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180Fatalism and False Futures in De Interpretatione 9Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy. forthcoming.In De interpretatione 9, Aristotle argues against the fatalist view that if statements about future contingent singular events (e.g. ‘There will be a sea battle tomorrow,’ ‘There will not be a sea battle tomorrow’) are already true or false, then the events to which those statements refer will necessarily occur or necessarily not occur. Scholars have generally held that, to refute this argument, Aristotle allows that future contingent statements are exempt from either the principle of bivalence,…Read more
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28Aristotle on Earlier Definitions of Soul and Their Explanatory Power: DA I.2–5In Caleb Cohoe (ed.), Aristotle's on the Soul: A Critical Guide, Cambridge University Press. 2022.In DA I.2–5, Aristotle offers a series of critical discussions of earlier Greek definitions of the soul. The status of these discussions and the role they play in the justification of Aristotle’s theory of soul in DA II–III is controversial. In contrast to a common view, I argue that these discussions are not dialectical but philosophical. I also contend that Aristotle does not consider earlier philosophical definitions of soul to be endoxa, but rather contradoxa – beliefs about which the many a…Read more
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95A Wolf in the City: Tyranny and the Tyrant in Plato's Republic (review)Philosophical Quarterly 70 (279): 419-421. 2020.In this dense, intelligent, but often frustrating work, Cinzia Arruzza argues that Plato's depiction of tyranny and the character of the tyrant in the Republic is best interpreted as, ‘an intervention in a debate concerning the transformed relation between political leaders and demos in Athenian democracy’ (p. 9) in the last decades of the fifth century BCE. Her central claim is that Plato's critique of tyranny in the Republic was aimed at showing that this particular historical form of Athenian…Read more
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89Aristotle on Earlier Greek Psychology: The Science of SoulCambridge University Press. 2019.This volume is the first in English to provide a full, systematic investigation into Aristotle's criticisms of earlier Greek theories of the soul from the perspective of his theory of scientific explanation. Some interpreters of the De Anima have seen Aristotle's criticisms of Presocratic, Platonic, and other views about the soul as unfair or dialectical, but Jason W. Carter argues that Aristotle's criticisms are in fact a justified attempt to test the adequacy of earlier theories in terms of th…Read more
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77Aristotle, On the Soul and Other Psychological Works, Trans. Fred D. Miller, Jr. (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 10. 2018.Fred D. Miller, Jr.'s stated goal for his new translation for the Oxford World's Classics series is, 'to provide a clear and accessible translation of Aristotle's psychological works while . . . conveying something of his distinctive style'. Not only does Miller achieve these goals in spades, but he also provides something more. His translation of Aristotle's De Anima and Parva Naturalia (the 'short works concerning nature'), along with twenty-three selected fragments from Aristotle's lost works…Read more
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26Aristotle’s 'Physics' Book I: A Systematic Exploration, Ed. Diana Quarantotto (review)Bryn Mawr Classical Review 10. 2018.Originating from two conferences that took place in September 2013 and June 2015 at Sapienza University of Rome, this outstanding specialist volume aims to systematically illuminate the arguments that Aristotle uses in trying to establish the ‘first principles’ of his natural philosophy in Physics I. Not only is it successful in achieving this overall goal, but it is also timely, as its publication anticipates the forthcoming proceedings of the July 2014 Symposium Aristotelicum, devoted to the P…Read more
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835Plutarch's Epicurean Justification of Religious BeliefJournal of the History of Philosophy 56 (3): 385-412. 2018.In his dialogue, 'Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum', Plutarch of Chaeronea criticizes Epicurus for not believing that the gods are provident over human affairs and for not believing that our souls survive death. However, Plutarch’s arguments are striking in that they do not offer any theoretical justification for believing either of these religious claims to be true; rather, they aim to establish that we are practically justified in adopting them if we follow Epicurus’s rule that the go…Read more
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1447St. Augustine on Time, Time Numbers, and Enduring ObjectsVivarium 49 (4): 301-323. 2011.Throughout his works, St. Augustine offers at least nine distinct views on the nature of time, at least three of which have remained almost unnoticed in the secondary literature. I first examine each these nine descriptions of time and attempt to diffuse common misinterpretations, especially of the views which seek to identify Augustinian time as consisting of an un-extended point or a distentio animi . Second, I argue that Augustine's primary understanding of time, like that of later medieval s…Read more
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758How Aristotle Changes Anaxagoras’s MindApeiron 52 (1): 1-28. 2019.I argue that a common interpretation of DA 3.4, which sees Aristotle as there rejecting Anaxagoras’s account of mind, is mistaken. Instead, I claim that, in providing his solution to the main puzzles of this chapter, Aristotle takes special care to preserve the essential features that he thinks Anaxagoras ascribes to mind, namely, its ability to know all things, its being unmixed, and its inability to be affected by mixed objects.
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53One Book, the Whole Universe: Plato’s Timaeus Today, Eds. Richard D. Mohr and Barbara M. Sattler (review)American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 86 (1): 170-173. 2012.Book Review
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601Does the Soul Weave? Reconsidering De Anima 1.4, 408a29-b18Phronesis 63 (1): 25-63. 2018.In De Anima 1.4, Aristotle asks whether the soul can be moved by its own affections. His conclusion—that to say the soul grows angry is like saying that it weaves and builds—has traditionally been read on the assumption that it is false to credit the soul with weaving and building; I argue that Aristotle’s analysis of psychological motions implies his belief that the soul does in fact weave and build.
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2405Aristotle and the Problem of ForgivenessAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 92 (1): 49-71. 2018.In recent decades, it has been argued that the modern concept of forgiveness is absent from Aristotle’s conception of συγγνώμη as it appears in his Rhetoric and Nicomachean Ethics. In this paper, I argue that Aristotle’s view is more modern than it might appear. I defend the idea that Aristotle’s treatment of συγγνώμη, when seen in conjunction with his theory of ethical decision, involuntary action, and character alteration, commits him to a cognitive and emotional theory of forgiveness that is …Read more
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31In the Beginning was the Apeiron: Infinity in Greek Philosophy, Adam Drozdek (review)Ancient Philosophy 32 (1): 167-171. 2012.Book Review.
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498Aristotle’s Critique of Timaean PsychologyRhizomata 5 (1): 51-78. 2017.Of all the criticisms that Aristotle gives of his predecessors’ theories of soul in De anima I.3–5, none seems more unmotivated than the ones directed against the world soul of Plato’s Timaeus. Against the current scholarly consensus, I claim that the status of Aristotle’s criticisms is philosophical rather than eristical, and that they provide important philosophical reasons, independent of Phys. VIII.10 and Metaph. Λ.6, for believing that νοῦς is without spatial extension, and that its thinkin…Read more
Glasgow, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Mind |
Normative Ethics |
Virtue Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Arabic and Islamic Philosophy |