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2Thinking About Forms and ParticularsMéthexis 27 (1): 159-173. 2014.This paper explores the deep dualism, metaphysical and epistemological, between Forms and particulars in Plato’s work. It both argues that the dualism exists and offers a hypothesis, concerning Plato’s view of the criteria for thinking of an object, to explain it. The paper concludes that while these criteria are indeed stringent, they nonetheless allow the possibility that we can still think of, and know, individuals.
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2Myles Burnyeat, The Theatetus of Plato, translation by M.J. Levett, India-napolis/Cambridge, 1990 (Hackett Publishing Company, xvi + 351 páginas) (review)Méthexis 7 (1): 148-150. 1994.
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11Plato's CharmidesCambridge University Press. 2023.Plato's Charmides is a rich mix of provocative drama and intricate argument. This book offers a comprehensive interpretation of its disparate elements. Paying close attention to its complex structure, and to the methodology of reading Plato, Raphael Woolf presents a compelling and unified reading of the work as a whole.
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22Rereading Ancient Philosophy: Old Chestnuts and Sacred Cows (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2017.This book revisits, and sheds fresh light on, some key texts and debates in ancient philosophy. Its twin targets are 'Old Chestnuts' – well-known passages in the works of ancient philosophers about which one might have thought everything there is to say has already been said – and 'Sacred Cows' – views about what ancient philosophers thought, on issues of philosophical importance, that have attained the status of near-unquestioned orthodoxy. Thirteen leading scholars respond to these challenges …Read more
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3Cicero: On Moral Ends (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2001.This 2001 translation makes one of the most important texts in ancient philosophy available to modern readers. Cicero is increasingly being appreciated as an intelligent and well-educated amateur philosopher, and in this work he presents the major ethical theories of his time in a way designed to get the reader philosophically engaged in the important debates. Raphael Woolf's translation does justice to Cicero's argumentative vigour as well as to the philosophical ideas involved, while Julia Ann…Read more
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6Gill’s rich and comprehensive discussion of Stoic ethical thought adopts an approach that would surely have found favour with the Stoics themselves: to present
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18Schofield, Malcolm,_ _Cicero: Political Philosophy. Oxford / New York:: Oxford University Press 2021, xiv + 285 pp (review)Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 105 (2): 349-351. 2023.
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3Unnatural Law: A Ciceronian PerspectiveIn Peter Adamson & Christof Rapp (eds.), State and Nature: Studies in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy, De Gruyter. pp. 221-246. 2021.
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Ethical theory and the good lifeIn Jed W. Atkins & Thomas Bénatouïl (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Cicero's Philosophy, Cambridge University Press. 2021.
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19Cicero: The Philosophy of a Roman ScepticRoutledge. 2014.Cicero's philosophical works introduced Latin audiences to the ideas of the Stoics, Epicureans and other schools and figures of the post-Aristotelian period, thus influencing the transmission of those ideas through later history. While Cicero's value as documentary evidence for the Hellenistic schools is unquestioned, Cicero: The Philosophy of a Roman Sceptic explores his writings as works of philosophy that do more than simply synthesize the thought of others, but instead offer a unique viewpoi…Read more
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50The School of Doubt: Skepticism, History and Politics in Cicero’s, written by Orazio CappelloInternational Journal for the Study of Skepticism 10 (2): 167-171. 2020.
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35Strategies of Polemics in Greek and Roman Philosophy_ _, edited by S. Weisser and N. ThalerInternational Journal of the Platonic Tradition 12 (1): 65-68. 2018.
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Knowing How to Ask: A Discussion of Gail Fine, The Possibility of InquiryOxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 49 363-391. 2015.
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2Particularism, Promises, and Persons in Cicero's De officiisOxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 33 317-346. 2007.
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207Plato and the Norms of ThoughtMind 122 (485): 171-216. 2013.This paper argues for the presence in Plato’s work of a conception of thinking central to which is what I call the Transparency View. According to this view, in order for a subject to think of a given object, the subject must represent that object just as it is, without inaccuracy or distortion. I examine the ways in which this conception influences Plato’s epistemology and metaphysics and explore some ramifications for contemporary views about mental content
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73R. J. Hankinson, Cause and Explanation in Ancient Greek Thought. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998, cloth £48.00. ISBN: 0 19 823745 6British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 51 (3): 545-547. 2000.
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169Consistency and Akrasia in Plato's ProtagorasPhronesis 47 (3): 224-252. 2002.Relatively little attention has been paid to Socrates' argument against akrasia in Plato's "Protagoras" as an example of Socratic method. Yet seen from this perspective the argument has some rather unusual features: in particular, the presence of an impersonal interlocutor ("the many") and the absence of the crisp and explicit argumentation that is typical of Socratic elenchus. I want to suggest that these features are problematic, considerably more so than has sometimes been supposed, and to of…Read more
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135What Kind of Hedonist was Epicurus?Phronesis 49 (4): 303-322. 2004.This paper addresses the question of whether or not Epicurus was a psychological hedonist. Did he, that is, hold that all human action, as a matter of fact, has pleasure as its goal? Or was he just an ethical hedonist, asserting merely that pleasure ought to be the goal of human action? I discuss a recent forceful attempt by John Cooper to answer the latter question in the affirmative, and argue that he fails to make his case. There is considerable evidence in favour of a psychological reading o…Read more
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140Truth as a value in Plato's republicPhronesis 54 (1): 9-39. 2009.To what extent is possession of truth considered a good thing in the Republic? Certain passages of the dialogue appear to regard truth as a universal good, but others are more circumspect about its value, recommending that truth be withheld on occasion and falsehood disseminated. I seek to resolve this tension by distinguishing two kinds of truths, which I label 'philosophical' and 'non-philosophical'. Philosophical truths, I argue, are considered unqualifiedly good to possess, whereas non-philo…Read more
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36Plato and the Hero: Courage, Manliness and the Impersonal GoodPhilosophical Review 111 (1): 95. 2002.The main title of this work is a little misleading. Hobbs does not begin to consider in any detail Plato’s relation to traditional Greek models of the hero until chapter 6, nearly two-thirds of the way through the book. In fact, Hobbs’s treatment of Plato’s re-working of the hero-figure is embedded in a nexus of themes revolving round the Greek virtue of andreia and its psychological basis in that part of the soul that Plato in the Republic calls the thumos. Commonly translated ‘spirit’, the ter…Read more
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31Cicero and GygesClassical Quarterly 63 (2): 801-812. 2013.The tale of Gyges' ring narrated by Cicero atDe officiis3.38 is of course originally found, and acknowledged as such by Cicero, in Plato (Resp.359c–360b). I would like in this paper to address two questions about Cicero's handling of the tale – one historical, one philosophical. The purpose of the historical question is to evaluate, with respect to the Gyges narration, Cicero's quality as a reader of Plato. How well does Cicero understand the role of the story in its original Platonic context? T…Read more
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36Commentary on KelseyProceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium of Ancient Philosophy 16 (1): 122-133. 2000.