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4The Virtues and 'Becoming Like God': Alcinous to ProclusIn David Sedley (ed.), Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy Xxvi: Summer 2004, Oxford University Press. 2004.
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9The Myth of Er and Female Guardians in Proclus’ Republic CommentaryIn Jana Schultz & James Wilberding (eds.), Women and the Female in Neoplatonism, Brill. pp. 104-121. 2022.Proclus takes the Republic’s (Book V) recommendation that there should be both male and female Guardians as a serious political proposal, but like Plato, he gives few specifics. A recurring theme in Proclus’ commentary is that political arrangements are just to the extent that they effectively mirror the providential administration of the cosmos. Thus the Myth of Er is not merely an adornment at the end of the dialogue, but contains important information about the cosmic paradigm to which the ju…Read more
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20The Optimal Times for Incarnation: Let Me Count the WaysIn Sara Ahbel-Rappe, Danielle A. Layne & Crystal Addey (eds.), Soul Matters: Plato and Platonists on the Nature of the Soul, Society For Biblical Literature. pp. 345-84. 2023.In this paper we examine some of the astrological content in Proclus' exegesis of the 'nuptial number' in Republic 545d, ff. The downfall of the best city-state is said by Socrates to be due to the fact that the Guardians, for all their wisdom, make a mistake about the timing of the breeding of future rulers and this mistake is somehow due to perception. We argue that Proclus' Republic Commentary is best understood as supposing that the Guardians are highly capable astrologers who can -- up unti…Read more
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1Proclus on Plato's Dialectic: Argument by PerformanceIn Melina G. Mouzala (ed.), Ancient Greek Dialectic and Its Reception, De Gruyter. pp. 413-26. 2023.Neoplatonist commentators generally regarded Plato as having a unified account of a method called 'dialectic'. This paper looks at the manner in which they reconciled the idea of dialectic from the Republic (with its ascent to an unhypothetical first principle) with the method of collection and division described in dialogues like Phaedrus and Philebus and seemingly illustrated in dialogues like the Statesman.
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110Intimate relations: friends and loversIn E. Kroeker and K. Schaubroek (ed.), Love, Reason and Morality. 2017.In this paper we look at two kinds of relations that give rise to reasons for action of a distinctive sort: friendship and erotic love. We argue that what is common to these different relations of affection is that the people in them exhibit dispositions toward mutual direction by one another and interpretation of one another (in a sense that we describe in detail below). This mutual responsiveness is, in part, a matter of responding to reasons that arise from the relation of love or friendship.…Read more
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111On Plato : Phaedrus 227a-245eBloomsbury Academic. 2018.This commentary records, through notes taken by Hermias, Syrianus' seminar on Plato's Phaedrus, one of the world's most influential celebrations of erotic beauty and love. It is the only Neoplatonic commentary on Plato's Phaedrus to have survived in its entirety. Further interest comes from the recorded interventions by Syrianus' pupils - including those by Proclus, his eventual successor as head of the Athenian school, who went on to teach Hermias' father, Ammonius. The second of two volumes of…Read more
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96The ethics of celestial physics in late antique PlatonismIn Thomas Buchheim, David Meissner & Nora Wachsmann (eds.), Sōma: Körperkonzepte und körperliche Existenz in der antiken Philosophie und Literatur, Felix Meiner Verlag. pp. 183-97. 2016.Plato's Tim. 90b1-c6 describes a pathway to the soul's salvation via the study of the heavens. This paper poses three questions about this theme in Platonism: 1. The epistemological question: How is the paradigmatic function of the visible heavenly bodies to be reconciled with various Platonic misgivings about the faculty of perception? 2. The metaphysical question: How can »assimilation« to the motions of bodies in the realm of Becoming provide for the salvation of souls when souls are »higher«…Read more
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Feelings, Virtues, and Happiness in Aristotle's Nicomachean EthicsIn Michael Hemmingsen (ed.), Ethical Theory in Global Perspective, Suny Press. pp. 27-42. 2024.
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33The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus AureliusMind 110 (439): 764-767. 2001.I recognise in retrospect that this review chides Prof. Hadot for those things that he didn't do so well, while failing to give due credit to the kinds of writing about philosophy that he did do well.
