•  750
    True Love Is Requited
    Ancient Philosophy 24 (1): 67-80. 2004.
    I defend the argument in Plato's Lysis that true love is requited. I state the argument, the main objections, and my replies. I begin with a synopsis of the dialogue.
  •  667
    The Unity of Virtue, Ambiguity, and Socrates’ Higher Purpose
    Ancient Philosophy 37 (2): 333-346. 2017.
    In the Protagoras, Socrates argues that all the virtues are the very same knowledge of human wellbeing so that virtue is all one. But elsewhere Socrates appears to endorse that the virtues-such as courage, temperance, and reverence-are different parts of a single whole. Ambiguity interpretations harmonize the conflicting texts by taking the virtue words to be equivocal, such as between theoretical and applied expertise, or between a power and its deeds. I argue that such interpretations have fai…Read more
  •  609
    Philosophizing with Plato and Aristotle
    Independently published. 2023.
    This book teaches why and how to philosophize in the manner of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. It offers philosophy to readers as one of the great devotions of life, wonderful for the ideals it sets in the sky and the security it gives. It helps readers uncover their deepest beliefs about life and reality.
  •  559
    Christopher Rowe's Plato and the art of philosophical writing
    Philosophical Books 50 (1): 55-62. 2009.
    The review argues that Plato makes a valid distinction between inferior hypothetical and superior unhypothetical methods. Given the distinction, the book confuses the hypothetical for unhypothetical dialectic.
  •  451
  •  364
    Socrates
    Wiley-Blackwell. 2009.
    _Socrates_ presents a compelling case for some life-changing conclusions that follow from a close reading of Socrates' arguments. Offers a highly original study of Socrates and his thought, accessible to contemporary readers Argues that through studying Socrates we can learn practical wisdom to apply to our lives Lovingly crafted with humour, thought-experiments and literary references, and with close reading sof key Socratic arguments Aids readers with diagrams to make clear complex arguments
  •  350
    Socrates, Wisdom and Pedagogy
    Philosophical Inquiry 31 (1-2): 153-173. 2009.
    Intellectualism about human virtue is the thesis that virtue is knowledge. Virtue intellectualists may be eliminative or reductive. If eliminative, they will eliminate our conventional vocabulary of virtue words-'virtue', 'piety', 'courage', etc.-and speak only of knowledge or wisdom. If reductive, they will continue to use the conventional virtue words but understand each of them as denoting nothing but a kind of knowledge (as opposed to, say, a capacity of some other part of the soul than the …Read more
  •  229
    Socrates, Piety, and Nominalism
    Skepsis: A Journal for Philosophy and Interdisciplinary Research 20 216-221. 2009.
    The argument used by Socrates to refute the thesis that piety is what all the gods love is one of the most well known in the history of philosophy. Yet some fundamental points of interpretation have gone unnoticed. I will show that (i) the strategy of Socrates' argument refutes not only Euthyphro's theory of piety and such neighboring doctrines as cultural relativism and subjectivism, but nominalism in general; moreover, that (ii) the argument needs to assume much less than is generally thought,…Read more
  •  222
    This book is an anthology with the following themes. Non-European Tradition: Bussanich interprets main themes of Hindu ethics, including its roots in ritual sacrifice, its relationship to religious duty, society, individual human well-being, and psychic liberation. To best assess the truth of Hindu ethics, he argues for dialogue with premodern Western thought. Pfister takes up the question of human nature as a case study in Chinese ethics. Is our nature inherently good (as Mengzi argued) or ba…Read more
  •  216
    Las Ambigüedades del Placer. Ensayo Sobre el Placer en la Filosofía de Platón (review)
    Ancient Philosophy 26 (1): 192-196. 2006.
    Review of Bravo's book.
  •  198
    Plato on knowing a tradition
    Philosophy East and West 38 (3): 324-333. 1988.
    The success of relativism as a solution to skeptical problems depends upon the relativist's object of knowledge being invulnerable to the same skeptical doubts which we might have about the undiscovered world. Naturally, therefore, a traditional Platonic response is to argue that the relativist's selected object of knowledge cannot be known apart from knowledge of the undiscovered world. This indeed is the Platonic thesis of this article, as it applies to tradition. I begin by giving a philosoph…Read more
  •  169
    Plato on sense and reference
    Mind 94 (376): 526-537. 1985.
