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42Basic equality: A Hegelian resolutionEuropean Journal of Philosophy 32 (2): 507-531. 2024.Contemporary political philosophers often take for granted that for political purposes all humans are to be considered of equal worth. The difficulty, as Bernard Williams observed, is to find an interpretation of this claim that does not collapse into absurdity or triviality. I show that the principal attempts to solve this problem all beg the question against an Aristotelian proponent of natural hierarchy. I then explore existing proposals for dissolving the problem of basic equality, whether b…Read more
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29Book Review: Poetic Justice: Rereading Plato’s “Republic,” by Jill Frank (review)Political Theory 48 (1): 121-126. 2020.
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32Book Review: Poetic Justice: Rereading Plato’s “Republic,”, by Jill Frank (review)Political Theory 009059171881203. 2018.
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115. Historical PossibilityIn Plato as Critical Theorist, Harvard University Press. pp. 210-226. 2018.
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126. Philosopher-CitizensIn Plato as Critical Theorist, Harvard University Press. pp. 227-273. 2018.
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201. What Is Philosophy For?In Plato as Critical Theorist, Harvard University Press. pp. 36-83. 2018.
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142. Why Philosophers Should RuleIn Plato as Critical Theorist, Harvard University Press. pp. 84-120. 2018.
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127. Moneymaking and MalfunctionIn Plato as Critical Theorist, Harvard University Press. pp. 274-327. 2018.
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21Plato as Critical TheoristHarvard University Press. 2018.What is the best possible society? How would its rulers govern and its citizens behave? Such questions are sometimes dismissed as distractions from genuine political problems, but in an era when political idealism seems a relic of the past, says Jonny Thakkar, they are more urgent than ever. A daring experiment in using ancient philosophy to breathe life into our political present, Plato as Critical Theorist takes seriously one of Plato’s central claims: that philosophers should rule. What many …Read more
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21Blindness and Reorientation: Problems in Plato's Republic, by C. D. C. Reeve. Oxford: Oxford University Press, xvi + 214 pp. ISBN 9780199934430 hb $69.00 (review)European Journal of Philosophy 23 (S1). 2015.
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35Moneymakers and Craftsmen: A Platonic Approach to PrivatizationEuropean Journal of Philosophy 24 (4): 735-759. 2016.Debates over the privatization of formerly public industries and services are common in contemporary politics. The overall goal of this paper is to suggest a normative framework within which deliberations over public ownership might take place. I draw this framework from Plato's Republic, which I claim justifies public ownership as a means for ensuring that citizens labour as craftsmen rather than moneymakers; according to Plato's social ontology, only craftsmen can constitute a genuine society …Read more
Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Social and Political Philosophy |
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
Normative Ethics |
European Philosophy |