Hope Against Hope: Plato and Aristotle on Good Hope, Happiness, and Virtuous Agency

The core of my research project is to prepare a monograph for publication. My book positions Plato and Aristotle within their historical context, arguing that both philosophers work against a tradition of early Greek literature that typically disparages hope. While Plato and Aristotle are aware of the dangers of hope, instead of rejecting all hope as damaging, they distinguish a kind of good hope that is not only beneficial but also necessary for living well. I argue that for Plato and Aristotle, good hope is crucial for having the right relationship to death, to courage, and to wisdom. Moreover, hope—in the form of what I call “aspirational hope”—is an essential motivating force in their accounts of moral and intellectual development, which have continuing resonance today. By focusing on ancient philosophy, I contend, we can gain better purchase on current questions about the value of hope. Philosophers in the ancient world typically assume a ‘eudaimonistic ethics’—that is, an approach to ethics that focuses on human flourishing, which centers on questions about emotional well-being and personal development. While contemporary philosophers and psychologists often consider hope to be instrumentally valuable, insofar as it motivates agents to achieve practical ends, ancient philosophers show us how good hope is intrinsically valuable, insofar as it plays a constitutive role in the flourishing human life.

I also have two articles in preparation that are developed out of two of the central chapters of my book project: one on Socrates' hopes in Plato's Apology; the other on the role of hope in Aristotelian courage.

Aristotle on Fear's Contributions to the Virtue of Courage (Forthcoming, 2025)

The emotion most often paired with hope is fear. This book chapter explores the role that fear plays in Aristotle's moral psychology of courage. Aristotle characterizes the courageous person as someone who “will fear” frightening things in the right way, and someone who “will endure” terrifying things for the sake of the noble (NE III 7, 1115b11-13). Aristotle’s claims that the courageous person experiences fear have puzzled commentators for at least two reasons: first, Aristotle’s contention about the courageous person’s fear appears to be inconsistent with his claims, elsewhere in the ethical treatises, that the courageous person is fearless; second, if courageous agents suffer fear, and if fear involves a desire to avoid pain, then courageous people must act against some of their desires and thus appear to be self-controlled (enkratic) as opposed to fully virtuous. I argue that Aristotle has the resources to meet these challenges by appealing to his implicit distinction between courageous and non-courageous fear, and that only courageous fear makes contributions to Aristotelian courage. Fear, like most emotions for Aristotle, can be felt either well or poorly (NE II 5, 1105b27-1106a1). Courageous agents experience fear for their physical survival, insofar as they are human. However, they do not need to struggle to overcome this fear and their fear does not motivate them to flee from battle or fearful situations in which they can act virtuously. Instead, they can put the objects of their fear into proper perspective, taking appropriate precautions against physical harm, failure, or disgrace while nevertheless attempting to achieve a noble goal through courageous activity. Aristotle’s account not only highlights an important relationship between fear and virtue, but it also defends a crucial intuition that people are brave in part because they feel fear, rather than despite their fears.

This chapter will appear in a forthcoming volume: The Philosophy of Fear: Historical and Interdisciplinary Approaches, ed. by Ami Harbin (Bloomsbury).

Aristotle on Personal and Epistemic Transformation (2023)

I recently co-authored a book chapter with Marta Jimenez (Emory) that explains Aristotle's conception of personal and epistemic transformation. We argue that, unlike contemporary authors, who view transformative experience as a process that replaces one’s old self with a radically new self, Aristotle conceives of personal and epistemic change as a process of self-completion, involving the cultivation of an agent’s potential capacities. Focusing on Aristotle’s treatment of how we acquire a disposition (hexis), we show that Aristotle provides a complex model of transformation, in which experience is part of a broader, continuous process—akin to growth or learning—and in which the agents’ development depends on the confluence of a number of factors such as their nature, their cultivated capacities, their practices, and the influence of their environment and of others. A central feature of Aristotle’s account is that there is no radical psychological or epistemic discontinuity throughout the process of transformation, since the seeds for one’s future self are already in one’s current self—it is thus not a process of becoming someone radically new but a process of becoming oneself.

This chapter appears in Transformation and the History of Philosophy, ed. by G. Anthony Bruno and Justin Vlasits (Routledge: 2023).

• Aristotle on Courage, Pleasure, and Hope”. Sr. Maura Campbell Lecture in the Department of Theology and Philosophy at Caldwell University. Caldwell, NJ. November 11th, 2024 (Invited talk)

• “Aristotle on the Role of Hope in the Virtue of Courage”. Works-in-Progress Talks in Ancient Philosophy. Department of Philosophy, Boston University. October 28th, 2024.

• “Aristotle on the Benefits of Praying for Virtue”. New England Symposium on Ancient Philosophy, September Meeting. Delivered remotely via Zoom. Sept. 19th, 2024.

• “Hope Against Hope: Plato and Aristotle on Hope, Expectation, and the Good”. Department Seminar Series. Department of Philosophy, Boston College. Sept. 11th, 2024 (Invited talk)

• “The Ethical Value of Socratic Hope in Plato’s Apology”. West Coast Plato Workshop, Annual Meeting. Seattle University in Seattle, WA. May 3-5, 2024 (Refereed Paper)

• “What Makes the Philosopher’s Hope Good?: Plato’s Portrayal of Socrates and Cephalus.” Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Annual Meeting, Works in Progress Panel, delivered remotely via Zoom, Oct. 14, 2022.

• “Personal and Epistemic Transformation in Aristotle,” co-authored and co-presented with Marta Jimenez (Emory). Symposium of Aristotelian Studies at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (webinar delivered remotely). May 26, 2021.

• “Aristotle on the Role of Hope in the Virtue of Courage,” Colloquium Paper, 2020 Central Division Meeting of American Philosophical Association. Chicago, IL. Feb. 26-29, 2020.

• “‘Hope, Danger’s Comforter’? Thucydides, Euripides, and Aristotle on the Perils and Promise of Hope,” Ancient Mediterranean Studies Colloquium at Emory University. Atlanta, GA. January 28, 2020.

• “Hope and the Burdened Virtues: A Neo-Aristotelian Account of Hopeful Courage in the Face of Adversity,” Virtue Ethics Group at 2018 Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association. San Diego, CA. March 28-April 1, 2018.