My research is generally on Plato's natural philosophy, especially biology and cosmology, and its intersections with Plato's theory of the soul. I am currently drafting a book on Plato's biology.
I also have a secondary research agenda on the ethics of social media, which came to be out of many exciting classroom discussions with students at the University of Toronto and, years earlier, at Marianopolis.
"The Commodification of Attention: Revisiting the Harms of the Attention Economy," forthcoming in the Journal of Cyberspace Studies.
In this article, I argue that the attention economy wrongly commodifies attention. In the first section, I survey the conventional approach to the attention economy, which treats the ethical problems here as instances of questions about the moral limits of markets. I agree that this approach is justified, but I aim to broaden the debate by focusing on whether attention should be commodified at all. In the second section, I argue that attention is not properly subject to market forces. In the third section, I argue that subjecting attention to market forces leads, predictably, to the development and use of technology that violates the right to attention. In the fourth section, I argue that coercive paternalism offers the correct response to these problems and that two other solutions — the reliance on nudges and the reliance on social antibodies — are inferior.
"Irrigating Blood: Plato on the Circulatory System, Elemental Motion, and the Cosmos," Journal of the History of Philosophy 62 4: (2024) 519-541. [Winner of JHP's 2024 article prize.]
This article concerns the so-called irrigation system in the Timaeus’ biology (77a-81e), which replenishes our body’s tissues with resources from food delivered as blood. I argue that this system functions mainly by the natural like-to-like motion of the elements and that the circulation of blood is an important case study of Plato’s physics. We are forced to revise the view that the elements attract their like. Instead, similar elements merely tend to coalesce with each other in virtue of their tactile features as the atomists describe. The notion of attraction is replaced with this notion of mere coalescence. I begin by outlining how blood is made from food. I then argue that an understanding of health and disease compels us to read Plato as if he were an atomist and to abandon the popular scholarly interpretations according to which the elements attract each other.
"Biology in the Timaeus’ Account of Nous and Cognitive Life, in Melina G. Mouzala (ed.), Cognition in Ancient Greek Philosophy and its Reception: Intedisciplinary Approaches, Academia Verlag/nomos. pp. 145-172. 2024.
I develop an account of the role that biology plays in the Timaeus’ view of nous and other aspects of cognitive life. I begin by outlining the biology of human cognition. I then argue that these biological views shine an important light on different aspects of the soul. I then argue that the human body is particularly friendly to nous, paying special attention to the heart and the liver. I next consider the ways that the body fails to protect our nous. I conclude by comparing human nous with the cognition of non-humans.
"Not Just A Tool: Why Social-Media Use Is Bad and Bad For Us, and The Duty to Quit," Journal of Global Ethics 20 1: (2024) 1-6.
With an eye on the future of global ethics, I argue that social-media technologies are not morally neutral tools but are, for all intents and purposes, a kind of agent. They nudge us to do things that are bad for us. Moreover, I argue that we have a duty to quit using social-media platforms, not just on account of possible duties to preserve our own well-being but because users are akin to test subjects on whom developers are testing new nudges, and we ought to deprive them of their test subjects.
"What Timaeus Can Teach Us: The Importance of Plato’s Timaeus in the 21st Century ," Athena 18: (2023) 58-73.
In this article, I make the case for the continued relevance of Plato’s Timaeus. I begin by sketching Allan Bloom’s picture of the natural sciences today in The Closing of the American Mind, according to which the natural sciences are, objectionably, increasingly specialized and have ejected humans qua humans from their purview. I argue that Plato’s Timaeus, despite the falsity of virtually all of its scientific claims, provides a model for how we can pursue scientific questions in a comprehensive way that stresses their connections to other disciplines, including the humanities, and that puts humanity qua humanity back in the picture. I then argue that being led by Plato’s philosophy to return humanity conceptually to the natural world can improve our thinking regarding climate change and other important environmental crises.
"Plato on Sunaitia," Apeiron 56 4: (2023) 739-768.
I argue that Plato thinks that a sunaition is a mere tool used by a soul (or by the cosmic nous) to promote an intended outcome. In the first section, I develop the connection between sunaitia and Plato’s teleology. In the second section, I argue that sunaitia belong to Plato’s theory of the soul as a self-mover: specifically, they are those things that are set in motion by the soul in the service of some goal. I also argue against several popular and long-standing interpretations, namely, that sunaitia correspond to Aristotle’s idea of hypothetical necessity, that sunaitia are the ‘how’ in an explanation (whereas the true cause is the ‘why’), and that Plato’s causal views should be read through Aristotle’s fourfold schema. I conclude the article by surveying the history of sunaitia after Plato’s usage.
"Cancel Culture, Then and Now: A Platonic Approach to the Shaming of People and the Exclusion of Ideas," Journal of Cyberspace Studies 7 2: (2023) 147-166.
