Office Hours – 2024W term 1

• Monday, 2:00pm – 3:00pm in BUCH C227B, or by appointment

Ancient philosophies, especially late Ancient Greek commentators on Plato and Aristotle (Neoplatonists); late ancient philosophy of education, philosophical psychology, and virtue ethics

I study the philosophers of the ancient Graeco-Roman world, especially the vibrant intellectual traditions that emerged around Plato and Aristotle during their lives and later, during the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. I am interested in the practice of philosophical education (paideia) in late antiquity, and the role that philosophy – ancient and modern – can play in cultivating individual and collective flourishing. My recent books study the ancient reception of two classic “first books” in philosophy, Aristotle’s Categories and Plato’s Alcibiades, which were respectively foundational in introducing the rudiments of logic and virtue.

My current research focuses on the Neoplatonic “scale of virtues” in late antiquity. Recently, I’ve also begun to work in cross-cultural philosophy, at the intersection of Platonism and Buddhism. I’m also currently working on several projects in teaching & learning, learning technology, and community-engaged learning.

• ‘Concentration in Action in Greek Neoplatonism and Buddhaghosa’, in Amber Carpenter & P.J. Harter (eds.), Crossing the Stream, Leaving the Cave: Buddhist-Platonist Philosophical Inquiries (Oxford University Press, 2024).
• Aristotle’s Categories in the Early Roman Empire. Oxford University Press, 2015. Review: NDPR and BMCR
• Olympiodorus: Life of Plato and On Plato First Alcibiades 1–9 and Olympiodorus: On Plato First Alcibiades 10–28. Translated with scholarly introduction and notes. Bloomsbury Academic, 2014 and 2016. Review (both volumes): NDPR
• “Ammonius and His School.” Brill Handbook of the Ancient Reception of Aristotle. Ed. Andrea Falcon. Leiden: Brill, 2016: 394–414. [Open access link]
• “The Ancient Commentators”. Oxford Handbook of Science and Medicine in the Classical World. Ed. Paul Keyser and John Scarborough. Oxford University Press. Forthcoming 2016.
• “Proclus on the Ethics of Self-Constitution.” Causation and Creation in Late Antiquity. Ed. Anna Marmodoro and Brian D. Prince. Cambridge University Press. 202-219.
• “Universals, Education, and Philosophical Methodology in Later Neoplatonism”. Universals in Ancient Philosophy. Ed. Riccardo Chiaradonna and Gabriele Galluzzo. Pisa: Edizioni   della Scuola Normale, 2014. 353-380.
• “Pliable Platonism? Olympiodorus and the Profession of Philosophy in Sixth-Century Alexandria”. Plato in the Third Sophistic. Ed. Ryan C. Fowler. De Gruyter, 2014. 73-11.
• “Which ‘Athenodorus’ Commented on Aristotle’s Categories?”. Classical Quarterly 63.1. 2013. 199-208.

• “The Early Aristotelian Commentators on the Criterion of Truth,” invited lecture, Università degli Studi di Milano (Italy), Conference on Hellenistic and Late Antique Philosophy, June 2015.
• “Themistius on Rhetoric, Philosophy, and Excellence,” invited lecture, University of Oxford, Philosophy and Late Antiquity Seminar, May 2015.
• “Andronicus of Rhodes on Aristotle’s Categories”, invited lecture, Classical Philosophy Conference, Princeton University, December 2014.
• “The Alexandrian Scale of Virtue”, invited lecture, “Aristotle Transferred” Conference, Berlin, October 2014.
• “Aristotle & Alexander on Mental States”, invited symposium presenter, American Philosophical Association (Pacific), March 2013.