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84Hermias: On Plato's PhaedrusIn Harold Tarrant, Danielle A. Layne, Dirk Baltzly & François Renaud (eds.), Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Plato in Antiquity, Brill. 2017.This article tackles the sole surviving ancient commentary on what was perhaps the second most important Platonic work, with special interest for the manner in which the ancients tackled the setting of Plato's dialogues, Socratic ignorance, Socratic eros, the central myth-like Palinode, and the question of oral as against written teaching.
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157The commentary on Plato's Republic by Proclus (d. 485 CE), which takes the form of a series of essays, is the only sustained treatment of the dialogue to survive from antiquity. This three-volume edition presents the first complete English translation of Proclus' text, together with a general introduction that argues for the unity of Proclus' Commentary and orients the reader to the use which the Neoplatonists made of Plato's Republic in their educational program. Each volume is completed by a G…Read more
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90Hermias on the Unity of the PhaedrusIn John F. Finamore, Christina-Panagiota Manolea & Sarah Klitenic Wear (eds.), Studies in Hermias’ Commentary on Plato’s _Phaedrus_, Brill. pp. 68-83. 2019.In the Phaedrus, Socrates insists that every proper logos must have the unity of an organic living thing. And yet it is hard to say what imposes any such unity on the various speeches and topics that are dealt with in this very dialogue. This chapter situates the view of Hermias of Alexandria in relation to modern debates about what, if anything, unifies the Phaedrus. For the ancient Neoplatonists, the question of unity was bound up with the question of each dialogue's "skopos". We argue that He…Read more
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144Journeys in the Phaedrus: Hermias' Reading of the Walk to the IlissusIn John F. Finamore, Christina-Panagiota Manolea & Sarah Klitenic Wear (eds.), Studies in Hermias’ Commentary on Plato’s _Phaedrus_, Brill. pp. 7-24. 2019.Plato’s Phaedrus is a dialogue of journeys, a tale of transitions. It begins with Socrates’ question, ‘Where to and from whence, my dear Phaedrus?’ and concludes with the Socrates’ decision, ‘Let’s go’ (sc. back into the city from whence they’ve come). In the speech that forms its centre-piece Socrates narrates another famous journey—the descent of the soul into the body and its reascent to the realm of Forms through erotic madness. It is not too implausible to suppose that Plato himself saw fit…Read more
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104The Starry Heavens AboveInternational Journal of the Platonic Tradition 16 (1): 49-57. 2022.Lengthy review of the 2020 Brill Companion to Hellenistic Astronomy with special reference to Neoplatonism.
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33Women in Philosophy, Engineering & Theology: Gendered disciplines and projects of critical re-imaginationWomen's Studies International Forum 86. 2021.Philosophy, theology and engineering are each characterised by striking, yet similar, low participation rates by female academics. While these disciplines seem very different, and so the diagnosis of the causes of this under-representation might likewise be expected to differ, we show a commonality of analysis in the diagnoses of, and responses to, women's under-representation. In each, we find a shared argument that concepts and methodologies central to that discipline are gendered male. We als…Read more
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360Making the World a More Just Place – review of Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice’ (review)Dissent 31. 2009.
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207Adunamic hedonismIn Dirk Baltzly, Dougal Blyth & Harold Tarrant (eds.), Pleasure and Power, Virtues and Vices, Prudentia Supplement. pp. 136-159. 2001.It is widely supposed that Epicurus' identification of aponia (painlessness) and the absence of anxiety (ataraxia) yields as a consequence the claim that the most pleasant life is one that requires little in the way of resources or power. This paper argues that the remarks in Cicero which attempt to reconstruct Epicurus' reasons for thinking that aponia and ataraxia are the limit of pleasure are best interpreted if we suppose that the inference runs the other direction. Epicurus supposed that it…Read more
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21Jamming with the Gods—Reflections on Writing the History of Late Antique PlatonismSophia 60 (1): 225-231. 2021.Lengthy review of Nicola Spanu's 2020 book, Proclus and the Chaldean Oracles A Study on Proclean Exegesis, with a Translation and Commentary of Proclus’ Treatise On Chaldean Philosophy. The review indulges in some reflections on methodology and the interpretation of Neoplatonic texts.
