Wenjin Liu

My research centers on ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, especially Plato, and is organized around two interconnected projects. The first examines Plato’s distinctive understanding of ignorance, vice, and illness—and the relationships among these forms of human failure. My articles on ignorance in the Socratic dialogues and the Republic, both published in Phronesis, form the foundation of a completed book manuscript that I am revising following a manuscript workshop in May 2025. A forthcoming Cambridge Element in Ancient Philosophy extends this project by bringing the Hippocratic corpus into conversation with Plato’s political thought and examining how medical models of diagnosis, treatment, and health illuminate his account of political disorder.

My second major project explores love and care as ethical and political forces in ancient philosophy. It asks how curiosity, friendship, and practices of care shape our attention to other people and our capacity to live well together. This project includes work on curiosity, care in Plato, and civic friendship, the last of which is forthcoming in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research in 2026. My comparative research grows out of these two programs, using ancient Greek and classical Chinese philosophy to illuminate shared questions about knowledge, curiosity, and harmony.