•  22
    In Nicomachean Ethics 7.7 (= Eudemian Ethics 6.7), Aristotle distinguishes softness (malakia) from lack of self-control (akrasia) and endurance (karteria) from self-control (enkrateia). This paper argues that unqualified softness consists of a disposition to give up acting to avoid the painful toil (ponos) required to execute practical resolutions, and (coincidentally) to enjoy the pleasures of rest and relaxation. The enduring person, in contrast, persists in her commitments despite the painful…Read more
  • In this paper, I provide an interpretation of Plato’s repeated claims in Republic V that women are “weaker” (asthenestera) than men. Specifically, I argue that Plato thinks women have a psychological propensity to get easily dispirited, which makes them less effective in implementing and executing their rational decisions. This interpretation achieves several things. It qualifies Plato’s position regarding women and their position in the polis. It provides the background against which we can int…Read more
  •  26
    Practical Wisdom as Conviction in Aristotle's Ethics
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 1. 2023.
    This paper argues that Aristotelian practical wisdom (phronêsis) is a state of conviction (pistis) in the goodness of our goals based on proper grounds. This state of conviction can only be achieved if rational arguments and principles agree with how things appear to us. Since, for Aristotle, passions influence appearances, they can support or undermine our conviction in the goodness of ends that are worth pursuing. For this reason, we cannot be practically wise without virtuous dispositions to …Read more
  • Aristotle on Thumos
    Oxford Studies in the Philosophy of Mind. forthcoming.
    This paper argues that Aristotelian thumos is a non-reducible mental phenomenon that plays a central role in Aristotle’s theory of the mind, motivation, and action. For Aristotle, thumos is not primarily, as others have argued, a desire for the noble, social appraisal, or retaliation; rather, it is an inner drive or impulse to act. More precisely, it is an executory urge to implement or enact one’s ends or goals, whatever they are. Thumos accounts for someone’s proneness to spring into action an…Read more
  • In On my own opinions, Galen claims to agree with Aristotle that the soul is the form of the body. But should we take this statement at face value? After all, Galen says that the substance of the soul is a bodily mixture, and that the soul is the form of the body in the sense that it is the principle of mixing of the elementary qualities (i.e., hot, cold, wet, and dry). As is well known, Aristotle explicitly rejects this sort of materialist account of the soul. In De Anima, he tells us that the …Read more
  • Porphyry on the Value of Non-Human Animals
    Journal of the History of Philosophy. forthcoming.
    This paper argues that Book 3 of Porphyry’s De abstinentia contains an overlooked argument in favor of vegetarianism for the sake of non-human animals themselves. The argument runs as follows: animals are essentially sentient creatures. Sentience (αἴσθησις) allows them to discern what is good for their survival and what is destructive to them, so that they can pursue the former and avoid the latter. As a result, animals (human and non-human) have preferences, desires, and hopes. Having purposefu…Read more
  •  13
    Training Virtue without Losing Autonomy: A Response to Aaron Stalnaker (review)
    Philosophy East and West 71 (2): 512-520. 2021.
    In 'Mastery, Dependence, and the Ethics of Authority', Aaron Stalnaker argues that dependence on the right authorities is essential to living a good, virtuous life. Relinquishing autonomy to experts early in life can allow us, in time, to become fully autonomous. For the Rú, a good life requires virtues such as ritual and wisdom. Insofar as these virtues involve skill, they are trained by experts. Understanding virtue as a form of skilled behavior or practical mastery, Stalnaker argues, allows u…Read more
  •  61
    Aristotle on the Epistemic Role of Passion
    Dissertation, Harvard University. 2018.
    What are the passions? And what, if anything, do they have to do with our intellectual lives? I argue that, according to Aristotle, the passions are complex states that carry information about the value things have. More specifically, Aristotelian passions are constituted by fine-grained evaluative appearances—a kind of truth-apt, cognitive, yet non-rational representation that non-human animals also entertain. Given that the passions are representations of value, they can be the basis for comin…Read more
  •  52
    Temperance and Epistemic Purity in Plato’s Phaedo
    Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 105 (1): 1-28. 2023.
    In this paper I examine the moral psychology of the Phaedo and argue that the philosophical life in this dialogue is a temperate life, and that temperance consists in exercising epistemic discernment by actively withdrawing assent from incorrect evaluations the body inclines us to make. Philosophers deal with bodily affections by taking a correct epistemic stance. Exercising temperance thus understood is a necessary condition both for developing and strengthening rational capacities, and for fix…Read more
  •  1
    In De usu partium, Galen argues that the parts of the human body are designed to fulfill functions that contribute to the continued existence and well-being of the organism as a whole. Synthesizing Plato’s and Aristotle’s views on teleology, Galen highlights the importance of a functional framework for anatomical research. For Galen, teleology is as much a method for anatomical inquiry as it is a metaphysical commitment. In particular, teleology guides the main tool of anatomical investigation: …Read more
  •  3
    In the Phaedo, Socrates offers recommendations for living a philosophical life. We argue that those recommendations can be properly understood only in light of Socrates’ account of the soul’s true nature, considered separately from the body. Embodiment causes the soul to diverge from its proper end, the pursuit of knowledge. Bodily pleasures, pains, and desires divert the soul to other ends, distract its attention away from knowledge, and deceive it about what is true. Socrates’ recommended sol…Read more
  •  50
    Galen's Constitutive Materialism
    Ancient Philosophy 39 (1): 191-209. 2019.
    In Quod animi mores, Galen says both that there is an identity between the capacities of the soul and the mixtures of the body, and that the soul’s capacities ‘follow upon’ the bodily mixtures. The seeming tension in this text can be resolved by noting that the soul’s capacities are constituted by, and hence are nothing over and above, bodily mixtures, but bodily mixtures explain the soul’s capacities and not the other way around. Galen’s proposal represents a distinctive position in the Ancient…Read more
  •  65
    Plato on False Pleasures and False Passions
    Apeiron 55 (2): 281-304. 2021.
    In the Philebus, Socrates argues that pleasures can be false in the same way that beliefs can be false. On the basis of Socrates' analysis of malicious pleasure, a mixed pleasure of the soul and a passion, I defend the view that, according to Socrates, pleasures can be false when they represent as pleasant something that is not worthy of our enjoyment, where that means that they represent as pleasant something that is not pleasant in its own right because it is not fine. Since these pleasures mi…Read more