•  18
    Productive Knowledge in Ancient Philosophy: The Concept of Technê (edited book)
    Cambridge University Press. 2020.
    This work investigates how ancient philosophers understood productive knowledge or technê and used it to explain ethics, rhetoric, politics and cosmology. In eleven chapters leading scholars set out the ancient debates about technê from the Presocratic and Hippocratic writers, through Plato and Aristotle and the Hellenistic age, ending in the Neoplatonism of Plotinus and Proclus. Amongst the many themes that come into focus are: the model status of ancient medicine in defining the political art,…Read more
  •  30
    Theories, Technologies, Instrumentalities of Color: Anthropological and Historiographic Perspectives
    with Debi Roberson, Ian Davies, Jules Davidoff, Arnold Henselmans, Don Dedrick, Alan Costall, Angus Gellatly, Paul Whittle, Patrick Heelan, Rainer Mausfeld, Jaap van Brakel, Hans Kraml, Joseph Wachelder, Friedrich Steinle, and Ton Derksen
    Upa. 2002.
    Theories, Technologies, Instrumentalities of Color is the outcome of a workshop, held in Leuven, Belgium, in May 2000
  •  171
    A teleological explanation is an explanation in terms of an end or a purpose. So saying that ‘X came about for the sake of Y’ is a teleological account of X. It is a striking feature of ancient Greek philosophy that many thinkers accepted that the world should be explained in this way. However, before Aristotle, teleological explanations of the cosmos were generally based on the idea that it had been created by a divine intelligence. If an intelligent power made the world, then it makes sense th…Read more
  •  7
    Essays on Plato and Aristotle (review)
    The Classical Review 49 (1): 275-275. 1999.
  •  41
    Aristotle on the Sense-Organs
    Philosophical Review 109 (1): 89. 2000.
    Aristotle’s philosophy of mind is often understood as anticipating present-day functionalist approaches to the mental. In Aristotle on the Sense-Organs Johansen argues at length that such interpretations of what Aristotle has to say about the senses are untenable. First, Aristotle does not allow that the matter of a sense-organ can be identified without reference to the form or function of the organ, so sense-organs are not compositionally plastic. Second, Aristotle’s conception of sense-percept…Read more
  • Timaeus in the Cave
    In G. Boys-Stones, C. Gill & D. El-Murr (eds.), The Platonic Art of philosophy, Cambridge University Press. 2013.
    Unitarianism was the norm amongst ancient interpreters of Plato. One strategy they used to maintain the unity of his thinking was to argue that different works were saying the same things but in different modes. So, for example, the Republic was saying ethically what the Timaeus was saying in the manner of natural philosophy. In this paper, I want to offer an interpretation of the Cave image in Republic 7 which lends support to this division of labour, and so indirectly, at least, to a unitarian…Read more
  •  12
    Occupational Rehabilitation Is Associated With Improvements in Cognitive Functioning
    with Chris Jensen, Hege R. Eriksen, Peter S. Lyby, Winand H. Dittrich, Inge N. Holsen, Hanne Jakobsen, and Irene Øyeflaten
    Frontiers in Psychology 10. 2019.
  •  66
    Aristotle on the Logos of the Craftsman
    Phronesis 62 (2): 97-135. 2017.
    Aristotle thinks that an account, alogos, of some sort is characteristic of craft,technē. Some scholars think that thelogoselement oftechnēis tagged onto experience as a theoretical element not directly engaged in successful production: I argue instead that thelogosgrounds the productive ability of craft, and also that is practically orientated in a way that distinguishes it from thelogosof theoretical science. Understanding thelogosof craft thus helps us explain how the craftsman differs both f…Read more
  •  2
    Industrialiseringens semantiske felt
    Slagmark - Tidsskrift for Idéhistorie 70 176-179. 2014.
  •  1
    Parmenides' Likely Story
    Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy 50 1-29. 2016.
  •  137
    The Separation of the Soul from Body in Plato’s Phaedo
    Philosophical Inquiry 41 (2-3): 17-28. 2017.
    The view that the soul can exist separately from the body is commonly associated with dualism. Since Plato’s Phaedo (Phd.) argues that the soul is immortal and survives the death of the body, there seems to be reason to call Plato, in that dialogue at least, a ‘dualist’. Yet, as we know, there are many kinds of dualism, so we have thereby not said very much. Let me therefore start with some distinctions. First of all, we can distinguish between two kinds of dualism which say that the soul is a d…Read more
  •  7
    Perception (review)
    The Classical Review 51 (2): 304-305. 2001.
  •  93
    Aristotle on the Sense-Organs
    Cambridge University Press. 1997.
    This book offers an important study of Aristotle's theory of the sense-organs. It aims to answer two questions central to Aristotle's psychology and biology: why does Aristotle think we have sense-organs, and why does he describe the sense-organs in the way he does? The author looks at all the Aristotelian evidence for the five senses and shows how pervasively Aristotle's accounts of the sense-organs are motivated by his interest in form and function. The book also engages with the celebrated pr…Read more
  •  96
    Plato's dialogue the Timaeus-Critias presents two connected accounts, that of the story of Atlantis and its defeat by ancient Athens and that of the creation of the cosmos by a divine craftsman. This book offers a unified reading of the dialogue. It tackles a wide range of interpretative and philosophical issues. Topics discussed include the function of the famous Atlantis story, the notion of cosmology as 'myth' and as 'likely', and the role of God in Platonic cosmology. Other areas commented u…Read more
  •  72
    In his opening speech, Timaeus argues that the cosmos must be the product of a craftsman looking to an eternal paradigm. Yet his premises seem at best to justify only that the world could have been made by such a craftsman. This paper seeks to clarify Timaeus’ justification for his stronger conclusion. It is argued that Timaeus sees a necessary role for craftsmanship as a cause that makes becoming like being.
  •  37
    A triptych in Plato's timaeus: A note on the receptacle passage
    Classical Quarterly 65 (2): 885-886. 2015.
    At Timaeus 48e2–52d4 Timaeus sets out to establish that there are three principles or kinds underlying the creation of the cosmos, not just the two he acknowledged earlier. The way he does so is not simply by adding an account of the third kind to the accounts of being and becoming that he has already given. Rather he does so by showing how each of the three differs from the others. It has not been noticed how this procedure structures the receptacle passage. The passage divides up into three pa…Read more
  •  20
  •  3
    In defense of inner sense: Aristotle on perceiving that one sees
    Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium of Ancient Philosophy 21 235-276. 2005.
  •  230
    The notion of a capacity in the sense of a power to bring about or undergo change plays a key role in Aristotle’s theories about the natural world. However, in Metaphysics Θ Aristotle also extends ‘ capacity ’, and the corresponding concept of ‘activity’, to cases where we want to say that something is in capacity, or in activity, such and such but not, or not directly, in virtue of being capable of initiating or undergoing change. This paper seeks to clarify and confirm a certain view of how Ar…Read more
  •  27
    Aristotle on the Common Sense, by Pavel Gregoric
    Mind 118 (472): 1138-1141. 2009.
    (No abstract is available for this citation)
  •  21
    Review of Monte ransome Johnson, Aristotle on Teleology (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2006 (6). 2006.
  •  2
    Mental Conflict (review)
    Cogito 9 (2): 181-184. 1995.
  •  63
    Colloquium 7: In Defense of Inner Sense: Aristotle on Perceiving that One Sees
    Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium of Ancient Philosophy 21 (1): 235-285. 2006.