Zack Brants

Χαίρε — Greetings! I am a FSR Postdoctoral Researcher studying Ancient Philosophy at the Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain). Before moving to Belgium, I received my PhD in Philosophy from the University of California, San Diego in 2025 after successfully defending my dissertation, entitled 'Our Waking Dreams: Pleasant and Painful Anticipation in Plato and Aristotle,' under the supervision of Monte Johnson. 

My past work has focused primarily on the moral psychology of Plato and Aristotle, particularly on the important role played by affective anticipation within their philosophy. Affective anticipation refers to a pleasant or painful anticipation of a future prospect, for example the pleasant anticipation of seeing one’s loved ones tomorrow or the painful anticipation of not being able to get any sleep later in the day. In my dissertation I argue that pleasant and painful anticipation plays crucial but underappreciated roles within Plato’s and Aristotle’s theories of motivation, emotions, and moral education.

At UCLouvain I am currently working to explore ways in which later Stoic and Epicurean philosophers analyzed emotions, such as love and fear, in terms of past and future directed pleasures and pains. I am also excited to expand my research into Classical Daoism, exploring respects in which Daoists took cultivating a proper emotional state to require having the right attitude towards the past and the future. Besides Ancient Philosophy, I am also interested in the broader history of philosophy, contemporary ethics, and moral psychology (especially work on emotions, pleasure, love, and desire).