In this paper I (mistakenly) recant, as I did in its original version in 2004, an idea I put forward in 1990, on Nicomachean Ethics 1098a16-18, and now think entirely right. But the most important part of this 2014 paper is my broad... more
In this paper I (mistakenly) recant, as I did in its original version in 2004, an idea I put forward in 1990, on Nicomachean Ethics 1098a16-18, and now think entirely right. But the most important part of this 2014 paper is my broad alignment with Sarah Broadie's position on Aristotle's view of the final end; in particular, a rejection of the idea that he conceived of that end as exclusively theoretical/contemplative. My 1990 proposal makes an important contribution towards that rejection, insofar as it no longer has Aristotle already signalling his preference for an (exclusively?) 'contemplative final end. My reason for re-engaging with these issues now is that the process towards a new Oxford text of the Eudemian Ethics has revealed to me just how committed Aristotle is (there, at least) to the idea of the best human life as fundamentally dependent on our relationship to others; our relationship to god, in this view, is rather more ambiguous.
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Discount code from OUP
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Democracy is “an attractively anarchic and colourful regime, it seems, one that accords a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike” (Rep. VIII 558c2-4). The present essay raises three questions in particular. (1) What precisely is... more
Democracy is “an attractively anarchic and colourful regime, it seems, one that accords a sort of equality to equals and unequals alike” (Rep. VIII 558c2-4). The present essay raises three questions in particular. (1) What precisely is the criticism of democracy here? (2) What kind or kinds of equality and inequality matter for Plato? As all sides agree, he is interested in proportional equality more than he is in its arithmetical counterpart, so that true equality, for him, will always turn out to be a kind of (arithmetical) inequality. But (3) inequality in what? Plato undoubtedly thinks the good and wise deserve a greater share in power just because they are good and wise; does he also think, as some have claimed, that the wealthy also deserve a greater share just because they are wealthy? The answer proposed to this last question in the following essay is a clear no: even if Plato holds wealth to be a good of some sort, the possession of an unequal share of it—despite what may b...
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Research Interests: Psychology, Philosophy, Epistemology, Socrates, Injustice, and 3 moreIgnorance, nothing, and Routledge
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This article engages, from the point of view of the higher education (HE) department and practitioner, with the realities, and explores the rhetoric, of the `research—teaching nexus' with reference to the role of research and research... more
This article engages, from the point of view of the higher education (HE) department and practitioner, with the realities, and explores the rhetoric, of the `research—teaching nexus' with reference to the role of research and research skills, in the context of the student experience in higher education. The ultimate questions are: How serious should we be about responding to this rhetoric? Would it mean significantly changing the way we currently do things? Who decides such questions? What control do practitioners have? In so doing, the article focuses on examples of `the student as researcher' as an educational goal relating to employ-ability, the Extended Project that will result from 14—19 curriculum reform and the undergraduate dissertation. It also provides rule-of-thumb definitions for the technical language that is evolving in this area.
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J. Meinecke that Athenian courts observed the letter of the law rather than equity. In fact Athenian juries could and did interpret the intention of laws, not merely their literal meaning. The aim of an orator, however, was not to... more
J. Meinecke that Athenian courts observed the letter of the law rather than equity. In fact Athenian juries could and did interpret the intention of laws, not merely their literal meaning. The aim of an orator, however, was not to discover the objective truth about the yvcifj-tj TOV vofioOerov, but to get the jury to accept an interpretation favourable to his own case. In this too I find H. convincing.
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Simon Slings's Plato: Clitophon' has an introduction of 234 pages, a new text with facing translation (pp. 240-59), 72 pages of commentary (in a smaller font), two short appendixes, bibliography and indexes. It is... more
Simon Slings's Plato: Clitophon' has an introduction of 234 pages, a new text with facing translation (pp. 240-59), 72 pages of commentary (in a smaller font), two short appendixes, bibliography and indexes. It is a fuller treatment than this tiny text has ever received, and probably will ever receive; some might say that it also fuller than the Clitophon deserves, but if they did, they might well change their mind after inspecting the volume itself, which covers a multiplicity of issues whether grammatical, syntactical, historical, philosophical, or more generally interpretative in meticulous detail, providing a mass of material that will benefit (or at any rate interest) anyone working on the Platonic corpus and/or fourth century Greek literature. The Commentary in Plato: Clitophon is not quite, as its dust-jacket claims, 'the first ever to be published in English': the volume as a whole is stiil, as Slings says, recognizable as A Commentary on the Platonic Clitophon, his doctoral dissertation, privately published in 1981 (he generously sent me my copy years ago, in response to a letter out of the blue). One of the major differences is obvious from the change of title: '... I now feel that the grounds for my doubts [about the authenticity of the Clitophon] are rather weak, and I have no compunction in presenting this revised version as Plato: Clitophon' (pp. x-xi).2 But Slings is at
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What has become the traditional Anglophone view of Plato’s writing divides it up into three periods: “early,” “middle,” and “late.” “Early” usually means “Socratic,” i.e., closer to the thought of the historical Socrates; “middle” tends... more
What has become the traditional Anglophone view of Plato’s writing divides it up into three periods: “early,” “middle,” and “late.” “Early” usually means “Socratic,” i.e., closer to the thought of the historical Socrates; “middle” tends to mean “including reference to a theory of ‘separated’ Forms” (vel sim.); “late” means anything after that. (The “late” dialogues, on this traditional, Anglophone view, are a collection of dialogues that have rather little in common, except that the kind of philosophy they represent seems—to those who wish to see it that way—closer to what we moderns, or we modern Anglophones, call “philosophy.
