Areas of Specialization: Ancient Philosophy and Ethics
I am interested in the Socratic idea that the good life is a life of investigation, or, more generally speaking, in the relationship between virtue and knowledge. The question of how we can understand this relationship motivates my current book project, "The Ethics of Belief." I explore the Socratic intuition that belief, as opposed to knowledge, is ethically bad, and the various treatments of this idea in Plato, the Sceptics, Stoics, and Epicurus. Another project is tentatively entitled "Desiring the Good." Here, I draw on ancient and contemporary theories of motivation, arguing for a version of the so-called Socratic Paradox - that everyone desires the good.
My recent book, Law, Reason, and the Cosmic City (2008) aims to locate early Stoic political philosophy centrally within Stoic philosophy; I discuss Stoic thought about wisdom, cosmopolitanism, the law, and theology. I became interested in the Stoics initially by studying Hellenistic logic and epistemology, which brought me to Sextus Empiricus. My dissertation and first book is on belief, language, and action in Pyrrhonian Scepticism, Skepsis und Lebenspraxis (1998). My research interests in ethics include the philosophy of friendship, and Kantian ethics (in particular, those objections to the Kantian outlook that might induce one to give up on it). My work on Kant focuses on Kant's rationalism, as well as his conceptions of duty and of virtue in the Metaphysics of Morals.
C.V.
Last updated 2009-12 (pdf)
Contact
Columbia faculty page
Selected Presentations
Comments are very welcome. Please contact me if you would like to refer to these papers.
Desiring the Good: A Socratic Reading of Aristotle, Ancient and Moral Philosophy Workshops, Yale 2010; Colloquium Talk, Philosophy Department, Penn University 2009 (pdf)
Do Human Beings Have Non-Relative Value? Colloquium Talk, Union College 2009 (pdf)
Is Patriotism Crazy? How the Stoics Think We Should Relate to Cosmos and Country, Dartmouth School of Government, Ethics of Patriotism 2009 (pdf)
Pleasure, Pain, and Law: Epicurean Naturalism, Fordham University 2009 (pdf)
Stoic Cosmopolitanism and Ideal Deliberation, University of Toronto 2008; University of Michigan 2007 (pdf)
Activity, Action, and Assent: On the Life of the Pyrrhonian Sceptic, Princeton Annual Classical Philosophy Conference 2007 (pdf)
Selected Papers
The pdf-files are drafts or uncorrected proofs. If you plan to refer to them, please consult the official versions, or me. Comments are very welcome.
[Coming up: Ancient Skepticism, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
[Coming up: Appearances and Assent - Sceptical Belief Reconsidered]
Belief and Investigation in Plato's Republic, Plato 9 (2009)
Sons of the Earth: Are the Stoics Metaphysical Brutes? Phronesis 54 (2009) 136-154 (pdf)
Review of Barbara Herman, Moral Literacy, Ethics (2008), 726-730
Duties to Others: Demands and Limits, in Monika Betzler (ed.), Kant's Doctrine of Virtue, Berlin 2008, 219-243 (pdf)
The Good is Benefit: On the Stoic Definition of the Good, Proceedings of the Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy, Leiden 2008, 155-174 (pdf)
Why Pleasure Gains Fifth Rank: Against the Anti-Hedonist Interpretation of the Philebus, Dublin 2007, forthcoming (pdf)
Seneca, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2007)
Anger, Present Injustice, and Future Revenge in Seneca's De Ira, in K. Volk and W. Gareth (eds.), New Developments in Seneca Studies, Leiden 2006, 57-74 (pdf)
Skeptische Suche und das Verstehen von Begriffen, in Christof Rapp and Tim Wagner (eds.), Wissen und Bildung in der antiken Philosophie, Stuttgart 2006, 325-339 (pdf)
Die frühe stoische Theorie des Werts, in Ch. Schröer and F.-J. Bormann (eds.), Abwägende Vernunft, Berlin 2004, 61-77 (pdf)
Books
Law, Reason, and the Cosmic City: Political Philosophy in the Early Stoa, Oxford University Press 2008 (Amazon)
Skepsis und Lebenspraxis: Das pyrrhonische Leben ohne Meinungen, Alber Verlag 1998 (Amazon)
Classes
PHIL G6720 Advanced Ethics Survey (pdf)
PHIL C3912 Moral Philosophy: Theories of the Good (pdf)
PHIL G4140 Topics in Hellenistic Philosophy: Scepticism (pdf)
PHIL G9180 Kantian Ethics and its Critics (pdf)
PHIL V3131 Aristotle (pdf)
PHIL V2101 Pre-Socratics through Augustine (pdf)
Conference Program 2010
Desiring the Good in Plato (pdf)
