Research

Abstract: In the Philebus, Socrates argues that some anticipatory pleasures can be false. The main argument at 38b6-41a4 has perplexed readers, however, and scholars have developed several different ways to understand the falsity of false anticipatory pleasures. I argue that the anticipation argument should be read in conjunction with a later distinction in the Philebus between intense pleasures mixed with pain and pure pleasures free from pain. I suggest that anticipatory pleasures taken in intense pleasures are false because they misidentify an intense pleasure as a genuine pleasure when in fact intense pleasures are inferior and non-genuine due to being mixed with pain. I contend that the example of a false anticipatory pleasure supports recognizing this kind of falsity, and that doing so helps to resolve several challenges that face existing interpretations.

Abstract:  In this paper I attempt to reconcile Aristotle’s evident tendency to treat aversion and desire as two separate ways in which we can be motivated with the fact that his positive accounts of locomotion seems to only account for desiderative motivation in which we aim at and pursue things that are good. I defend a new way to understand the relation between aversion and desire that takes inspiration from the rational capacities described in Metaphysics Θ.2 that can be active in two separate ways. An example is medicine, a capacity that primarily enables a doctor to heal someone but also enables her to make someone ill. I argue that desire and aversion should likewise be understood as two aspects of a single capacity that can be active in two distinct ways, pursuit or avoidance, but that our capacity to avoid bad things is posterior to and derivative on the more fundamental capacity to pursue good things. This interpretation clarifies the sense in which the faculty of aversion and the faculty of desire are ‘the same but different in being’ while also explaining why Aristotle neglects aversive motivation in his programmatic accounts of animal locomotion. 

I presented an earlier version of this research at the postgraduate session of the 98th Joint session of the Aristotelian society and the Mind Association in Birmingham, UK, July 2024. [link to conference]. Before that, a version was presented at the Pacific APA in Portland, Oregon, 2024.

Abstract: This project tackles the status of anticipation in non-human animals within Aristotle’s psychology. Though Aristotle evidently attributes anticipation of the future to human beings, whether or not he extends that ability to non-human animals is a matter of some debate. Some passages in Aristotle seem to suggest that there is something uniquely rational about the anticipation of the future, while other passages instead freely attribute anticipation of the future to non-human animals. Scholarly opinion has consequently been divided, and in fact disagreement can even be found within Aristotle’s ancient commentators. In my in-progress work, I contend that we can distinguish between anticipation of the future that depends on a grasp of causes and an anticipation of the future that is based only on past sensory memories, and that Aristotle grants the latter but not the former to non-human animals.

I presented this research at the inaugural meeting of the International Aristotelian Conference in Lisbon, Portugal, July 2025. [Link to Conference]

Abstract: In the Apology, Socrates says that there is ‘much hope’ that death is good because death is either one of two things, either of which would be good: complete annihilation or the relocation of the soul to an afterlife. I resolve a worry facing existing interpretations: Socrates cannot simultaneously hope to escape the evils of life through annihilation (as some scholars allege) while also hoping for an eternal afterlife whose good-making feature is one found in his actual life – examining eminent Greeks purported for wisdom. The former hope depends on denying the value of his life while the latter hope depends on affirming it. In contrast, I argue that Socrates can consistently hope for both options insofar as both enhance the value of a life devoted to philosophy in distinct but compatible ways.

I recently presented this material at the 2024 West Coast Plato Workshop at Seattle University in May 2024.

Abstract: In both the Republic and the Laws, Plato notoriously claims that the lawgivers may find some lies ‘useful’ when educating children towards virtue. The most famous such ‘lie’ is the myth of the metals, a myth wherein children are born from the earth already suited to particular social roles. Plato also suggests that the myths told about gods and heroes are also examples of ‘useful lies.’ Plato’s apparent comfort with telling lies for the sake of motivating virtuous action has recently led some commentators to claim that Plato thinks that epistemic norms should sometimes be violated to promote virtue and living well. In this talk I push back against this interpretation and argue that the ‘useful lies’ told to children during their education are useful from both a practical and an epistemic perspective. This is because the lawgivers use lies that are carefully crafted to result in genuinely true insights. It therefore follows that the lies of the lawgivers paradoxically bring the children closer to the truth.

I presented this material at the Exedra Center's Winter Workshop on the Republic in Siracusa, Sicily, January 2025.

Abstract: The Epicureans notoriously argue that the pleasantness of a life is not affected by its duration. They contend that an Epicurean sage who attains to a tranquil condition without pain has a maximally pleasant life – a tranquil life that lasts 79 years is no more pleasant than a tranquil life that only lasts 29 years. In this talk we attempt to make sense of this claim in light of the Epicurean metaphysics of time, in which Epicurus grounds time itself in processes of change. We bring this metaphysical claim to bear on the Epicurean distinction between kinetic and katastematic pleasures. While the former pleasures are based on change, and thus can increase with time if the underlying change continues, the latter are based on a state and thus cannot increase with time. Katastematic pleasures are measured by time only in a coincidental sense: time tracks some external process of change (e.g. the motion of the sun) that is coincidental to the pleasure rather than essential to it.

Blythe and I presented this material at the 2023 Mississippi Philosophical Association, Starkville MS, USA.