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... de la vérité », pourquoi n'auraient-ils pas pu prétendre être plus que de simples conditions de survie, avec leur inévitable cortège de maux (kaka), qui restent ici indéterminés[8] [8] Parmi ceskaka figurerait, semble ... Rowe CJ... more
... de la vérité », pourquoi n'auraient-ils pas pu prétendre être plus que de simples conditions de survie, avec leur inévitable cortège de maux (kaka), qui restent ici indéterminés[8] [8] Parmi ceskaka figurerait, semble ... Rowe CJ (1995), Plato : Statesman, Warminster, Aris & Phillips. ...
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... There is heavy reliance on 'high structuralist' 1970's style narratology (for recent developments in the µeld see, for example, D. Herman [ed.], Narratologies [Columbus, 1999], with... more
... There is heavy reliance on 'high structuralist' 1970's style narratology (for recent developments in the µeld see, for example, D. Herman [ed.], Narratologies [Columbus, 1999], with contributions by Rimmon ... RD D (ed.): Sophocles: The Classical Heritage (Classical Heritage). ...
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diversity of fifth-century Athenian intellectual and civic life. Theseus, by the way, was not Athens' 'founder' (pp. 31, 177); the myths told of earlier kings before his time (Cecrops, Erechtheus/Erechthonius, Aegeus). Others... more
diversity of fifth-century Athenian intellectual and civic life. Theseus, by the way, was not Athens' 'founder' (pp. 31, 177); the myths told of earlier kings before his time (Cecrops, Erechtheus/Erechthonius, Aegeus). Others may find this study more illuminating than I have; there are interesting points e.g. on details of the characterization and 'staging', but the main thrust of the book seems to me misguided.
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An occasional lecture delivered at the Università di Torino, at the invitation of Federico Petrucci (Aldo Brancacci was the other invited speaker). The paper outlines my approach both to reading this dialogue, and to reading Plato's... more
An occasional lecture delivered at the Università di Torino, at the invitation of Federico Petrucci (Aldo Brancacci was the other invited speaker). The paper outlines my approach both to reading this dialogue, and to reading Plato's dialogues in general.
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A contribution to 'The Shelves', a series of book presentations organised by Federico Petrucci, Università deli Studio di Torino, and Cambridge University Press. This was no 2 in the series, delivered on 04/05/22... more
A contribution to 'The Shelves', a series of book presentations organised by Federico Petrucci, Università deli Studio di Torino, and Cambridge University Press. This was no 2 in the series, delivered on 04/05/22 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoGwmUjYgRk)
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The Statesman is nowadays generally read either on its own, or with Republic and Laws. But more attention needs to be given to the fact that it is designed as part of a trilogy, alongside Theaetetus and Sophist. Reinstating the dialogue... more
The Statesman is nowadays generally read either on its own, or with Republic and Laws. But more attention needs to be given to the fact that it is designed as part of a trilogy, alongside Theaetetus and Sophist. Reinstating the dialogue in this context gives a fuller perspective on its purposes. The Statesman (1) identifies existing so- called «statesmen», for whom the Protagoras of Theaetetus is chief apologist, as the greatest exemplars of sophistry as defined in Sophist: mere «imitators» and dealers in falsehood; (2) offers the Platonic alternative to the Protagorean vision of human life and organization sketched in the first part of Theaetetus; and (3), in common with Sophist, illustrates –after the apparent failures of Theaetetus– both what knowledge is and how it can be acquired. Finally, and controversially, the Statesman emerges, along with Theaetetus and Sophist, as part of one and the same project as the Republic
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The paper has two main aims, one larger and one slightly narrower. The larger aim is to undermine further a tendency that has dogged the interpretation of Platonic political philosophy in modern times, despite some dissenting voices: the... more
The paper has two main aims, one larger and one slightly narrower. The larger aim is to undermine further a tendency that has dogged the interpretation of Platonic political philosophy in modern times, despite some dissenting voices: the tendency to begin from the assumption that Plato's thinking changed and developed over time, as if we already had privileged access to his biography. The slightly narrower aim is to reply to two charges of intellectual parricide made against Plato. The first is explicit and well known: that he recommended political structures of a sort that would exclude the free-ranging philosophical inquiry sponsored by Socrates. The second is implicit in the standard reading of the Politicus, and says that Plato actually came to approve (however reluctantly) of Athens' execution of his teacher. I argue that the relevant passage (Plt. 297C - 302B) has been misunderstood, and that it is in fact fully consistent with the blanket criticism we find in the Repu...
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The papers in this collection on Aristotle’s Eudemian Ethics by Charles, Rowe, McCabe, Whiting, and Buddensiek, offer new readings of Aristotle on the voluntary, friendship, and good fortune in the EE, by treating the EE on its own terms.
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Plato's unusual combination of argumentative and creative talents complicates any interpretative approach to his work, as does his choice of Socrates as a major figure. In recent years, scholars have looked more closely at the... more
Plato's unusual combination of argumentative and creative talents complicates any interpretative approach to his work, as does his choice of Socrates as a major figure. In recent years, scholars have looked more closely at the philosophical importance of the imaginative and literary aspects of Plato's writing, and have begun to appreciate the methods of the ancient philosophers and commentators who studied Plato and their attitude to Plato's appropriation of Socrates. This study brings together leading philosophical and literary scholars who investigate these new-old approaches and their significance in distancing us from the standard ways of reading Plato. Confronting the standard modern readings more directly, this work attempts to present the outcomes of these investigations to readers in a way that should encourage further exploration and innovative engagement.