“Aristotle on Softness and Endurance: EN 7.7 = EE 6.7, 1150a9–1150b19.” Phronesis 69 (1): 63–96. 2024.

In EN 7.7 = EE 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 effort required to enact them. Along the way, I argue that this interpretation qualifies our understanding of the pleasures and pains with which temperance and intemperance are concerned.

“Practical Wisdom as Conviction in Aristotle’s Ethics.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 109 (1): 179–203. 2024.

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 experience appropriate passions. Along the way, I argue that this reading allows us to explain the shortcomings of self-controlled and akratic agents.

“Aristotle on Thumos.” Oxford Studies in the Philosophy of Mind 4: 517–541. 2024.

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 and can contribute to bringing about rational or non-rational, first-order desires. It is a second-order motivation, which both human and non-human animals have and that comes in degrees: we can be more or less thumotic, which amounts to being more or less disposed to making first-order desires effective so that they issue in actions. Aristotelian thumos, then, anticipates features of the modern notion of the will. Along the way, I argue that thumos is key to Aristotle’s efforts to differentiate and hierarchically organize species, characters, genders, and peoples.

“Porphyry on the Value of Non-Human Animals: A Teleological Argument in De Abstinentia 3.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 62 (4): 543–66. 2024.

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 purposeful strivings that can be promoted or frustrated makes them recipients of justice and injustice. This means, for Porphyry, that animals, unlike plants, can be harmed and wronged since they are creatures that discern, and purposefully pursue, what is good or bad for them. This reading stands against interpretations that argue that Porphyry advocates vegetarianism only for our benefit, and not for the animals’ own sake.

“Women, Spirit, and Authority in Plato and Aristotle.” In Brill, Sara and McKeen, Catherine (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Women and Ancient Greek Philosophy. Routledge Press, 2004.

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 interpret Aristotle’s claim in Politics I that women possess a deliberative capacity that is not authoritative (akuron). It expands our understanding of the nature and role of spirit (thumos) in these authors. And, finally, it gives us insight into a kind of moral-psychological success that Plato and Aristotle consider central to both personal and political agency.

“Galen on the Form and Substance of the Soul.” In Charles, David (ed.), The History of Hylomorphism: From Aristotle to Descartes. Oxford University Press, 2023.

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 soul cannot be a harmonia of bodily elements, understood either as the proportion according to which the elements are mixed, or as the mixtures themselves (I.4, 407b32-408a2). In this chapter, I argue that Galen rejects a substantive version of hylomorphism, in favor of a view according to which the soul’s substance is nothing other than a bodily mixture. Galen’s position contains a veiled objection to some central Aristotelian views and reveals a general suspicion regarding the Aristotelian notion of form as a genuine metaphysical and explanatory category.

“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 fixing accurate beliefs about value. Along the way, I argue that philosophers must neither avoid situations and activities that cause bodily affections as much as possible, nor ignore or care little about them.

“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 in 47e-50e of malicious pleasure, a mixed pleasure of the soul and a passion, I defend the view that, according to Socrates, pleasures, including the anticipatory pleasures in 36c-40e, can be false when they represent as pleasant something that is not worthy of our enjoyment, where that means that they represent as pleasing something that is not pleasant in its own right (αὐτὸ καθ’αὐτό) because it is not fine (καλόν). These false pleasures, then, involve evaluative error, insofar as they misrepresent the value of their objects. In contrast, a pleasure is true when it correctly represents the actual value of things.

“Teleology and Function in Galenic Anatomy.” In McDonough, Jeffrey (ed.), Philosophical Concepts: Teleology. Oxford University Press, 2020.

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: dissection. According to Galen, the success of medical research and practice requires classifying, individuating, and explaining anatomical parts in light of their functional contributions.  

“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 debate on the relationship between soul and body. 

“Plato’s Guide to Living with your Body” (with Russell E. Jones), in Sisko, John (ed.), Philosophy of Mind in Antiquity: The History of the Philosophy of Mind, Volume 1. Routledge, 2018.

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 solutions to these obstacles are diverse, reflecting the complexities of human psychology.  He recommends avoidance of bodily experiences in many cases as well as reevaluation of the importance of the body, but he doesn’t recommend either the wholesale rejection or embrace of the bodily.  We are our souls but, like it or not, we are temporarily embodied, and what happens to the body is thereby experienced by us.  Socrates thus exhorts us to live in a way that recognizes both our temporary humanity and our lasting, true nature.  Only so can we best pursue knowledge.