    Plato's "theaetetus" (187-200) raises puzzles about false belief. Frege's explanation of how an identity statement can be informative is often seen as a solution to socrates' puzzles. The strategy of frege's solution is to explain a "mistake" as a "mismatch". But it turns out that socrates' argument, In fact, Is aware of and rejects this strategy
  •  136
    Plato's "Theaetetus" and "Sophist": What False Sentences Are Not
    Dissertation, The University of Wisconsin - Madison. 1982.
    Plato's Theaetetus rejects four explanations of how someone could falsely believe something. The Sophist accepts an explanation of how someone could falsely believe something. The problem is to fit together what Plato rejects in the Theaetetus with what he accepts in the Sophist, given the intended unity of these two dialogues. ;The traditional solution is to take the Sophist's explanation of false speech and belief to be Plato's last word on the matter, to take that explanation as somehow overr…Read more
  •  133
    Review of Platon: Werke, Ubersetzung und Kommentar, vol. 4: Lysis, by Michael Bordt (review)
    Ancient Philosophy 22 (1): 177-180. 2002.
    Praising much, I criticize this commentary on Plato's Lysis on three points: I. The book's dismissal of Socratic intellectualism. II. The book's finding of a Socratic doctrine of symmetrical friendship between good people. III. The book's reading of the final aporia.
  •  91
    Socrates, pleasure, and value
    Oxford University Press. 1999.
    In this study, George Rudebusch addresses whether Socrates was a hedonist--whether he believed pleasure to be the good. In attempting to locate Socrates' position on hedonism, Rudebusch examines the passages in Plato's early dialogues that are the most disputed on the topic. He maintains that Socrates identifies pleasant activity with virtuous activity, describing Socrates' hedonism as one of activity, not sensation. This analysis allows for Socrates to find both virtue and pleasure to be the go…Read more
  •  68
    Plato's Aporetic Style
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 27 (4): 539-547. 1989.
    I describe an aporetic structure found in certain dialogues and explain the structure by showing how it serves, better than expository writing, the pedagogical goal of avoiding giving readers a false sense of knowledge in producing understanding of a philosophical account.
  •  57
    Does Plato think false speech is speech?
    Noûs 24 (4): 599-609. 1990.
    I look at (I) the problem of false speech which Plato faces, (II) the solution he gives in the Sophist, and (III) how that very solution is undermined by the argument of the Theaetetus. I conclude that we ought to see the account of the Theaetetus as overruling the account of the Sophist. On this alternative, Plato holds that false speech and thought really is impossible.
  •  52
    Plato's Philebus: Greek Text with Basic Grammar
    with Hayden Niehus and Brianna Zgurich
    Kindle Direct Publishing. 2020.
    This commentary makes Plato’s Philebus accessible to second-year Greek readers and for scholars who read Greek only infrequently. We aim to help readers who wish to study the text more closely than translations permit. We hope readers new to Plato will be at ease with him by the time they complete the dialogue, but each page is self-contained: readers interested in only one passage need not worry that they have missed earlier remarks. Each page of the commentary contains about eight numbered lin…Read more
  •  41
    Yu, Confucius, and Ren
    Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 10 (3): 341-348. 2011.
  •  39
    Death Is One of Two Things
    Ancient Philosophy 11 (1): 35-45. 1991.
  •  39
    Dramatic Prefiguration in Plato's Republic
    Philosophy and Literature 26 (1): 75-83. 2002.
    After defining dramatic prefiguration, I show how (1) the initial meeting between Polemarchus's party and the smaller group of Socrates and Glaucon prefigures the Republic's theme of how to install the philosophical element in its proper place as ruler in the soul; (2) the relay race of torches carried on horseback prefigures the theory of the soul as tripartite, containing reason, spirit, and appetite; and (3) the opening image of Socrates descending to the Piraeus prefigures the descent of the…Read more
  •  37
    Plato, Philebus 15B: a problem solved
    Classical Quarterly 54 (2): 394-405. 2004.
  •  33
    The Duty to Heal
    Philosophical Inquiry 29 (5): 38-50. 2007.
  •  32
    Beaney on mistakes
    Mind 96 (384): 545-547. 1987.
    In 'Plato on Sense and Reference' (Mind,1985, pp. 526-37), I argued that Plato 'understood and rejected' a general strategy for explaining false belief, and that Frege's explanation of false belief was an instance of that general strategy. Michael Beaney ('Mistakes and Mismatches: A Reply to Rudebusch', Mind, 1987, pp. 95-8) replied that there is a feature of Frege's explanation that enables it to escape the argument. In this rejoinder I argue that Beaney's escape is not Fregean and that it fail…Read more