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85The Human LifeIn Pieter D'Hoine & Marije Martijn (eds.), All From One: A Guide to Proclus, Oxford University Press. 2016.In previous chapters, it has become clear that Proclus’ metaphysics is often relevant to human life. In this chapter, that relation is elaborated on in detail, starting from the notion of a ‘textual community’. In the first section, the author presents the Neoplatonic goal of human life, assimilation to the divine. In the second section, he elaborates the scale of virtues through which, according to Proclus, one may reach that assimilation. The third section is devoted to establishing the intere…Read more
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109Review Article: An Octave of StrawPolis 29 (2): 321-331. 2012.Lengthy critical notice of J. B. Kennedy, The Musical Structure of Plato's Dialogues (Acumen, 2011). We approached the prospect of reviewing Kennedy’s book with excitement and optimism, but we’ve left rather disappointed. The case doesn’t hang together, we think, because it requires us to suppose that Plato composed to a pattern that his readers wouldn’t be looking for. They wouldn’t be looking for it musically, because it is not musically significant. Moreover, if he expected them to be lookin…Read more
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34Ancient Commentators on Plato and Aristotle - Tuominen The Ancient Commentators on Plato and Aristotle. Pp. xii + 324. Stocksfield: Acumen, 2009. Paper £14.99 . ISBN: 978-1-84465-163-4 (review)The Classical Review 60 (2): 417-419. 2010.See also Tarrant's review on Notre Dame Philosophical Review.
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16Second Sailing: Alternative Perspectives on Plato, edited by Nails, Debra, and Harold Tarrant: Helsinki: Societas Scientiarum Fennica, 2015, pp. xii + 366, €30 (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 95 (3): 625-625. 2017.
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2136Covers Essays 1 to 6 in Proclus' Commentary and includes a general introduction to the work as a whole.
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1115Hermias: On Plato Phaedrus 227a–245eBloomsbury. 2018.Translation and commentary on the only surviving sustained work on Plato's Phaedrus from antiquity.
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577Brill’s Companion to the Reception of Plato in Antiquity (edited book)Brill. 2017.31 chapters covering the Old Academy to Late Antiquity. See attached TOC
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36The demiurge. C.s. O'Brien the demiurge in ancient thought. Secondary gods and divine mediators. Pp. XVI + 333. Cambridge: Cambridge university press, 2015. Cased, £65, us$99. Isbn: 978-1-107-07536-8 (review)The Classical Review 66 (2): 375-377. 2016.
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28The Skopos Assumption: Its Justification and Function in the Neoplatonic Commentaries on PlatoInternational Journal of the Platonic Tradition 11 (2): 173-195. 2017._ Source: _Volume 11, Issue 2, pp 173 - 195 This paper examines the role of the theme in Neoplatonic interpretive practice, particularly with respect to Platonic dialogues. The belief that every dialogue has a single _skopos_ and that every aspect of the dialogue can be seen as subserving that _skopos_ is one of the most distinctive of the Neoplatonists’ intepretive principles. 1 It is also the one that is most directly responsible for the forced and artificial character of their readings of Pla…Read more
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33A role for virtue in unifying the ‘knowledge’ and ‘caring’ discourses in nursing theoryNursing Inquiry 24 (4). 2017.A critical examination of contemporary nursing theory suggests that two distinct discourses coexist within this field. On the one hand, proponents of the ‘knowledge discourse’ argue that nurses should drop the ‘virtue script’ and focus on the scientific and technical aspects of their work. On the other hand, proponents of the ‘caring discourse’ promote a view of nursing that embodies humanistic qualities such as compassion, empathy and mutuality. In view of this, we suggest a way to reconcile bo…Read more
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89Plato, Aristotle, and the λόγος ἐκ τῶν πρός τιOxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 15 177-206. 1997.In his commentary on Aristotle's Metaphysics, Alexander of Aphrodisias quotes from Aristotle's now-lost work On the Ideas -- his account of the arguments offered by Plato for the theory of Forms and his criticisms of those arguments. This paper considers one of these arguments, the Argument from Relatives (ta pros ti). It considers how Plato argued for Forms or Ideas such as the Large Itself, the Just Itself and so on and whether Plato supposed that there were Forms corresponding to sortal terms…Read more
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103The Virtues and 'Becoming like God': Alcinous to ProclusOxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 26 297-321. 2004.Later versions of Platonic ethics fit the frame of eudaimonism and specify a telos based on Theaetetus 176B and Timaeus 90A-D: 'likeness to god in so far as possible'. This paper examines the development of this idea from the middle Platonist Alcinous to the Neoplatonist Proclus. It examines the way in which Proclus makes this specification of human happiness a bit less "other worldy".
Areas of Specialization
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
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Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
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Hellenistic and Later Ancient Philosophy |