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After finding my dissertation on Plato’s epistemology and theory of education interesting and challenging, my research interests have evolved slightly. While I await the review of three articles that arose from that project, I have begun to work on new research. My recent interest began with my belief that the literature concerning Plato’s moral psychology has not fairly assessed Socratic intellectualism. It is too often the case that the argument begins with the presumption that Plato regards the position implied by intellectualism’s three paradoxes as untenable. Although it has become the orthodox interpretation that Socratic Intellectualism’s rejection of the possibility of akrasia is implausible, it seems to me that the very strong notion of knowledge that intellectualism requires and invites must be brought back into focus. As a result, I have developed an innovative interpretation of Plato’s moral psychology that reconciles intellectualism with the so-called “tripartite” understanding of the soul. This effort to understand the subtle interplay within the soul’s “rational” and “appetitive” aspects has led me to research the role of the physical in the philosophical life. This research yielded an essay that explores the way in which the appetitive aspect of the soul assists the philosopher in the search for knowledge. Recognizing this brings about the outmoding of the interpretation that Plato envisions the philosophical life as an ascetic life. The focus of this project is to offer, for the first time in the secondary literature, a thorough account of Plato’s attitude toward the physical and its role in the philosophical enterprise.
Tentative outline of Seducing Socrates: Plato on Philosophy and the Physical Introduction. Self-Knowledge, Homoiôsis Theôi, and Hubris |
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