In this article, I approach some phenomena seen predominantly on social-media sites that are grouped together as cancel culture with guidance from two major themes in Plato’s thought. In the first section, I argue that shame can play a constructive and valuable role in a person’s improvement, just as we see Socrates throughout Plato’s dialogues use shame to help his interlocutors improve. This insight can help us understand the value of shaming people online for, among other things, their morally reprehensible views. In the second section, I argue that it is required for the proper functioning of democratic institutions that some views be excluded from the public sphere, which follows some Platonic ideas from the Laws. In neither case do I argue that this approach is good in an unqualified sense or even ultima facie good. However, I maintain that these important insights from Plato’s dialogues illuminate crucial aspects of how we should think about cancel culture.
"In Defense of (Some) Online Echo Chambers," Ethics and Information Technology 25 3: (2023) 1-11.
In this article, I argue that online echo chambers are in some cases and in some respects good. I do not attempt to refute arguments that they are harmful, but I argue that they are sometimes beneficial. In the first section, I argue that it is sometimes good to be insulated from views with which one disagrees. In the second section, I argue that the software-design principles that give rise to online echo chambers have a lot to recommend them. Further, the opposing principle, serendipity, could give rise to serious harm, in light of the conclusion of the first section that sometimes we are better off being insulated from some content online. In the third section, I argue that polarization can be a useful tool for inculcating the appropriate attitudes in a person.
"Plato's Theory of Reincarnation: Natural Philosophy and Eschatology," The Review of Metaphysics 75 4: (2022) 643-665.
This paper concerns the place of Plato’s eschatology in his philosophy. I argue that the theory of reincarnation appeals to Plato due to its power to explain how non-human animals came to be. Further, the outlines of this theory are entailed by other commitments, such as that embodiment disrupts psychic functioning, that virtue is always rewarded and vice punished, and that the soul is immortal. I conclude by arguing that Plato develops a view of reincarnation as the chief tool that the gods have to ensure that virtue is victorious over vice throughout the whole cosmos.
“Located in Space: Plato’s Theory of Psychic Motion,” Ancient Philosophy 42 2: (2022) 419-422..
I argue that Plato thinks that the soul has location, surface, depth, and extension, and is capable of contact and resistance; its motions happen in space, such that it can initiate motion in bodies by being in contact with them. In the first section, I argue that the Timaeus’ composition of the soul out of eight circles is intended literally and contributes to theories of both nous and the cosmos. An important, novel contribution is the development of an account of corporeality that, against recent commentators, denies the entailment that the soul is a body. The mark of corporeality is visibility, not extension or divisibility, and the soul occupies an intermediate ontological status described by the Timaeus. I conclude by considering Aristotle’s objection in De Anima I.3 against the Timaeus’ psychology and, generally, the intellectual history of this account of Plato’s psychology.
"The Soul's Tool: Plato on the Usefulness of the Body," Elenchos 43 1: (2022) 7-27.
This article concerns Plato’s characterization of the body as the soul’s tool. I take perception as an example of the body’s usefulness. I explore the Timaeus’ view that perception provides us with models of orderliness. Then, I argue that perception of confusing sensible objects is necessary for our cognitive development too. Lastly, I consider the instrumentality relationship more generally and its place in Plato’s teleological worldview.
"Nudging and Social Media: The Choice Architecture of Online Life," Giornalo Critico di Storia delle Idee 2: (2022) 93-114..
In this article, I consider the way that social-media companies nudge us to spend more time on their platforms, and I argue that, in principle, these nudges are morally permissible: they are not manipulative and do not violate any obvious moral rules. The moral problem, I argue, is not with nudging in principle but is instead with the fact that users are being nudged towards something bad for them. In practice, this often involves being nudged to spend an unhealthy amount of time using a social-media app or being nudged towards content that is bad for us, such as by promoting eating-disorder content to young girls. Since nudging is morally permissible, it is open to these companies to use the same technologies to nudge us towards the good.
“Tomb and Prison: Plato on the Body as the Cause of Psychic Disorders,” Apeiron 55 1: (2022) 119-139.
I argue that, according to Plato, the body is the sole cause of psychic disorders. This view is expressed at Timaeus 86b in an ambiguous sentence that has been widely misunderstood by translators and commentators. The goal of this article is to offer a new understanding of Plato’s text and view. In the first section, I argue that although the body is the result of the gods’ best efforts, their sub-optimal materials meant that the soul is constantly vulnerable to the body’s influences. In the second section, I argue that every psychic disorder is a disruption of the motions of the inner psychic circles by the body; moreover, I defend my translation of 86b. In the final section, I argue that the goal of education is to restore the circles to their original orbits, and I disarm a possible objection that bad education is also a cause of psychic disorder.
“Self-Motion and Cognition: Plato’s Theory of the Soul,” Southern Journal of Philosophy 59 4: (2021) 523-544.
I argue that Plato believes that the soul must be both the principle of motion and the subject of cognition because it moves things specifically by means of its thoughts. I begin by arguing that the soul moves things by means of such acts as examination and deliberation, and that this view is developed in response to Anaxagoras. I then argue that every kind of soul enjoys a kind of cognition, with even plant souls having a form of Aristotelian discrimination (krisis), and that there is therefore no completely unintelligent, evil soul in the cosmos that can explain disorderly motions; as a result, the soul is not the principle of all motion but only motion in the cosmos after it has been ordered by the Demiurge.