Ohio State University
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 2001
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, United States of America
  •  17
    The Metaphysics of Appearance in Republic X (596a5–598d7)
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 61 (1): 1-24. 2023.
    Abstractabstract:Plato's Republic X attack on imitative poetry is based in the metaphysics of appearance, since appearances are the objects and products of imitation. I offer a new reading, showing that Plato's account coherently introduces appearances as a new type of item, distinct from Forms and sensible particulars, and applies beyond imitation to a broad range of appearances. Focusing on the importance of perspective to Plato's reasoning, I argue that an appearance is a relation that comes …Read more
  •  11
    The Origins of Dialectic in Ordinary Discourse
    History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis 19 (1): 88-104. 2016.
    The opening discussion of the Meno features a halting conversation in which Meno struggles at length to answer Socrates’ question, “What is Virtue?” Whereas Socrates demands a unitary account, presenting Virtue as one, Meno repeatedly speaks of Virtue in plurality. Through the opposing sides of this conflict, Plato highlights impediments that appear to prevent ordinary speakers from inquiring into nature. These include the fallibility of ordinary beliefs and statements, and the inability of ordi…Read more
  •  17
    Clitophon’s Challenge: Dialectic in Plato’s Meno, Phaedo, and Republic (review)
    Ancient Philosophy 37 (1): 197-201. 2017.
  •  180
    Meno's Paradox, the Slave‐Boy Interrogation, and the Unity of Platonic Recollection
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 47 (4): 349-377. 2009.
    Plato invokes the Theory of Recollection to explain both ordinary and philosophical learning. In a new reading of Meno's Paradox and the Slave‐Boy Interrogation, I explain why these two levels are linked in a single theory of learning. Since, for Plato, philosophical inquiry starts in ordinary discourse, the possibility of success in inquiry is tied to the character of the ordinary comprehension we bring to it. Through the claim that all learning is recollection, Plato traces the knowledge achie…Read more
  •  1
    The Role of Language in Plato's Theory of Knowledge and Learning
    Dissertation, The Ohio State University. 2001.
    There is an apparent conflict in Plato's epistemology. For Plato, knowledge, philosophy, and even learning have Forms as their objects. Full grasp of Forms is direct, akin to seeing, and we attain it through Recollection, interpreted as an act of intuitive insight. Forms are atomic, and our knowledge of them is correspondingly simple. But philosophical inquiry, or dialectic, is a process in which we reflect on the things we say. The necessary and sufficient condition for completing dialectic, an…Read more
  •  42
    The Structure of Dialectic in the Meno
    Phronesis 46 (4). 2001.
    In this paper I offer a new interpretation of the philosophical method of the "Meno." In the opening discussion of the dialogue, Plato introduces a restriction on answers in dialectical inquiry, which I call the Dialectical Requirement (DR). The DR is applied twice in the "Meno," in different ways (75d5-7, 79d1-3). In the first section of the paper, I argue that the two applications of the DR represent the beginning and end of dialectic. This shows that dialectical inquiry starts from our lingui…Read more
  •  145
    Interpretations of recollection in the "Phaedo" are divided between ordinary interpretations, on which recollection explains a kind of learning accomplished by all, and sophisticated interpretations, which restrict recollection to philosophers. A sophisticated interpretation is supported by the prominence of philosophical understanding and reflection in the argument. Recollection is supposed to explain the advanced understanding displayed by Socrates and Simmias (74b2-4). Furthermore, it seems t…Read more
  • Dichotomy and Platonic diairesis
    History of Philosophy Quarterly 28 (1): 1. 2011.
  •  37
    The Structure of Dialectic in the Meno
    Phronesis 46 (4): 413-439. 2001.
    In this paper I offer a new interpretation of the philosophical method of the "Meno." In the opening discussion of the dialogue, Plato introduces a restriction on answers in dialectical inquiry, which I call the Dialectical Requirement (DR). The DR is applied twice in the "Meno," in different ways (75d5-7, 79d1-3). In the first section of the paper, I argue that the two applications of the DR represent the beginning and end of dialectic. This shows that dialectical inquiry starts from our lingui…Read more
  •  11
    Commentary On Nails
    Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium of Ancient Philosophy 28 (1): 102-109. 2013.
    In this commentary on D. Nails, “Two Dogmas of Platonism,” I focus on her arguments for the claim that the Good is not the unhypothetical principle of everything in Plato’s Republic. I first examine what it would mean for any principle to be an unhypothetical principle of everything, and argue that Nails equivocates in her construal of this role. I then argue that Plato’s references to the unhypothetical principle should not be read to refer to a single, unique item, but to each Form F in its ro…Read more