 'happy' or 'happiest' from the previous sentence, as is standard among translators and interpreters. I argue for an alternative supplement that commits Aristotle to a much less problematic and unexpected po…Read more
    Aristotle appears to claim at Nicomachean Ethics 10.8, 1178a9 that there are two kinds of happy life: one theoretical, one practical. This claim is notoriously problematic and does not follow from anything that Aristotle has said to that point. However, the apparent claim depends on supplying 'happy' or 'happiest' from the previous sentence, as is standard among translators and interpreters. I argue for an alternative supplement that commits Aristotle to a much less problematic and unexpected position and permits a wider variety of interpretations of Aristotle’s overall theory of happiness.
    Aristotle: Practical WisdomAristotle: The Two LivesAristotle: The Good LifeAristotle: HappinessArist…Read more
    Aristotle: Practical WisdomAristotle: The Two LivesAristotle: The Good LifeAristotle: HappinessAristotle: Character
  •  18
    Out of Thin Air? Diogenes on Causal Explanation
    In Hynek Bartoš & Colin King (eds.), Heat, Pneuma, and Soul in Ancient Philosophy and Medicine, Cambridge University Press. pp. 106-120. 2020.
    Diogenes subscribes to a principle that, roughly, causal interaction and change require a certain sort of uniformity among the relata. Attending to this principle can help us understand Diogenes's relationship to the superficially similar Anaximenes without insisting, as some do, that Diogenes must be consciously responding to Parmenides. Diogenes is distinctive and philosophically interesting because his principle combines two senses of ‘archê’ (principle, starting-point), namely, the idea of s…Read more
    Diogenes subscribes to a principle that, roughly, causal interaction and change require a certain sort of uniformity among the relata. Attending to this principle can help us understand Diogenes's relationship to the superficially similar Anaximenes without insisting, as some do, that Diogenes must be consciously responding to Parmenides. Diogenes is distinctive and philosophically interesting because his principle combines two senses of ‘archê’ (principle, starting-point), namely, the idea of source or origin and that of underlying (material) principle, and gives the rudiments of an argument for associating the two, by which Aristotle may have been influenced. Diogenes’s principle and its deployment in biological explanations thematized a concern that Aristotle at least partially shared, and which led him to appeal, as Diogenes is said to have done, to pneuma (breath, air).
    Aristotle: BiologyAristotle: Matter and Material ChangeAristotle: CausationAristotle and Other Philo…Read more
    Aristotle: BiologyAristotle: Matter and Material ChangeAristotle: CausationAristotle and Other Philosophers, MiscParmenidesMilesians
  •  289
    Aristotle's Four Causes of Action
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 97 (2): 213-227. 2019.
    Aristotle’s typical procedure is to identify something's four causes. Intentional action has typically been treated as an exception: most think that Aristotle has the standard causalist account, according to which an intentional action is a bodily movement efficiently caused by an attitude of the appropriate sort. I show that action is not an exception to Aristotle’s typical procedure: he has the resources to specify four causes of action, and thus to articulate a powerful theory of action unlik…Read more
    Aristotle’s typical procedure is to identify something's four causes. Intentional action has typically been treated as an exception: most think that Aristotle has the standard causalist account, according to which an intentional action is a bodily movement efficiently caused by an attitude of the appropriate sort. I show that action is not an exception to Aristotle’s typical procedure: he has the resources to specify four causes of action, and thus to articulate a powerful theory of action unlike any other on offer.
    Psychological ExplanationAristotle: CausationAristotle: Form and MatterAristotle: Free Will and Agen…Read more
    Psychological ExplanationAristotle: CausationAristotle: Form and MatterAristotle: Free Will and AgencyThe Structure of Action
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